[win2kpro]

Personal Data of 26.5 Million Veterans Stolen
Information Taken During Break-In at VA Worker's Home
By HOPE YEN, AP

WASHINGTON (May 22) - Personal data, including Social Security numbers of 26.5 million U.S. veterans, was stolen from a Veterans Affairs employee this month after he took the information home without authorization, the department said Monday.

Veterans Affairs Secretary Jim Nicholson said there was no evidence so far that the burglars who struck the employee's home have used the personal data - or even know they have it. The employee, a data analyst whom Nicholson would not identify, has been placed on leave pending a review.

"We have a full-scale investigation," said Nicholson, who said the FBI, local law enforcement and the VA inspector general were investigating. "I want to emphasize, there was no medical records of any veteran and no financial information of any veteran that's been compromised."

"We have decided that we must exercise an abundance of caution and make sure our veterans are aware of this incident," he said in a conference call with reporters.

Rest of story;

http://articles.news.aol.com/news/ar..._ccc=5&cid=842

[bassetman]

Seems very suspicious to me!

[lotuseclat79]

Report: Vets' data theft not publicized for 3 weeks
http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline..._vets_dat.html

-- Tom

[ekim68]

Good grief. Pretty soon there will be a thread that states "How bad can it get?"

[bassetman]

Originally Posted by ekim68

Good grief. Pretty soon there will be a thread that states "How bad can it get?"

Are you implying this is not a problem?

[ekim68]

Originally Posted by bassetman

Are you implying this is not a problem?

Not at all. What I'm saying is that there seems to be nothing but bad news for vets.

[StumpedTechy]

From the article -

"It's highly probable that they do not know what they have,"

Now they do!

I have to laugh because I told my wife I bet it was just somerone who wanted to rip off something and saw a Laptop... prolly were gonna either scavenge it for parts, pawn it, or something and be done with it. Who knows someone may even gone back over the hdd and reloaded it with windows - tossed the CD (if it had one) and just to use in daily activities.

Now howerver the theives (if they watch the news) know exactly what they have and since we KNOW they were unscrupulous enough to take the laptop in the first place they more than likely WILL sell/use the data.

Kind of falls in line with the self fulfilling prophecies.

[bassetman]

Originally Posted by ekim68

Not at all. What I'm saying is that there seems to be nothing but bad news for vets.

True.

[win2kpro]

They emphasize that no medical information was stolen. Hell, I don't care about the medical information but they did get the names, DOB and SS# and that's plenty of info for ID theft.

[ekim68]

There seems to be a lot more going on...

http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=3128&tag=nl.e539

Thank goodness I only have $10.00 in the bank...

[ekim68]

I know, bringing it up again, but we should be aware of identity theft.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060603/...kxBHNlYwN0bQ--

[ekim68]

Just like the rabbit that never stops.

http://today.reuters.com/news/newsAr...A-VETERANS.xml

And, now active duty stolen info.

[ekim68]

And, now, CPA's information is missing. It's continuing to grow.

http://www.computerworld.com/action/...icleId=9001030

[win2kpro]

An example of just how serious identity theft can be;

(30 second ad preceeds the video)

http://us.video.aol.com/video.full.a...1659164&mode=2

[ekim68]

In a way, this shouldn't go away. More ID thefts.

http://today.reuters.com/news/newsAr...-CRIME-FTC.xml