This article bores me. It's a bunch of whining. I don't like whining. Everyone is *not* vulnerable and exposed. Everyone is *not* a target...only the whiners.

The "I remember using telnet to play nethack" nostalgia is immaterial to the article and sounds very egotistical.

Yes, it could be the old lady's 50k life savings (surely she will die on that anyway if she has anything bigger than a 4-cylinder). It could be some corporate fat cat who has deceived clients in the process of earning his fortune. It could be a scummy lawyer or drug addict. Or it could even be some wealthy whining journalist!

Maybe it's time to wonder why it's so easy for any 13 yr. old with a computer to commit these types of blind crimes. Why are controls at banks so poor? Why isn't the government doing a better job at protecting consumers? Instead of having regulations that require companies to spend millions of dollars on the security-related regulation of the day as interpreted by some self-important industry association or pushy vendor of the day, we need smarter and focused spending. Awareness (why the hell do you even need online funds transfer capabilities for an account with your life savings?!?), identity management, strong two-factor authentication, these are just a few of the solutions that exist today. Yet you can still make purchases without PIN numbers or do fund transfers with weak authentication.

Once it's not so easy for every 13 yr. old to commit these types of crimes, you can be rest assured that masturbation will once again take it's rightful place above identity theft.

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Link to this comment: http://www.securityfocus.com/comments/columns/355/32368#32368