D16, WP3 Revisions

Jared Zucker

Mr. Devon Adams

English 102 – 7891

WP#3 Final Delete this for proper MLA formatting.

21 Nov. 2007.

Identity Theft

“The FTC estimates that as many as 9 million Americans have their identities stolen each year.” (Federal Trade Commission). Identity theft is a crime on the uprising and is growing larger by the year. Identity theft is a continuously escalating crime, perhaps some of you have been victims of it. In the early 90’s it was not too uncommon to get mugged walking down the street, having your driver’s license stolen, a couple of credit cards, or maybe even your Social Security Card if you were gutsy enough to carry that on you. In today’s society, this has gone even a step further. Identity theft over the Internet is vastly becoming one of our most common crimes. Family members of mine have been victims of identity theft, much like most of yours probably have been as well. What can the United States Federal Government put in place to aid in the fight of identity theft?

The only way to truly fight crime, is by putting in place some sort of restriction here and there to prevent the crime. This is where the true controversy comes into place. Some people would rather things such as the internet be practically on lockdown than have to really worry about crimes like identity theft over the internet. Others would rather the U.S. Government leave the internet alone because it is all a form of freedom of speech and should not be regulated. So, what should the U.S. Government do? This is where the controversy gets twisted and complicated.

“In December 2003, the Internet Fraud Complaint Center (IFCC) was renamed the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) to better reflect the broad character of such criminal matters having a cyber (Internet) nexus. The 2006 Internet Crime Report is the sixth annual compilation of information on complaints received and referred by the IC3 to law enforcement or regulatory agencies for appropriate action. From January 1, 2006 – December 31, 2006, the IC3 website received 207,492 complaint submissions. This is a 10.4% decrease when compared to 2005 when 231,493 complaints were received. These filings were composed of fraudulent and non-fraudulent complaints primarily related to the Internet.” (IC3). According to the IC3, 4447 of those complaints were in Arizona alone in 2006. Two percent were identity theft alone. However, 71.1% of those reported a monetary loss, with a medium loss of $1374.19. Other crimes such as credit card fraud and check fraud had higher numbers, but usually have some sort of correlation with identity theft after excessive use.

Some people agree the government needs to step up and help fight the battle of identity theft over the Internet. However, there are also a group of people who think the government should be left out of the Internet all together because it is an invasion of their privacy. If the government steps in to protect the internet, they will have to protect more than just identity theft. For instance, if the government were to lockdown websites so they had to have a special key issued out by the government to be able to sell products online, this would pose a threat as to who is the one responsible for whether one business is truly more legit than another. According to YouDebate.com, “The First Amendment prevents the government from imposing, or from coercing industry into imposing, a mandatory Internet ratings scheme. Libraries are free speech zones. The First Amendment prevents the government, including public libraries, from mandating the use of user-based blocking software.” This means that Delete 'this means that' websites and such should not be philtered out which is one way the government could potentially help prevent identity theft over the Internet. There should be a higher standard to authorize merchants to sell products online. It should be tougher to retain an SSL (Secure-Socket-Layer) and have to be approved by some kind of government agency before you are allowed to sell your products over the Internet. Anyone can purchase an online store and be running within six hours, which is mainly the time it takes to setup the actual store, not the authorization side of it. This is unacceptable and just makes it that much easier to commit a crime of identity theft over the Internet.

One way to also help prevent identity theft in general, would be first for all credit cards to be required to be protected by a 4-8 digit pin number. This would help cut down the number of credit cards stolen and used just simply using a signature. People are always on the go and always want a quicker way to purchase something, proven by Visa’s new Express Pay where you just hover your card over the credit card processing machine and it automatically authorizes you. No signature or pin number needed for entry. With new technology like this, it only makes it that much easier to continue on with identity theft. The government has the power to help regulate things like this if they really wanted to.

