Identity Resolution Daily

[Post from Infoglide] A Commitment to Solutions: What Harvard is Doing to Address Crime on MySpace and Other Social Web Sites

“Last week we focused on the issue of cybercrimes against children and how technology can play a role in preventing the victimization of young people on the Internet. One organization that is very much aware of the impact technology can have is the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University.”

PogoWasRight.org: AU: Google Street View told: keep off, private

“Privacy activists and individuals have accused Google of deceiving the public by breaking its promises only to photograph public roads for its Street View mapping tool and to promptly remove images flagged as inappropriate.”

Fraud, Phishing and Financial Misdeeds: Bills Introduced to Combat Organized Crime on Auction Sites

“Criminals often lure people to do their dirty work, also. Recruits are normally harvested off the Internet, sometimes from job sites, and offered work to reship stolen merchandise and or launder money from fraudulent transactions. . . . A lot of criminal activity is facilitated on auction sites by what is known as phishing. Phishing is where an account owner is tricked into giving up their account details, either via social engineering, or more and more often, after downloading some malicious sofware. The stolen account details are then used to take-over the account and use it for illicit purposes. In fact, eBay and PayPal accounts are frequently the most phished brands out there. . . . There is little doubt that a lot of the criminal activity on auction sites is sophisticated and reeks of organized crime.”

Google Public Policy Blog: Keeping kids safe in a digital world

“Technology is an invaluable tool for addressing some of these challenges. . . . When it comes to keeping kids safe on the Internet, we believe that education for families, support for law enforcement, and empowering technology tools, like our SafeSearch filter and the NCMEC software, are all critical pieces of the puzzle.”

Evolution of Security: Answers to Your Top 10 Questions

“Here are the top ten questions we received from our recent request. We tallied the number of times we received each question or a similar version of it and noted the total for each question below.”

PogoWasRight.org: UK: Airport fingerprint plan sparks a domestic dispute

“Human rights and data protection organisations have criticised Government plans to introduce fingerprinting at all British airports where departure lounges are shared by international and domestic travellers.”

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[Post from Infoglide] An Obligation to Protect: Crime on MySpace and Other Social Web Sites

“It’s an almost unbelievable story. Or maybe I should say, as a parent, I’d like not to believe that this sort of thing happens. Unfortunately, it does all too often. By now, you’ve probably heard the story of Brooke Bennett who was found murdered after being abducted by her uncle, Michael Jacques.”

chicagotribune.com: Smash, grab, then sell on Web

“Craig Sherman, spokesman for the National Retail Federation, said selling online can boost the thieves’ profits. ‘When a thief sells something on a traditional street corner or pawnshop, he might get 30 cents on the dollar,’ Sherman said. ‘But if he sells it online, he gets as much as 70 percent on the value.’”

FOXNews.com: Homeland Security Dept. to Tell Employees of Heightened Alert Period

“The Aug. 8-24 Beijing Olympic Games, presidential nominating conventions in August and September, Nov. 4 elections and transition to a new administration pose opportunities for terrorists to attack. Drafts of the heightened alert document were circulated in the past few weeks, and a final document is expected soon.”

The Bunker Blog: Employee Theft Increasing By 15%

“Most experts agree that approximately 30% of employees steal from their employers. 75% of those do it repeatedly. The average time it takes to catch an employee who steals is 18 months. . . . There is a lot at stake. $22 billion dollars is an astonomical figure that most of us can’t even really grasp. However, we can grasp our own losses, and we all know that those losses cost us dearly in profits.”

Evolution of Security: Leave your shoes on?

“Wouldn’t it be great to show up at a checkpoint and just when you were reaching down to untie your shoes, you heard an officer say ‘You can leave your shoes on.’”

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By the Infoglide Team

thespec.com: Charges of theft, fraud over lottery ticket

“A Mississauga man is facing fraud and theft charges for cashing in a $5.7-million winning lottery ticket that he allegedly stole from his customers at a Toronto variety store.”

b-eye.com - Business Intelligence Network - Blog: Jill Dyche: Jill Piles On: Microsoft Buys Datallegro and Zoomix

“The acqusition of Zoomix, announced last week, had been widely-rumored. . . . Yesterday’s acquistion of data warehouse appliance vendor DATAllegro was more of a surprise. The California company is best known in data warehouse circles as a ‘Teradata killer,’ because of its shared-nothing relational architecture and low price-point.”

