[2967] in WWW Security List Archive
RE: Can you say "fraud"? (fwd)
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Chang, Betty Jo)
Tue Sep 17 21:35:58 1996
From: "Chang, Betty Jo" <chang.bj@MFSDatanet.COM>
To: Mary Irene Wise <auntyem@umich.edu>,
"'Jennifer Chang'" <jchang@acf.dhhs.gov>,
"'melanie'" <melanie@cco.com>,
owner-www-security <owner-www-security@ns2.rutgers.edu>,
www-security <www-security@ns2.rutgers.edu>
Date: Tue, 17 Sep 96 15:05:00 PDT
Errors-To: owner-www-security@ns2.rutgers.edu
Here is the statement from LEXIS-NEXIS regarding their P-TRAK product.
This is from the LEXIS-NEXIS Web site
(http://www.lexis-nexis.com)
Statement on the P-TRAK file from LEXIS-NEXIS
LEXIS-NEXIS markets the P-TRAK file to the legal community for use by
general legal practitioners,
litigators and public attorneys, as well as law enforcement agencies and
police departments. These
professionals use the P-TRAK file to assist in locating litigants,
witnesses, shareholders, debtors, heirs and
beneficiaries.
It's important to note that LEXIS?-NEXIS? is a business-to-business
service and is not a consumer online
service. The LEXIS-NEXIS service is targeted to and used by attorneys,
businesses and government
agencies.
LEXIS-NEXIS is aware of the sensitivities regarding the potential misuse
of information. While business
competitors of LEXIS-NEXIS have for some time made Social Security
numbers available to users of their
services, and continue to do so, LEXIS-NEXIS discontinued the display of
Social Security numbers in the
P-TRAK file as of June 11, 1996, eleven days after the product was
introduced.
There has been much erroneous information distributed on the Internet
regarding the data displayed in the
P-TRAK file. The displayed record may, but not always, include the name
of the individual, the individual's
maiden and assumed names, current as well as up to two previous
addresses, month and year of birth and
telephone number. That is the only information displayed in the P-TRAK
file.
Contrary to some messages that have been posted to some Internet
discussion and news groups, the P-TRAK
file does not contain any credit histories, bank account information or
other personal financial data, or medical
histories.
The information displayed in the P-TRAK file is an aggregation readily
available from public information
sources such as telephone directories (in print and CD-ROM format) and
public records maintained by
government agencies.
Through its actions, LEXIS-NEXIS is balancing the privacy concerns of the
public with the legitimate needs of
legal, business and government professionals for access to accurate
sources of publicly available information.
By discontinuing the display of Social Security numbers in P-TRAK and
only providing information that is
already available to the public from other sources, LEXIS-NEXIS believes
it has responsibly met the
expressed concerns of the public.
Please direct any comments to pr@lexis-nexis.com.
----------
From: owner-www-security[SMTP:owner-www-security@ns2.rutgers.edu]
Sent: Tuesday, September 17, 1996 9:59 AM
To: Mary Irene Wise; www-security
Subject: Re: Can you say "fraud"? (fwd)
I would assume this is a scam. If the company is legitimate, then it
would
be like other credit bureau companies ... you would be able to review
information for accuracy, but couldn't request your name be removed.
Ken.
--
--------------------------------------------------------
Kenneth E. Rowe kerowe@ncsa.uiuc.edu
Senior Security Engineer / (217) 244 5270 (office)
Security Coordinator (217) 244 0710 (IRST)
National Center for Supercomputing Applications
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
URL http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/people/kerowe
E-mail irst@ncsa.uiuc.edu for Computer Incident Response
--------------------------------------------------------