A school I was doing a work study program through ended up getting burglarized in the middle of the night. They smashed the windows and stole the computers in the room. The computers that were stolen had all the personal information of many students involved in this program, I was one of them. My Social Security number was stolen, and now I have to have an ongoing fraud alert on my credit report. My brother-in-law was mugged in Los Angeles once, where his whole wallet was stolen. Ten years later, he has a maxed out credit card of $25,000 spent in a state he has never even been to, where the person even had a cell phone in his name. It took him over a year to get everything cleared out and to prove he had been a victim of identity theft. When my parents first moved out here, they also became victims. The investigation took almost three months, and during this time their checking account had to become frozen since that is where the theft was from. My father had direct deposit from his work, and with all his money in his checking account, he was left with nothing until his next pay day which could not be direct deposited because the account was frozen. You can see how this can create an instant hard ship and is never fun to go through. After the investigation the account was finally unfrozen and had to be moved over to a new account. Because of issues like these, the government needs a quicker way to authorize who is the true person. This gets complicated and cloudy because of the authenticity forged documents can attain. Maybe they do have the resources to quickly obtain who the true John Doe is but just not enough people to work through the long queue provided. One suggestion for the revision here would be to take out all of the personal anecdotes here. I would rewrite this to be a third person story instead of more of a first person.

LifeLock, a company that specializes in protecting identity theft, guarantees your identity and will reimbursement you up to one million dollars if you are a victim of identity theft while a client of theirs. They are so sure of themselves, the CEO puts his Social Security number all over moving vehicles and all over his website. Most of the ways they protect clients are steps everyone can take to prevent identity theft. They even list these methods and steps on their website, just comparing themselves to an oil change specialist. Why do it yourself when you can have someone do it for you? Todd Davis, the CEO, says you need to: set fraud alerts on your credit, be removed from those pre-approved credit cards and another junk mail, and order your annual credit report. These are all steps to follow to help protect you from identity theft. According to Davis, the pre-approved credit cards and other junk mail is the most common way identities are hijacked. Of course, the government could put these in place for everyone in America knowing that if you do not yourself you are very susceptible to identity theft. However, it seems doubtful they will do that.

Even though the controversy, I feel the government has to take action and step in. If we were to let the Internet not be regulated, we would have even more crimes than we do now, ones not even linked to identity theft. There is always a new story out about child molesters trying to meet new young girls online or something of that sort. If not for the government stepping in on situations like that, the number would be even greater. We need to have a happy median of the government getting involved but also staying back, however we are far from that point as of right now. Higher standards must be required by the government when allowing merchants to do ecommerce. In the end, like with everything, you are your most reliable source. You must follow the steps in preventing your own crime, becoming a victim of identity theft.

I would need to write more about the other argument. The majority of the paper was a little bias and leaned more to one side.

Works Cited:

“Annual Reports.” Internet Crime Complaint Center. 2007. IC3. 20 Sept. 2007

.

Davis, Todd, Jim Greener, and Chini Krishnan. "Identity Theft Protection." Lifelock. 2006. National Crime Prevention Council. 20 Sept. 2007 .

Desai, Jenny. "Tricksters Populate Our Internet Landscape." Science & Spirit 18.1 (2007): 65. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Mesa Community College, Mesa. 20 Sept. 2007.

.

FBI – Cybercrime. FBI. 2007. U.S. Federal Government. 3 Sept. 2007 .

"Internet Censorship Debate and Poll." YouDebate.com. 20 Oct 2007

.

Katel, Peter. "Identity Theft." CQ Researcher 15.22 (2005): 517-540. CQ Researcher Online. CQ Press. Mesa Community College Library, Mesa, AZ. 13 Sept. 2007 .

NCL’s National Fraud Information Center/Internet Fraud Watch. National Consumers League. 2007. National Consumers League. 3 Sept. 2007 .

D16, WP2 Revisions

Jared Zucker

Mr. Devon Adams

English 102 - 7891

10/25/2007 Change date to proper MLA, 6 Dec. 2007

I need to add a couple more sentences to each annotated bib. All the citations were done properly, I just did not write enough about each source.

WP#2 Final – Annotated Bibliography

My topic I am researching is identity theft, mainly focusing on the Internet. It will go over what the government can do to stop Internet crime, specifically identity theft. Some of the controversy comes into play because some do not want the government involved in the privacy settings of the Internet at all. Others think the government needs to step in more and have more rules and regulations when it comes to the Internet. This causes a big problem and becomes very controversial. Below are some of my sources I have been gathering for my research.

