IDENTITY WOO WOO

Identity is the way that something represents someone. Identity Theft is one of the most common crimes in the internet world today. People who commit identity theft are usually more or less after either money, or to ruin a reputation. Other things that can be taken from identity theft are personal information that the user who actually owns that name hold. The discovery of this by a thief could be disastrous for the victim who has the theft being done to them. Things like credit card numbers, social security umbers, bank account accesses, anything that the person holds can potentially being taken , depending on the type of identity that the thief is trying to impersonate. Identity theft is also commonly known as fraud, where one person is acting as the identity of someone else. A broad definition of identity theft or fraud is “a deception made for personal gain”. Carious forms of identity theft is considered in things like email, avatars, instant messenger screen names, user names, pretty much anything that you can think of that is use to represent someone on the internet.

For anyone who has ever used internet in the modern day, which is roughly everyone, then they are probably familiar with the use of a screen name or email address. If u ever belonged to any sort of site or had any reason to use a password somewhere, then you will usually more likely have a user name or avatar to represent you. For kids today, such as myself, the use of AOL instant messenger is one of the primary ways of communicating with their peers. When you sign on your buddy list, your name pops up on your friends buddy list, letting them know that you have signed on and are available for chat. Will it always be you as your name signs on though? To you it will be, to them it may not be. The instance of someone else being able to obtain the screen name and password of someone else is an example of identity, as well as identity theft. Being typical like most kids are today, I have a screen name, and I’m pretty sure almost everyone in this class does as well. The way that the screen name works on AIM is pretty basic. Mine is Mfinnro22, so when I get online my friends see that I am there. I have my buddy list sorted in a few different categories, my best friends in one, kids from UB in another, and then girls and guys. An example referring to the interaction between my name and my friends name is straight forward. If I’m looking for something to do on the weekend while at home and I am on my computer then I will most likely look through my best friends list, or if I’m at UB I look through the UB list. It’s a pretty basic way of interaction the name with the correlation to my friends. The names on my list represent my friends, its nothing that complicated.

Finally, being able to assume this identity as me is easy. Who ever has the ability to get my password, or anyone’s password for their screen name can potentially have someone’s reputation screwed up. If someone you know gets online with your screen name, your friends with see that your name has signed on, and automatically assume that it is you. A lot of time when one of my friends get online, as its one of my other friends, or someone I don’t even know saying that its my friend who owns the screen name, I can usually tell by they type to me whether or not it is them. In general, when someone assumes your name as it is represented, then they will usually believe it is you. But when its not, things can go really wrong.