Identity Resolution Daily

By Robert Barker, Infoglide Senior Vice President & Chief Marketing Officer

Ever have this experience? You’re searching Google for specific examples of a topic when you come across an already compiled and complete list of related examples – what a find! I had this experience recently when looking for contact information for people we wanted to invite to a marketing event, and voila! – I found a list of them that was 90% complete and accurate. Without that find, the project could have taken a couple days longer.

Aggregations of this type abound. Besides lists that individuals put together and post on the web, public and private databases offer all sorts of information on people that are useful in addressing multiple types of business problems and opportunities. Here are a few links to “people data” that you may not be aware of, and there are many more:

CapitalIQ

ChoicePoint

KnowX

NETR Online

PublicRecordFinder

SearchSystems

Who’s Who

Identities contained in multiple databases with varying schemas as well as ambiguous and sometimes missing attributes can be resolved to deliver a clear picture of a person and activities they are involved in. Here’s an example that illustrates how you can draw on multiple data sources to solve a complex problem.

Everyone knows about insider trading, especially with the recent allegations about Mark Cuban. Essentially, someone uses confidential knowledge about a financial transaction to buy or sell stock to their personal advantage.

Many illegal insider stock trades can be readily identified. How? By “similarity searching” across records of stock trades, associated timelines (who knew what and when about the event) and public company financial institution data (e.g., CapitalIQ) then finding hidden relationships using biographical information (e.g., Who’s Who), background screening and residential information (e.g., ChoicePoint), and other public and private sources.

There are many more cases where identity resolution can exploit available data sources to address complex problems. Making sense out of these massive amounts of data by aggregating and sifting through them requires an ability to score the results accurately. Just as importantly, you need to be able to configure the scoring to fit the specific problem, i.e. the solution must be tuned to meet unique requirements.

Solving complex business problems often requires knowing more about who you’re dealing with and their relationships. Vast amounts of data are accessible online via APIs and web services, and they can be incorporated into new kinds of online applications that once were impossible.

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[Post from Infoglide] Identity Resolution Daily: Proud of Our Heritage

“When we examine our company’s roots, we see that our heritage is finding bad guys. That’s what David Wheeler set out to do when he saw that detectives had a critical need for better tools for criminal investigations. That is what we are beginning to do in the great State of Washington to identify businesses trying to cheat on their workers’ compensation premiums. From desktops to mainframes and everything in between, our roots have spread and have helped keep us stable as the winds of change have buffeted us about.”

Miami Herald: Workers’ compensation investigator accused of fraud

“In September, according to an arrest warrant, Vega visited Pipe Designs Inc., 7710 NW 72nd Ave., in Miami-Dade. The company did not have any workers’ compensation coverage, Vega found. Vega told owner Ronald Triana that he would lower the hefty penalty — between $27,000 and $30,000 — if Triana gave him a $2,500 money order with the payee information blank, according to the warrant.”

onestopclick: MDM ‘driving software development’

“Studies carried out by IT industry analyst Gartner indicate the necessity for firms to increase the effectiveness of their database development, while reducing costs and meeting compliance requirements, is driving the take-up of MDM technologies.”

Computing SA: IT downturn: every cloud has a silver lining

“Open source data integration, data quality, and extraction, transformation and loading (ETL) applications will flourish in these conditions because they are less costly to obtain, widely supported and constantly updated.”

opodo: Travellers reminded of Esta regulations

“Jim Forster, British Airways’ government and industry affairs manager, said: ‘The US is our biggest overseas market and we have been working hard to advise our visa waiver customers that they must apply to the Department of Homeland Security well in advance of travel.’”

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By the Infoglide Team

Windsor Star: OLG coughs up cash

“The insider policy is to guard against fraud, such as a retailer who tells a customer a ticket is not a winner and then tries to claim the prize. In the spring of 2007, a provincial ombudsman issued a scathing report on the OLG and said Ontario store owners and their families had collected tens of millions of dollars in fraudulent claims.”