“Annual Reports.” Internet Crime Complaint Center. 2007. IC3. 20 Sept. 2007

.

This website has statistics about Internet crime right from the FBI, one of the best sources you can get it from. Not only does it give you statistics from previous years, but also current statistics which are sometimes hard to find. This will be a great asset when writing my paper because I will have some major statistics as part of my research.

Clark, Charles S. "Regulating the Internet." CQ Researcher 5.24 (1995): 561-584. CQ Researcher Online. CQ Press. Mesa Community College Library, Mesa, AZ. 13 Sept. 2007 .

This article was also found from the CQ Researcher within the MCC Online Library. This article talks about how if we as people can really regulate the Internet. The really good thing about this article is it is a little old (1995) so I can compare what we thought then and we have done to solve those situations, to what issues we have now and what we are doing to solve them.

Clemmitt, Marcia. "Controlling the Internet." CQ Researcher 16.18 (2006): 409-432. CQ Researcher Online. CQ Press. Mesa Community College Library, Mesa, AZ. 13 Sept. 2007 .

This article was found using the CQ Researcher, which is a resource from the MCC Online Library. This article is dedicated to whether we can control the Internet, going into the political aspect of it. This is important since I will be writing about Internet crime and what our government can do to help.

Collins, Judith M. Preventing Identity Theft in Your Business : How to Protect Your Business, Customers, and Employees. John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated, 2005. 27 Sept. 2007 .

This book is about preventing identity theft in your business. This will be a great resource when writing my final paper because I can see what is being done just by businesses to help prevent this. It will give me fresh ideas when brainstorming about different ways the government will be able to contribute in the fight against identity theft.

Davis, Todd, Jim Greener, and Chini Krishnan. "Identity Theft Protection." Lifelock. 2006. National Crime Prevention Council. 20 Sept. 2007 .

This is the website of a company who specializes in protecting your identity. They even have a commercial of Todd Davis, a CEO giving everybody his Social Security number, not worried about identity theft because his company’s system works. It is good to get a point of view from this side and find a company who is trying to help prevent Internet crimes, making the government’s job a little easier.

Desai, Jenny. "Tricksters Populate Our Internet Landscape." Science & Spirit 18.1 (2007): 65. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Mesa Community College, Mesa. 20 Sept. 2007.

.

This is a short article that talks about different scammers and people who were victims of identity fraud. This will help with my research paper because it offers different views that may be used as testimonials.

FBI – Cybercrime. FBI. 2007. U.S. Federal Government. 3 Sept. 2007 .

I found this using the regular Google search engine. This site is authoritative because it is on fbi.gov, which means it is a source funded and ran by the United States Government. This is a great website because it has different areas in which they help fight Internet crime. It also contains stories of investigations they’ve done and people they have caught that have committed a cyber crime. I will be able to use this source for facts about criminals pertaining to Internet crimes.

"Internet Censorship Debate and Poll." YouDebate.com. 20 Oct 2007

.

Although this source seems shady because it has a lack of author’s name and even a lack of publication for it, it can still be a valuable source.  It has a few pros and a few cons dealing with government interference and the internet.  Sometimes when you lean towards one way a lot more, it is hard to think of any pros to having the government control the Internet.  This source helps bring a few of those reasons to mind.

Katel, Peter. "Identity Theft." CQ Researcher 15.22 (2005): 517-540. CQ Researcher Online. CQ Press. Mesa Community College Library, Mesa, AZ. 13 Sept. 2007 .

I found this article from CQ Researcher, which is an online resource provided by the MCC Library. This article goes over identity theft, including some statistics and also by providing commentary on what the government can do. This is vital to my research project because it is exactly what I am writing about. How the U.S. Government can help fight Internet crime.

NCL’s National Fraud Information Center/Internet Fraud Watch. National Consumers League. 2007. National Consumers League. 3 Sept. 2007 .

