Forwarded from: John Ellingson <JohnE37179at_private> This last year 28,000 branch banks in America used our technology to screen approximately 18 million new bank account openings for identity fraud. Our technology flagged 4.2% of those applications as using compromised identities, identities that had been intentionally manipulated for the purpose of deception. The manipulation was by either the applicant or a third party who had stolen the identity. This rate of manipulated identities is 175% higher than in 1996. This means that out of those 18 million identities over 750,000 had been intentionally compromised. Those same identities were used to obtain drivers licenses, credit cards, and airline tickets. As the Third Annual Report to The President and The Congress of The Advisory Panel to Assess Domestic Response Capabilities for Terrorism Involving Weapons of Mass Destruction set out as the number one general recommendation: Better use of technology for positive identification and for knowledge management should be at the top of the list. As we move into 2002, I would urge everyone and every company that has capabilities that can address this risk to pool their resources to create and deploy a system to close this immense hole in our security infrastructure. The hole needs to be closed in a number of areas. Airport and other public facilities need this capability, our economic infrastructure needs this capability, our communications system needs this capability. We cannot afford to continue to use the approach we have used all along. We must recognize the new paradigm of the supremacy of identity certainty. This means that we must precede all authentication efforts with identification certainty. In all of the areas of vulnerability mentioned above, the users are predominantly strangers and authentication without identification first is not possible. We must combine strong identification technology with strong authentication technology and our vast information resources. This will require a combination of a number of point solutions and strong integration and information management. It will require reassessing how we protect our assets and our lives. It must be able to address all types and levels of threats, from cyber attacks, chemical and biologic attacks, financial attacks and the physical threats to transportation, power, communication, and commercial infrastructures. We have all of the technologies required to meet these threats today. What those of us in the industry must do is come together to provide the integrated solution. Let’s all make this our number one New Year's resolution. To that end, Edentification will contribute to any consortia addressing this need, free of cost, our completed engineering for a biometric and web-enabled identity clearinghouse. I urge others to join us in making similar contributions to meet this common and important goal. John Ellingson CEO Edentification, Inc. 608-833-6261 ellingson@e-dentification.com - ISN is currently hosted by Attrition.org To unsubscribe email majordomoat_private with 'unsubscribe isn' in the BODY of the mail.
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