CSOonline: Recession Woes: What People Steal

“During economic downturns, opportunistic theft increases along with organized retail crime, says Brad Brekke, vice president of assets protection for the Minneapolis-based Target retail chain. . . . Brekke’s predecessor, King Rogers, currently head of loss prevention consultancy King Rogers International, says organized retail theft (the mob-like version, as distinct from the problem of lone shoplifters) is a constant problem whatever the economy’s condition. But his experience is that the state of the economy does have an influence on how bad it is.”

PogoWasRight.org: Louisiana latest state to reject REAL ID

“Louisiana is the latest state to reject a federal identification card program intended as an anti-terror measure that is under criticism because of high costs and possible privacy risks.”

Fraud, Phishing and Financial Misdeeds: California Lottery Nails Dishonest Retailers

“When you cash in a small lottery prize at a lottery retailer, the amount might not exactly what you were were entitled to receive. On 7/1/08, the California Lottery announced that they are using undercover agents to sting dishonest retailers, who cheat lottery winners out of their prizes. The press release on this matter pointed to a case in Morgan Hill, California where a dishonest retailer (and another individual) are being charged with grand theft of lottery tickets ranging in value from $500 to $25,000.”

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By the Infoglide Team

[Post from Infoglide] What’s in a (Company) Name?

“Matching company names in a database may seem like a simple task. HP is HP, right? Oh wait, HP is also Hewlett Packard or maybe Hewlett-Packard or Hewlett-Packard Company. And EDS is now also HP due to an acquisition. Oh, and by the way, EDS stands for Electronic Data Systems. Yikes!”

Informatica Data Quality: National Security vs. Privacy Rights - the Role for Technology

“I ran across an interesting article concerning the US initiative to broker data exchange with various EU nations. The intent is to gain greater access to information that would help in the global war on terror. . . . The technology challenge can often be so consuming that we devote scarce attention to the ethical issues involved. Data integration and identity resolution technology are continually advancing. By factoring in ethical and moral considerations into the development of the technology, we should be able to support both objectives. Privacy and security do not necessarily need to be requirements that trade off against each other.”

The Bunker Blog: Awareness Wins The Day

“How important is loss prevention awareness? Well, it could very well make the difference between a loss and a recovery. Just a few days ago, while doing some training in a store, I was interrupted by an employee who wanted to tell me that he had just deterred a theft.”

PogoWasRight.org: UK: Big Brother is Bluetoothing You

“A controversial new study that uses Bluetooth technology to track UK citizens, without their knowledge, has come under fire from privacy campaigners.”

Warrick Publishing Online: Fighting retail crime online

“As a former law enforcement officer, I know all too well the growing problem ORC presents to local law enforcement and communities. But with the rising popularity of online marketplaces, bringing these criminals to justice is becoming more and more difficult.”

Sacramento Business Journal: Report: 800 suspect auto insurance claims in Sacramento County

“Statewide, 14,623 out of 23,734 — 61 percent — of the insurance fraud referrals received by the state agency in the last fiscal year were suspected automobile insurance fraud. People who create pre-planned accidents are known as ’stagers.’ They look for high-value targets such as commercial vehicles, expensive luxury cars or vehicles owned by cities or counties. They are considered high value because of the virtual guarantee of insurance coverage.”

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By the Infoglide Team

InformationWeek: Microsoft Bolsters Data Management With Zoomix Purchase

“The Zoomix technology will eventually add functionality to the master data management technology Microsoft acquired last year when it bought Stratature and its +EDM product, according to a blog post by Microsoft group program manager Kirk Haselden, who has been leading the company’s master data management efforts. Master data management software aims to maintain a single, accurate version of data and can do things like show accumulated data on one customer from an array of data sets.”

Reuters UK: U.S. terrorism watch list tops 1 million

“About 400,000 individuals are included on the list, about 95 percent of whom are not U.S. citizens or residents, Kolton said. The watch list also includes separate entries with aliases, fake passports and fake birth dates, bringing the total number of records to more than 1 million, he said. TSA spokesman Christopher White said the agency’s ‘no-fly’ watchlists to screen travellers were ’scrubbed’ last year to remove about half of the names, leaving them with somewhat fewer than 50,000. He said Kennedy and Lewis were never on the list, and that problems they reported were due to their misidentification with names properly on it.”

NetworkWorld: Microsoft buys Zoomix to add data quality to SQL Server

“‘One of the problems we face today is that there is so much data out there, trying to figure out what’s really important — to get information, and from that information to get knowledge about what’s happening — is difficult,’ said Richard Ptak, managing partner of IT analyst firm Ptak, Noel & Associates. Vendors that provide databases, business intelligence and data-management software increasingly are integrating automated data-quality capability into those products to improve the overall quality of an organization’s data, he said.”

