Doesn't this create a risk of committing fraud and identity theft in some countries?
I can understand it wouldn't be a crime to create a random email address but creating a fake house address and using this for payments sounds a little tricky.
I can understand it wouldn't be a crime to create a random email address but creating a fake house address and using this for payments sounds a little tricky.
*Granted, it is an easily unravelled ball of lottery hotlines & public spaces addresses that could easily be traced back to the real "me", but I'm not really hiding, just preserving my right to be left alone from prying marketeers and... ahem.... data scientists.
The difference between a cash transaction and, say, a bitcoin transaction is one of scale. To make a cash transaction requires us to be in the same place and to have at least a basic understanding of identity. A fraudster can obviously profit in this situation, but their targets are limited to who they can physically meet.
The Internet is an order of magnitude larger scale. Fraudsters can work in bulk and hide their transactions easily. It's wholesale and not retail, so to speak. That is a problem worth at least considering.
It may make it easier for people to commit fraud, though I suspect anyone considering that career choice is probably slightly ahead of the content of this article.
As to identity theft - I can't see how this article would help or hinder anyone in that pursuit. I guess if you follow one of the practices described - unique ID attributes at your various throwaway / anonymity-desired sites you visit - you may make it slightly harder for someone to pinch your identity.