MarketWatch: Worldwide thefts cost retailers US $104 billion annually - Survey

“This year’s survey, the most complete analysis of global shrink ever conducted, reports key findings on retail shrinkage and crime in 36 countries and on five continents, based on data from a confidential survey of 920 large retailers with combined sales of U.S. $814 billion and 115,612 operating retail outlets…’This sum represents a tax imposed on honest people by retail criminals of $229.73 per household or $71.12 for every single person in the 36 countries surveyed,’ said Professor Bamfield, Director of the Centre for Retail Research.”

Jackson Citizen Patriot: Kids learn online dangers

“Internet predators lurk on networking Web sites, such as Facebook and MySpace, or in chat rooms, looking for young victims. ‘Everybody you meet online is an Internet stranger,’ Malik Williams, an Internet-safety presenter from the Michigan Cyber Safety Initiative, told more than 50 fifth-graders Tuesday at Concord Elementary School. ‘That’s why it’s important to keep yourself safe.’”

Bucyrus TelegraphForum: Bucyrus experiences rash of break-ins

“‘There is a new trend in what we call e-fencing. Thieves are selling their stolen items on the Internet versus just selling them outright. They can get up to 70 percent or more of the value if they sell on the Internet versus selling them on the streets, where they only get about 30 percent of the value,’ Teets said.”

SFGate: Ex-S.F. firefighter’s workers’ comp problem

“Indeed, if Hijjawi were trying to hide her fitness quest, she wasn’t doing a very good job. Our own Google search turned up records showing her running in marathons in Lake Tahoe, Los Angeles, Honolulu and elsewhere. From 2001 to 2006, according to records on the Web site Athlinks, Hijjawi ran in no fewer than a dozen marathons. And her biography on another site shows she was taking on even bigger challenges, including the Canada 2005 Ultraman super triathlon competition - in which competitors swim 6.2 miles, ride a bike for 170 miles and run 52 miles, twice the distance of a marathon. Completing it took her more than 33 hours.”

Bunker Blog: Update On Cops Involved In Major Shoplifting Ring

“Kevin Burchell and Clifford Barber, both police officers, worked with two others, one of them an employee at the Walmart the items were taken from; to get up to $200,000.00 worth of merchandise out of the store and onto an eBay site. According to the latest report, Barber was the mastermind behind the scheme, and sold the items on eBay and to friends and acquaintances.”

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With each new revelation of lottery fraud, the urgency of preventing further occurrences intensifies. It’s now a top line issue for lottery commissions because it threatens to significantly decrease revenue. The danger is that the number of consumers feeling at risk about being paid on a winning ticket could reach a tipping point. An affected lottery could see a substantial decrease in revenue almost overnight, and it’s difficult to predict when that tipping point will be reached.

Detecting and preventing lottery fraud requires a specialized combination of experience and technology. In particular, when lottery fraud is committed by retailers, the people defrauding the system are aware of just how the system works, so the solution has to be able to outsmart people who know all the tricks.

The same can be said for Organized Retail Crime fraud.  These types of crimes cost the retail industry over $40 billion a year. In helping retail customers attack these problems, our identity resolution software churns through enterprise identity data (e.g., employees, merchandise returns, customers, shoplifters, bad check data) to resolve identities and detect hidden relationships.

As with retail, the data to detect lottery fraud is readily available, but solving the crime requires knowledge about handling multiple, disparate data sources and how to find hidden connections using identity resolution. In fact, the parameters of lottery fraud are strikingly similar to retail fraud. Someone who understands how the system works fraudulently fences merchandise (or a winning lottery ticket).  Retailers can check potential fraudsters against a list of employees and known shoplifters, while government-run lotteries can check winners against lists of lottery retailers and – for example - delinquent taxpayers.

Forward-thinking lotteries are quickly moving to exploit solutions based on identity resolution to solve the problem. The risk of declining revenues is just too high to do nothing.

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By Robert Barker, Infoglide Senior Vice President & Chief Marketing Officer

When I say “lottery fraud” you probably think of the email scam where an unsolicited message from overseas claims you’ve won a large lottery and asks you to send them money, identity information, or both in order to get a big payoff. Many states (e.g., Texas) and provinces have web pages warning consumers about these rip-offs.