I found this using the Google Web Directory. You can tell this site is pretty much legitimate because for one they have a number listed on their home page that you can call with questions. They are also powered by the National Consumers League. This is a great site because it contains a lot of statistics on Internet fraud which helps a lot with research. I will be able to use this for evidence to support my claims to show how bad of a crime identity theft really is.

Salkever, Alex. "A Key Weapon to Thwart Cybercrime." Business Week Online (2003). Military & Government. EBSCOhost. Mesa Community College, Mesa. 20 Sept. 2007.

.

This is a great website because it has brief stories about the FBI tracking down and fighting Internet crime. This helps because I can see what the government already does to protect against Internet crime. Using these recent stories, I can think of better ideas on how to fight against Internet crime.

Tynan, Dan. “THE INTERNET IS Sick…BUT WE CAN MAKE IT BETTER.” Popular Science (2006): 82-88. EBSCOhost Research Databases. Mesa Community College Library, Mesa, AZ. 13 Sept. 2007 .

This article was found through the MCC Online Library, as one of our other online databases. This article contains many statistics on many different Internet crimes, not all related to identity theft. It goes over how to help protect yourself and also why the criminals do what they do in the first place.

I realized with doing some of the research that the government is stepping in on identity theft. They are coming out with regulations to help websites become more secure, and also more noticeable as being secure so you know which websites are good and which are not. Also by doing this research, I found a company who actually specializes in keeping you from being a victim of identity theft. I did not know they had companies like that and so it will be very interesting to research them some more.

D16, WP1 Revisions

Jared Zucker

10/04/2007

WP#1 - Final [Would fix the header to be proper MLA format:]

Jared Zucker

Mr. Devon Adams

Eng 102-7891

6 Dec. 2007

Identity Theft

Identity theft is a continuously escalating crime, perhaps some of you have been victims of it. In the early 90’s it was not too delete "too" uncommon to get mugged walking down the street, having your driver’s license stolen, a couple of credit cards, or maybe even your Social Security Card if you were gutsy enough to carry that on you. In today’s society, this has gone even a step further; identity theft over the internet is vastly becoming one of our most common crimes. Family members of mine have been victims of identity theft, much like most of yours probably have been as well. Delete "My research question" My research question: What can the U.S. Federal Government put in place to aid in the fight of identity theft?

The only way to truly fight crime, is by putting in place some sort of restriction here and there. This is where the true controversy comes into place. Some people would rather things such as the internet be practically on lockdown than have to really worry about crimes like identity theft over the internet. Others would rather the U.S. Government leave the internet alone because it is all a form of freedom of speech and should not be regulated. So, what should the U.S. Government do? This is where the controversy gets twisted and complicated.

A school I was doing a work program through ended up getting burglarized in the middle of the night. They smashed the windows and stole the computers in the room. The computers that were stolen had all the personal information of many students involved in this program, I was one of them. My social security number was stolen, and now I have to have an ongoing fraud alert on my credit report. My brother-in-law was mugged in Los Angeles once, where his whole wallet was stolen. Ten years later, he has a maxed out credit card of $25,000 spent in a state he has never even been to, where the person even had a cell phone in his name. It took him over a year to get everything cleared out and to prove he had been a victim of identity theft. When my parents first moved out here, they also became victims. The investigation took almost three months, and during this time their checking account had to become frozen since that is where the theft was from. My father had direct deposit from his work, and with all his money in his checking account, he was left with nothing until his next pay day which could not be direct deposited because the account was frozen. You can see how this can create an instant hard ship and is never fun to go through. After the investigation the account was finally unfrozen and had to be moved over to a new account.

Even though the controversy, I feel the government has to take action and step in. If we were to let the internet not be regulated, we would have even more crimes than we do now, ones not even linked to identity theft. There is always a new story out about child molesters trying to meet new young girls online or something of that sort. If not for the government stepping in on situations like that, the number would be even greater. We need to have a happy median of the government getting involved but also staying back, however we are far from that point as of right now. My audience will be the U.S. Government, in hopes that they will be able to see what changes need to be taken care of so we can get closer to stopping these criminal acts.