MarketWatch: Leading Coalition Applauds Legislation to Protect Consumers From Organized Retail Crime

“‘This new legislation is a long overdue effort to bring U.S. criminal law into the 21st century,’ said Al Thompson, vice president for global supply chain at the Retail Industry Leaders Association. ‘Organized retail crime is a serious and growing national problem. Sophisticated rings of thieves, who steal billions of dollars a year, don’t care about jeopardizing the health and safety of consumers when they sell mishandled products like diabetic test strips or over-the-counter medicines.’”

Andy on Enterprise Software: The Bulldog gets a housemate

“Microsoft generally likes to acquire software companies when they are quite small, with a dozen or two employees. In this way they can assimilate the development staff into Redmond and into the Microsoft way of doing things. . . . They opted for Zoomix, a small Israeli company which I first encountered in 2006, though they were founded in 1999. Zoomix had some quite clever marketing, claiming ’self learning’ technology as a way of making data profiling in particular more productive. In this way it could be compared to Exeros, although the technology underpinnings are quite different.”

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[Post from Infoglide] Companies Just as Guilty of Workers’ Compensation Fraud as Employees

“When you hear ‘workers’ compensation fraud,’ it probably brings to mind the person who is supposed to be out with a bad back but somehow manages to do heavy yard work or play basketball while ‘injured.’ But as we’ve seen before, there’s more than one way to defraud an organization. Another kind of workers’ compensation fraud that happens more often than you might think is the type that involves employers rather than employees.”

Informatica: Microsoft Buys Zoomix

“While this is not a large transaction for Microsoft, the move does underscore the importance of Data Quality. However, this raises an interesting question. Who should you trust to deliver data quality? The people who brought you Vista? the folks who sold you SAP? At first glance, it seems quite convenient to be able to deal with data quality issues in conjunction with specific source systems. However, many IT experts would claim this approach is merely a stop-gap measure. Data must be managed apart from its host systems. Data Quality rules start to truly add value to the business when they span MS SQL Server, and SAP, and Oracle, and etc. etc. It’s still a topic of debate. But the discussion has moved beyond the question of ‘is data quality software useful?’ to ‘where is the most useful place to deliver data quality software?’”

CQ Homeland Security: States Can Fume About Real ID — or They Can Find Ways to Cope With It

“The deadline for implementing REAL ID has been extended to 2014, and so the fight between states and the Department of Homeland Security over a federally approved, state-issued identification card is cooling off, at least for the moment. That doesn’t mean states are happy about things, or that they all have backed off expressing their displeasure over what Washington is imposing on them. . . . But while the anger is understandable, it probably is time for state officials to shelve the hot rhetoric and start thinking about what to do in the next five years to get ready for REAL ID requirements, as vexing and annoying and expensive as the prospect might be. Some states already are making moves in that direction, even if they’re reluctant to acknowledge it.”

AuctionBytes Blog: eFencing Legislation Targets eBay

“eBay and retailers are about to duke it out over legislation introduced into the US House of Representatives yesterday. House Resolution 6491, the Organized Retail Crime Act of 2008, was introduced on Tuesday and was referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary. It would make organized retail crime a federal offense and would make marketplaces like eBay more accountable for stolen goods listed on their sites.”

Confessions of a database geek: Data Quality for Product Attributes: Microsoft Jumps In

“If you watch Data Quality news, or subscribe to my Information Quality aggregator, you’ll have already seen the announcement that Microsoft’s purchasing data quality vendor Zoomix. Vince McBurney and others have posted analyses of the purchase, citing Zoomix’s ability to better-position Microsoft for MDM. What caught my eye in the press release was the mention of product data quality. . . . A good deal of research has targeted how to standardize, classify, and cleanse customer/vendor names and addresses, but few have taken up the challenge for working with products.”

Evolution of Security: Myth Buster: TSA’s Watch List is More Than One Million People Strong

“FACTS ABOUT TERROR WATCH LISTS:

• Terror watch lists keep legitimate terror threats off of airplanes every day, all over the world.
• According to the Congress’ investigative arm, the Government Accountability Office, terror watch lists have, ‘helped combat terrorism’ and ‘enhanced U.S. counterterrorism effort.’
• Our partners in the law enforcement and intelligence communities work tirelessly and in some cases under great physical danger to identify individuals that pose a terror threat. The simple truth is that it would be negligent to not use this information to our advantage.”