Public education has reduced the effectiveness of this particular swindle. And now state and provincial authorities are shifting resources to address another rapidly growing problem: lottery fraud committed by retailers. The most highly-publicized case of retailer lottery fraud in recent years occurred in Ontario, but cases reported by the California Lottery Commission, perhaps the largest lottery in the U.S., indicate that they have a rapidly growing problem as well.

In July, the California Lottery Commission announced their recent success in using undercover work to catch a retailer in Santa Clara County who was defrauding lottery customers. In another case in San Diego, a retailer was sentenced for paying lottery ticket holders less than they actually won and then redeeming the tickets himself for full value.

The cases being caught and publicized likely represent the tip of the proverbial iceberg. While using undercover agents is effective, it’s a very expensive and time-consuming way to catch fraudsters. More precisely, it’s not a very scalable solution because the number of instances of fraud caught is limited by the number of agents deployed.

A more scalable approach to this problem is deploying identity resolution software to constantly monitor and detect hidden connections among the players in the system, for example non-obvious ties between retailer owners/employees and lottery winners. Retailers who game the system change details about their identities to avoid being found out. That may fool conventional software systems, but identity resolution easily catches them, and there’s a bonus – the same software that catches scam artists can match lottery winners with lists of people identified by the state for delinquent taxes, past-due child support, and similar indebtedness that should be collected before paying out lottery winnings.

Lottery players simply will not play if they can’t trust the lottery system. And if they don’t play, revenues will inevitably decline. While sting operations can help restore confidence in the system, they represent an expensive, manpower-intensive, hit-or-miss approach to the retailer fraud problem. Software is the only efficient and cost-effective solution to the retailer fraud problem in lottery systems.

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By the Infoglide Team

info4security: The Cybercrime Arms Race

“Criminal activity has always mirrored legitimate business. The image of a Mafia accountant may be the first to spring to mind. However, it’s worth noting that cybercrime is not currently organised into one or more worldwide Mafia-like organizations with a Dr No figure at the helm. Rather, it’s an interdependent world based on groups who have complementary functionality.”

Portfolio.com: Insider Trading Suspects Settle Up

“In what the S.E.C. called the ‘Wall Street Serial Insider Trading Ring,’ 14 defendants, in two different schemes, traded repeatedly on non-public information in exchange for cash kickbacks, according to the complaint. Overall, they allegedly made at least $15 million in illegal profits.”

SecurityFocus: Two-thirds of firms hit by cybercrime

“More than 7,800 companies responded to the survey (pdf), which classified cybercrime into cyber attacks, cyber theft, and other incidents.”

Information Week: Congress Extends Cybercrime Laws

“The U.S. House of Representatives approved the bill — H.R. 5938 — Monday. The amendment — part of Senate bill S. 2168 — expands the ability of the federal government to prosecute identity theft crimes and allows victims to obtain restitution for the time and money they spend trying to restore their credit. The legislation, which must be signed by President George W. Bush, allows a fine and up to five years imprisonment for spyware.”

NRF LPInformation: Update on ORC Hearing, September 22 (Monday) at 4pm

“The House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security is scheduled to address H.R. 6713, the ‘E-fencing Enforcement Act of 2008′, H.R. 6491, the ‘Organized Retail Crime Act of 2008′ and S. 3434, the ‘Combating Organized Retail Crime Act of 2008′.”

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By Robert Barker, Infoglide Senior Vice President & Chief Marketing Officer

At the recent International Conference on Cybercrime Forensics Education and Training in Canterbury UK, international experts discussed the challenges involved in keeping up with increasingly sophisticated criminals who target children on the internet. They covered a wide array of subjects that illustrated the complex ways that computer systems are exposed, including topics like mobile phone forensic investigation, the social effects of Spam, digital intrusion forensics, implications and methodology of facial ID training, and virtual reality police training.

Pedophiles use multiple forms of internet communication to share information, including photographs. A recent infamous example in the UK is Philip Anthony Thompson. A British police unit discovered that his home computer was hosting a quarter of a million child porn images, including 3000 depicting sadistic abuse, and that Thompson served as an administrator of a forum that enabled and encouraged sharing of images and knowledge. 