As for the timeline, the annotated bibliography is due October 25^th, with the actual research paper due November 22^nd. Followed by that will be the portfolio containing all the main writings along with the weekly homework, which will be due December 13^th.

What I would also need to change would be to add more proposal into this. Most of the content here was informational, rather than an actual research proposal for the upcoming WP3.

D16, Reflective Cover Letter

Jared Zucker

Mr. Devon Adams

Eng 102-7891

6 Dec. 2007

Reflective Cover Letter

Taking all the past deadlines into consideration, I can definitely show that my strength has a writer has done nothing but improve. I have learned a lot in this class, including organizational skills and being effective in research.

The first course outcome included writing “for specific rhetorical contexts”, which also included things like purpose and audience. In Deadline 3, Homework Assignment 3, I had to create a search plan for my ultimate research question. By doing this it helped me narrow down my audience and my topic.

The second course outcome included organizing my writing to support my main research question. Writing Project #2, the Annotated Bibliography, helped with this tremendously. It helped me organize all of my sources, especially for both sides of the argument. When writing Writing Project #3, it was easy to find a lot of great statistics and information to use in the project, due to Writing Project #2.

Having to use a proper tone, diction and grammar consistently was the third course outcome. Almost all of the writing assignments had key elements relating to each of those. Every grammar assignment helped work towards that, showing the growth of writing. For instance, I had a hard time with transitioning one paragraph to the next to keep a constant flow. Using The Owl at Purdue as one of my resources, I was able to learn how to make my paragraphs connect and link together better by writing better transitions.

The fourth, evaluating both online and print sources. I prefer online research much more than print sources, just because the ease of access and effectiveness of it. However, you can usually trust a book that is in a library and give it credibility. This is not the same for the Internet. You really have to examine the websites and online journals you are pulling research from, because it is not always valuable or truthful information. Writing Project #2, the Annotated Bibliography, is evidence of research I have conducted using the Internet, such as online databases, directories, and actual book research.

The fifth outcome was to integrate different sources to develop my own ideas. I was to do this by taking someone else’s writing and turning it into my own, like summarizing or paraphrasing. Throughout all of the reading reflections and different writing projects one can see my citations in MLA format. This can sometimes be difficult to do, especially when pulling a lot of statistics from one source, but I have definitely learned a lot about MLA format and plagiarism by Writing Project #3 alone.

Number six refers to using proper MLA-style formatting, which was the required format for this class. It was a little tricky for me at first, with citing my sources. However, by the time Writing Project 2, the Annotated Bibliography came around, I was able to cite all of my sources properly as proven by the instructor’s critique.

Peer reviewing was the seventh course outcome. I love peer reviewing, mostly because I love opinions and suggestions on my writing. I am no where near a perfect writer, and when I can get any input on my writing I really enjoy it, because I can only grow more as a writer from it. Comparing my drafts of my writing projects to the finals you can see the changes I made because of helpful peer reviewing.

We then had to assess our own strengths in writing, which was the eight outcome. Having the instructor critique my different writing projects, I was able to learn from my mistakes, especially with MLA formatting. Most of the corrections and/or suggestions always made to me were to fix my MLA. I think I definitely was able to grasp MLA a lot better thanks to all the feedback which helped me grow as a writer. In my different deadline and writing project reflections, I also show this and other areas of where I was improving.

Number nine was use technology to assist us with the entire class. Being in the technology field already, I was not too worried about this. However, after having to use some technology I never really touched on, like Google Docs, I was able to learn a lot. Google Docs is an amazing tool because of how you can distribute and share it to anyone, and its ability to handle live editing from each shared user. This is a great piece of technology and I plan to use it in the future, for both work and school as I progress.

D15, HW2, Peer Review

Peer reviewed: Kathy & Stephann

This time around it was a lot harder to peer edit. I think it has to do with people did grow a lot as a writer just from this class alone. The other thing is, because in this type of paper you can be very personal, it is also a little harder to peer edit. I did learn from peer reviewing and also from being peer reviewed I do need to link back to my blog. Before, I just was pointing out the different deadlines as evidence, but I do need to link to them to make it easier to understand. I think that everyone, including myself, has improved and grown as a writer looking back at the beginning of this class.

