[2979] in WWW Security List Archive
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daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (exceptionalvalue@socialsecurity.co)
Wed Sep 18 14:31:32 1996
From: exceptionalvalue@socialsecurity.com
Date: Wed, 18 Sep 1996 12:21:29 -0400
Apparently-To: www-security@ns2.rutgers.edu
Errors-To: owner-www-security@ns2.rutgers.edu
Lexis-Nexis burns the midnight oil
By Skinny DuBaud
September 16, 1996
Now and again, my credit card starts to feel like a plate of steel,
for which the only remedy is a blind, uninhibited charge-fest. This
past weekend, my son Vermel and I were tempted by a downright
unrealistic purchase, a down payment on a roll-prone sport utility
vehicle, and a more modest expenditure, an asthmatic iguana.
[INLINE] Although Vermel has a few years before he graduates into the
credit card class, the kid can go ahead and get a card now thanks to
an online service from Lexis-Nexis. Last June, the company said it
yanked the ability to search for social security numbers in its P-TRAK
database, which also contains maiden names, phone numbers, and other
data necessary for getting a new credit card. But Lexis-Nexis was
playing weasel words. True, the online service won't let you search
for a social security number by a person's name. It will, however, let
you enter random social security numbers to call up an individual's
records.
The public outcry to P-TRAK (prompted initially by a CNET article) is
apparently keeping Lexis-Nexis officials up at night. Company workers
have been doing split-shifts of late just to keep up with phone calls
from people demanding to be removed from the database. Pooped out from
the explosion of requests, Lexis-Nexis is now telling people to write
or fax their concerns, and doesn't promise to confirm your removal
from P-TRAK. Have a nice day.
While I search for your social security number, Yahoo and InfoSeek are
searching for their identities. Has anyone else noticed how strikingly
similar these two Web sites are? The search engines must have been
twins separated at birth; they're the spitting image of each other
down to their interface and database categories. But like a former
therapist of mine once said, what is special is on the inside. We'll
see.
ÿôÿý
[yesterday's www.news.com]