Is the fact that Thompson was caught a sign that law enforcement has the problem under control? Not exactly. Denis Edgar-Nevill, chairman of the cybercrime forensics conference, pointed out that “people should not believe that cybercrime is being dealt with well or that it is something law enforcement agencies are on top of.” He was not being critical of law enforcement, and in fact he commended them for work in certain areas. It’s just that the scale of the problem is so huge, and with the growing number of avenues for people to communicate, it’s incredibly difficult for enforcement agencies to keep up. Their resources are divided across a number of cybercrimes, and, for better or worse, financial crimes are often considered more serious.

Given the finite human resources of police agencies, can technology fill the gap? Sexual predation depends on the use of fraudulent identities. Identity resolution technology has been used to fight many other types of fraud. It can find stolen goods being fenced on eBay by ORC groups. Stock exchanges find hidden relationships that lead to identification of insider trades. Retailers use it to detect and prevent deceptive returns of stolen merchandise by deceitful employees. Lotteries can detect false claims with winning tickets. Workers’ compensation agencies leverage identity resolution to identify fraudulent claims. And terrorists are prevented from boarding airplanes.

With proper cooperation between law enforcement agencies and information technology vendors, surely identity resolution technology can enable the development of automated systems that will shine a light on predators and greatly diminish their ability to operate under the radar of police groups.

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By the Infoglide Team

The Vancouver Sun: B.C. Lotteries says ticket retailers do not win more than the public

“Lottery retailers are no more likely to win major prizes today than the public, according to a report released Friday by the B.C. Lottery Corp. However, BCLC was unable to explain what appears to be a dramatic drop in retailer wins since new security measures were put in place a year ago. . . . The figures raised fears retailers might be stealing customers’ winning tickets — by, for example, falsely telling a customer his or her ticket was a loser. . . . BCLC has repeatedly said that it is not aware of any cases in which a lottery prize was paid to someone other than the ticket’s rightful owner.”

Hub Solution Designs: Governing Unstructured Data

“Given that many of the people I talk to or work with are building Master Data Management solutions for their companies, or putting together a Data Governance program, I had to stop and ask myself ‘maybe we’re all missing the forest for the trees here’. Granted, the picture on the structured data side of things needs improvement too. Companies still struggle to pull together the ‘Single View of the Customer’. Islands of data still exist, and artificial silos still cost companies money and hurt productivity. But I think we ignore the unstructured data problem at our peril.”

RetailWire: Monitoring Those Thieving Employees [requires registration]

“With billions of dollars being stolen from grocery stores by employees, retailers are increasingly having their security cameras aimed directly at cash registers to ward against employees using a scheme called ’sweethearting,’ which involves giving away merchandise usually to family or friends by not scanning it.”

The Iowa Independent: Iowa’s intelligence fusion center ‘connects the dots’

“Fusion centers are where the federal, state and local cops share intelligence, sift data for clues, run down reports of suspicious packages, and connect dots in an effort to detect and thwart drug smuggling, gang fighting and other menaces to society. The Iowa fusion centers have access to national data bases such as Law Enforcement Online and Regional Information Sharing Systems Intranet. They also have access to Homeland Security Information Network, but only the ‘controlled but unclassified’ version. Porter anticipates that with the addition of a Department of Homeland Security employee to the fusion center staff, the center will gain access to the ’secret’ version of the network.”

PogoWasRight.org: How much information is too much?

“Last month, PeopleFinders, a 20-year-old company based in California, introduced CriminalSearches.com, a free service to satisfy those common impulses. The site, which is supported by advertising, lets people search by name through criminal archives of all 50 states and 3,500 counties in the United States.”

b-eye.com - Business Intelligence Network - Industry Research: The Forrester Wave: Enterprise Business Intelligence Platforms, Q3 2008

“In Forrester’s 151-criteria evaluation of enterprise business intelligence (BI) platform vendors, we found that IBM Cognos and SAP Business Objects maintain their leadership positions, while Oracle and SAS Institute move into leadership positions in enterprise BI thanks to the richness of their functionality, ability to scale, and the completeness of their corporate and product vision and strategy. Actuate, Information Builders, Microsoft, MicroStrategy, SAP, and a new entrant, TIBCO Spotfire, came out as Strong Performers following very closely on the heels of the Leaders, offering very respectable alternatives and a multitude of choices for information and knowledge management (I&KM) professionals.”