D14, HW1, WP#4 Draft

Jared Zucker

Eng 102-7891

29 Nov. 2007

WP4 Draft

Reflective Cover Letter

Taking all the past deadlines into consideration, I can definitely show that my strength has a writer has done nothing but improve. I have learned a lot in this class, including organizational skills and being effective in research.

The first course outcome included writing “for specific rhetorical contexts”, which also included things like purpose and audience. In Deadline 3, Homework Assignment 3, I had to create a search plan for my ultimate research question. By doing this it helped me narrow down my audience and my topic.

The second course outcome included organizing my writing to support my main research question. Writing Project #2, the Annotated Bibliography helped with this tremendously. It helped me organize all of my sources, especially for both sides of the argument. I was able to brainstorm with ideas even while organizing all of these because I had such a plentiful amount of resources.

Having to use a proper tone, diction and grammar consistently was the third course outcome. Almost all of the writing assignments had key elements relating to each of those. Every grammar assignment helped work towards that, showing the growth of writing. For instance, I had a hard time with transitioning one paragraph to the next to keep a constant flow. Using The Owl at Purdue as one of my resources, I was able to learn how to make my paragraphs connect and link together better by writing better transitions.

The forth, evaluating both online and print sources. I prefer online research much more than print sources, just because the ease of access and effectiveness of it. However, you can usually trust a book that is in a library and give it credibility. This is not the same for the Internet. You really have to examine the websites and online journals you are puling research from, because it is not always valuable or truthful information. Writing Project #2, the Annotated Bibliography, is evidence of research I have conducted using the Internet, such as online databases and directories, and also actual book research.

The fifth outcome was to integrate different sources to develop my own ideas. I was to do this by taking someone else’s writing and turning it into my own, like summarizing or paraphrasing. Throughout all of the reading reflections and different writing projects one can see my citations in MLA format. This can sometimes be difficult to do, especially when pulling a lot of statistics from one source, but I have definitely learned a lot about MLA format and plagiarism by Writing Project #3 alone.

Number six refers to using proper MLA-style formatting, which was the required format for this class. It was a little tricky for me at first, with citing my sources. However, by the time Writing Project 2, the Annotated Bibliography came around, I was able to cite all of my sources properly as proven by the instructor’s critique.

Peer reviewing was the seventh course outcome. I love peer reviewing, mostly because I love opinions and suggestions on my writing. I am no where near a perfect writer, and when I can get any input on my writing I really enjoy it, because I can only grow more as a writer from it. Comparing my drafts of my writing projects to the finals you can see the changes I made because of helpful peer reviewing.

We then had to assess our own strengths in writing, which was the eight outcome. Having the instructor critique my different writing projects, I was able to learn from my mistakes, especially with MLA formatting. Most of the corrections and/or suggestions always made to me were to fix my MLA. I think I definitely was able to grasp MLA a lot better thanks to all the feedback which helped me grow as a writer. In my different deadline and writing project reflections, I also show this and other areas of where I was improving.

Number nine was use technology to assist us with the entire class. Being in the technology field already, I was not too worried about this. However, after having to use some technology I never really touched on, like Google Docs, I was able to learn a lot. Google Docs is an amazing tool because of how you can distribute and share it to anyone, and its ability to handle live editing from each shared user. This is a great piece of technology and I plan to use it in the future, for both work and school as I progress.

D13, HW7, Deadline Reflection

This week was a little easier, just having the main focus on the final touches on the paper. No one peer reviewed my essay which is one thing I wish would have happened..I like peer editing and enjoy criticism on my writing, because fresh ideas are always a great touch. I look forward to completing WP4 as well.

http://laceyariz.blogspot.com - Kathy, D13, HW7, Deadline Reflection | D13, HW3, Writing Reflection

http://ktmdude88.blogspot.com - Mike, D13, HW3, Writing Reflection | D13, HW7, Deadline Reflection

http://sparizek-armywife.blogspot.com - Stephann - D13, HW3, Writing Reflection