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ITBusinessEdge: The Lowdown on Master Data Management

“Master data management technologies can be a bit confusing. . . . In short, if you’re confused, don’t be surprised. MDM is complicated. Fortunately, I’ve found a very helpful free resource that sorts it all out for us.”

b-eye.com - Business Intelligence Network - Blog: David Loshin: Microsoft Buys Zoomix

“As was rumored a few weeks back (see my previous blog entry), Microsoft continues its acquisitions in the data quality/MDM arena with its announced purchase of Israeli data quality company Zoomix.”

NextGov: Federal identity programs boost biometrics market

“‘There is a little glass dome over the Washington, D.C., Beltway community,’ says Jim Harper, director of information policy studies at the Cato Institute, ‘where these contractors and security folks … are absolutely convinced of a growing and mutating and metastasizing terrorist threat–and Congress, meanwhile, has granted them tremendous amounts of money to use any way they can.’ . . . For the foreseeable future, at least, the odd bedfellows will work together. Says Harper, ‘You’ll know your privacy and liberties are relatively secure when I get back to fighting with the ACLU.’”

b-eye.com - Business Intelligence Network - Blog: James Taylor: Should Enterprise Decision Management only cover automation?

“The same reader who asked yesterday’s question had a second: Do you see the terms ‘Enterprise Decision Management‘ and ‘Smart Enough Systems’ concerned mostly with the automation of decisions — which means really only covering strictly operational and appropriate tactical decisions. The term ‘Enterprise Decision Management’ to me suggests a broader definition, one that I would expect to include the management of *all* decisions in an enterprise — operational, tactical, and strategic. I guess I see SES as a subset of EDM, but I felt like they were used as synonyms in a few places and I wasn’t sure I agreed with that usage.”

Beep: Thieves grab the oddest things

“About two-thirds of retailers identified or recovered stolen merchandise (including gift cards) being sold at swap meets, on the Internet and elsewhere, according to the National Retail Federation’s 2008 Organized Retail Crime report. A survey of senior loss prevention professionals estimated that 40 percent of the ‘new in box’ merchandise sold through auction sites was obtained fraudulently. . . . ‘It is a problem for all retailers,’ says LensCrafters’ Ingram. ‘Prices go up for consumers when there is considerable theft.’”

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smart (enough) systems: How to address decision making challenges - ownership

“You want to manage the decision so that the value of the customer, their retention risk and more is considered and so that the person who REALLY made the decision was the person who works on how to handle the best customers. Only taking control of decisions, being explicit about how they are made and using automation to deliver the decision in every channel, every time is really going to work.”

Evolution of Security: ID Update and Word on the Blog

“Now that the new ID requirement is almost one week old, we wanted to provide additional stats.”

Hi-Tech-Blog: Economy Down Shoplifting Up

“The rise in retail thefts is also being blamed on the presence of organized crime, which account for up to $30 billion in losses every year, according to the FBI. These rings of professional thieves can easily move stolen items through the Internet, where consumers go to look for deals.”

Andy on Enterprise Software: MDM Fashions

“There are some good points in the DM Review article on MDM by William McKnight. In particular, I like that he clearly highlights some issues that some parts of our industry are still in denial over:”

Homeland Security Watch: Technology Task Force Presents 7 Recommendations to Chertoff

“Before he left, Chertoff charged the HSAC membership with one more task: ‘What are the ten tasks for the next Administration to take up and accomplish over its first year or two?’ It seemed odd to charge this group with something so trite. However, he explained, rightly, that it is important that efforts be made to preserve the institutional knowledge of the Department into and through its first ever Presidential transition. I’d like to know what you think should make the top ten list. Comment below.”

Hub Solution Designs: Building a Data Governance Organization

“I’m often asked how many data stewards a company needs. A rule of thumb I’ve used for quite a while is ‘one data steward per $1 billion in annual revenue’, but of course that can’t be a hard and fast rule. Depending on the company, the degree of automation, what data quality tools are available, and the major processes around the enterprise, that number is going to vary.”

