Amazon’s One-Stop Shop for Identity Thieves

Public Amazon registries could reveal enough information to steal the identity of someone who hasn’t been born yet.

https://theintercept.com/2022/08/07/amazon-registry-identity-theft/

Apparently, anyone can search Amazon's "registries." You don't need an Amazon account, so you don't have to identify yourself. Registries are for giving wedding gifts, baby showers, etc. You can already search baby registries for people who are now 16 years old. The parents' wedding registry will show the mother's maiden name, and we all know how useful this is.

These businesses come up with new, breathtakingly stupid ideas like this all the time. No one at the meeting ever (apparently) asks, "How is this going to help criminals?" What new hardware or software from a billion-dollar corporation has been introduced in this century that doesn't help criminals? Macros in word processor and spreadsheet documents. "Smart" phones. JavaScript. Everything we now call IoT.

People never seem to ask why we have to live this way. A few years ago I told coworkers about a news story I read that claimed 1 in 5 American adults have been the victim of some form of identity theft. I was misunderstood. Someone replied, "Yeah. That seems too low. It's more than 1 in 5." To me 1 in 5 seemed unbelievably high. What other crime has such a high crime rate?

I have to live in an Orwellian nightmare because the rest of you don't think there's any alternative. I'm not happy about this.

#privacy #security #surveillance #identity-theft #impersonation #insecurity #amazon #registries #amazon-registries