Realtime community: Privacy Concerns Of Google Walking Directions

“In the interest of time, here are just a few quick thoughts off the top of my head… Yes, as with any type of surveillance-based service such as this, there will always be privacy concerns. Here are just three of them.”

DailyHerald: Laws proposed to fight e-fencing

“Both Sen. Dick Durbin and Virginia Congressman Bobby Scott are proposing laws to target e-fencing. . . . E-fencing has become a $30 billion business, said Peter Gill, a spokesman for the Illinois Retail Merchants Association in Chicago.”

Mercury: ‘Crash for cash’ gang jailed

“A GROUND-BREAKING investigation into a criminal syndicate that organised a ‘crash for cash’ car insurance scam in Hertfordshire has led to the gang receiving a total of 10 years’ imprisonment.”

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Hi-Tech-Blog: “Shoplifting Ring Pocketed Millions”

“A joint task force of federal agents and San Jose police officers arrested 17 alleged members of organized crime families for their suspected involvement in a shoplifting ring. Authorities say that the Le and Vo crime families employed hundreds of shoplifters to steal from retail stores.”

b-eye.com - Business Intelligence Network - Blog: David Loshin: Microsoft to Purchase Zoomix?

“Just heard through the rumor mill that Microsoft is ‘thinking about acquiring Zoomix.’“

CNBC: Retail Theft Up But Is Bad Economy The Cause?

“A record number of retailers–85%–say that they’ve been victims of organized retail crime in the past 12 months. That’s up 6% since 2007. . . . According to the NRF, nearly two-thirds (63%) of retailers experienced an increase in online resale of stolen items or ‘e-fencing’ during the past 12 months. Maybe this illegal online market is booming because consumers are now comfortable with buying from eBay or unknown merchants if the price is right.”

PogoWasRight.org: Your Papers Please: TSA outlaws ID-less flight

“In a major change of policy, the Transportation Security Administration has announced that passengers refusing to show ID will no longer be able to fly.”

Hub Solution Designs: Importance of Integration to MDM

“While integration doesn’t always have to be real-time, if you find yourself thinking solely in a batch-oriented mode, take a step back and ask yourself, ‘what will we be giving up by not providing for any real-time capabilities?’”

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Type “lottery fraud” into Google, and you get lots of returns warning about the dangers of Nigerian lottery scams and other phishing attacks on unsuspecting, and/or perhaps overly optimistic, consumers. But there are less well known types of lottery fraud also being perpetrated, and some of them hurt consumers as well.

Think about this. You take your lotto ticket into your neighborhood convenience store and ask the clerk to check to see if it’s a winner. He tells you the ticket’s a dud. And, let’s be real, they often are. I know, I know, someone has to win. OK.

But what if it actually is a winning ticket? The clerk switches it with a losing ticket, gives you back the loser, and keeps the winning ticket. He then gives it to his girlfriend or brother or other relation, and they take your ticket into the lottery offices and cash it in.

That’s basically what happened to Bob Edmunds of Coboconk, Ontario. He was cheated out of $250,000 when a clerk switched his winning lottery ticket. His story eventually came out and created quite a stir in Canada.

According the CBC news, “The story not only resulted in victory for Edmonds himself, it also struck a remarkable chord with Canadians. The program drew one of CBC’s largest television audiences this season, and provoked a flood of e-mails and messages.”

Mr. Edmonds story has focused attention on this type of lottery fraud and has resulted in an independent investigation into the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation to see if, as some suspect, this is not an isolated incident. It stands to reason that other cases will turn up not only in Canada but other countries as well.

And once again, this is a problem that could be solved by tapping into available data to determine who’s who and who knows whom within those data sources. The connections are there, but it takes an identity resolution solution to find them.

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