"A new age of identity theft"

A man indicted in Seattle yesterday is being portrayed by prosecutors as the poster child for a new age of identity theft.

He used peer-to-peer file sharing programs to scan the hard drives of unsuspecting victims, harvesting bank and medical records which he then used to secure credit cards and loans.

According to the Seattle Times:

The Seattle resident allegedly used the peer-to-peer network to infiltrate hundreds of people's hard drives and steal tax returns, student financial-aid forms and other sensitive personal data. According to a federal indictment, Kopiloff then used that information to create bogus credit-card and bank accounts and illegally purchased thousands of dollars in merchandise.

..."We are entering a new age of identity theft," said Robert Boback, chief executive of Tiversa, a computer-security firm based in Pittsburgh that has conducted extensive research on peer-to-peer networks. "Tens of thousands of individuals make a living doing this."