The First Post: More snooping please, we love it

“Freeborn Englishmen like nothing more than the state’s jackboot on their windpipes, says David Cox”

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Evolution of Security: New ID Requirements Begin Tomorrow

“If you’re flying tomorrow, or anytime in the near future, you may want to make a note that tomorrow is the day the TSA enhances its ID requirements. There have been many misconceptions of the new requirements and I just wanted to attempt to clear things up a little bit. . . . Is this about control? No. It’s about knowing who is getting on the plane. It’s about shifting our focus towards people instead of items on a list. . . . If our goal is to keep bad people off of planes, and our law enforcement and intelligence partners have gone to the lengths of creating watch lists of known terrorists to keep them off said planes, we have to know for sure that each person who goes through matches the name on their boarding pass and is who they say they are.”

Andy on Enterprise Software: MDM Research

“13% of the (mostly larger) 112 companies surveyed had over 100 systems that hold and maintain customer data, which gives some idea of the scale of the problem that MDM is tackling. . . . The good thing was that plenty of companies seem to have begin measuring the costs of poor master data, and those costs are high, which should make it easier to justify master data management initiatives.”

NRF Loss Prevention Convention & Expo: Day One - General Session: The State of the Loss Prevention Industry

“Sheriff Judd and his team recently broke up an organized retail theft ring the stole an estimated $100 million worth of retail goods. . . . Sheriff Judd pointed out that many agencies think the crime ends with the single arrest. That’s not always the case, that simple shoplift may be organized retail theft. There needs to be a paradigm shift within law enforcement. Retail theft needs to be taken more seriously. Stopping retail theft can impact other crime. Your minor thieves are your major thieves. Thieves are good at what they do, it’s their industry.”

CQ.com: We Rage, Europeans Yawn, Over Domestic Counterterrorism Ops

“Ever since I attended a conference on homeland security in Paris four years ago, I’ve been fascinated by how little the French, Italians, Germans and other continentals worry about violations of their civil rights by their spy agencies. In fact, outside the United Kingdom, which invented civil liberties with the Magna Carta 993 years ago last Sunday, ordinary Europeans couldn’t care less about wiretapping, national ID cards, preventive detention and police spies in mosques, all of which have millions of Americans, not to mention the ACLU and libertarian Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, up in arms. . . . It’s likely because Germans, like the French and Italians, ran out of patience with domestic terror groups years ago. . . . ‘There is a more highly developed sense [in the United States] of what freedom means,’ he said.”

Business Insurance: Risk management not yet boardroom issue: Survey

“Risk management is not making its way into most of the boardrooms at Europe’s leading companies, a recent survey reveals. . . . Quantifying risk and demonstrating value were the biggest risk management challenges cited by three-quarters of the respondents, according to the survey.”

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[Post from Infoglide] Identity Resolution Daily - One Year Later . . . or Thereabouts

“Well, here we are feeling like the stereotypical bad husband. We can’t believe we missed our first year anniversary. I guess a couple dozen long stemmed roses are in order.”

b-eye.com - Business Intelligence Network: Master Data Management Readiness

“The selection and purchase of a core master data management system should be the culmination of a series of preparatory steps that are described in this article.”

newsday.com: NYPD arrests 15 suspected in car insurance fraud

“The 13 people were arrested Tuesday on insurance fraud and grand larceny charges stemming from at least five wrecks. Two suspects are still at large. Police say the ring targeted car insurance companies, taking advantage of a state law that entitles people involved in a crash to $50,000 worth of medical benefits. . . . Police are investigating whether the clinics were in on the scam.”

DataFlux Community of Experts: CIO Forum

“This time, I am on my way to be a panel member at a local CIO Forum. . . . Data integration, and data quality issues are going to be on the top of the list for this discussion.”

supermarket.co.za: ‘E-Fencing’ Is Growing Wave In Organized Crime

“These losses are clearly affecting retailers’ bottom lines. According to the survey, organized crime accounts for approximately $30 billion in retail losses every year. As a result, retailers are also spending more to ward off these detrimental incidents. In fact, the average retailer spends approximately $230,000 per year on labor costs, the study said. This price tag can hit $1 million a year at larger chains that are constant organized retail crime (ORC) targets.”

Data Governance and Data Quality Insider: Get Smart about Your Data Quality Projects

“With all due respect to Agent Maxwell Smart, there is a mini battle between good and evil, CONTROL and KAOS, happening in many busy, fast-growing corporations. It is, of course, with information quality. Faster growing companies are more vulnerable to chaos because by opening up new national and international divisions, expanding through acquisition, manufacturing offshore, and doing all the other things that an aggressive company does, it leads to more misalignment and more chaotic data. While a company may have a strong desire to ‘own the world’ or at least their market, they may wind up owning chaos and disorder instead - in the form of disparate data.”

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