Information security

If you're anything like me, you get a lot of personally addressed ads from the various companies you do business with (and those you don't). They include them in bills and updates; they send out offers regularly; they try to get you to join up. American Express is a particular offender here.

When I throw them out (as I do with the vast majority of them), I like to strip off the personal identification. I don't think it's a good idea to have pieces of paper with my name, address, and account number blowing around garbage dumps or recycling facilities. Some of them can be used directly as ID, and applications can be filled in and accepted on your behalf, even with obvious modifications to contact details. Many provide enough information for identity theft, like birthdays.

Once upon a time, picking out the personal info was easy. Printing individualized messages was expensive and tricky; so there would be a one page form with extra info filled in here and there, and it would be in a different font, a different ink, a different size, and possibly even offset to the rest of the printing. Tear up that page, and you're done.

As the years go by, it gets cheaper and cheaper to do quality printing. So at the very least, they'll get paper with colored logos on it and print the entire form out on that - same font, ink, size, and alignment. Worse, when they send irrelevant fillers, they'll print them the same way. And when they send you a form to accept their wondrous offer, they'll pre-fill it with your info, and stick bar codes all over it for quicker processing.

Instead of one page with an easily spotted name, address and account number (and the other four pages safely anonymous), I'll get five with my account details at the top of every page (including the one giving me account security tips), and various other bits of info scattered everywhere. My paper bin looks like it's been visited by a World War II censor. No doubt in a few years I'll discover that they've been using infra-red ink all this time, and my strategic tearing up has been in vain. I am tempted to get an industrial shredder just to be sure.

One of the firms I deal with has the right idea. The first page of my bill is double sided, with everything itemized on that one page. - they've taken some trouble to squash everything in there. There's a space for me to fill in with all the details when I pay it. That page gets filed. The rest is completely anonymous, and can be safely junked. They are making my life easier, and I feel kindlier towards them as a result - you can't buy advertising like that. (I am not naming them, because telling the entire internet details about your life would be rather ironic in this post).

Of course, many other companies are moving to internet-only bills. This solves the throwing-out problem (except for old hard drives, which would require care anyway), but means I have to remember to download the record every month. They may keep excellent historical data, but why take the chance?

Look for another rant in a few years/months/days/hours/minutes, on the topic of backups and how not to do them.