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To: Lynn who wrote (14046)	1/28/1999 10:24:00 AM
From: QwikSand	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 64865

<OT> I would appreciate it if someone could post a link to any article or study that showed how much credit card information was actually hijacked from the internet and illegally used in some recent period, compared with how much was stolen out of trash bins and manual copying during store sales. My opinion is that the myth of hackers watching your every move on the internet to steal credit card information out of web forms and email directories is an urban legend. (The government, maybe. Hackers, no.) It's only a little less fanciful than the "don't flash your lights at a car coming the other way or they'll shoot you" story, or the one that goes "I heard about this guy who picked up a girl in a bar, took her to a hotel room, and woke up in a bathtub full of ice with a note on the wall that said you are missing a kidney so call 911". Though those are absurd on their face, I've met people who honestly believe them and will vigorously defend their veracity. I'm telling you: people want to believe ghost stories. There are plenty of hackers trying to break into computers, no doubt. And some of them will steal data when and if they get in. Still, they represent by far the least significant of all the various genuine threats to your credit card security. Regards, --QwikSand

To: Lynn who wrote (14046)	1/28/1999 4:17:00 PM
From: Byron Xiao	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 64865

I order a lot of books through the internet [rarely Amazon or B&N] and send my credit card number in two e-mails. The first has the first three series of numbers. The second has the last series of numbers and the expiration date. By doing it this was I feel pretty safe sending my credit card information. Lynn Lynn, don't ever send your credit cards info in email. THIS IS NOT SAFE!!!! Your emails are NOT encrypted. Your PC probably use IP6 or earlier, it's probably using the SMTP protocol to send mails. Again, this is not safe, your email may be routed to some gateways on the internet where a hacker is sniffing. He/She would have no problem downloading your email in IP packets and look at it!!! This is different than when you send that information through a secure site. In that scenario, they probably use a 64bit encryption techniques. It would be virtually impossible for the hacker to decrypt that information. I mean the hacker will probably have to spend millions of dollars AND years of computation time to find out what it is even using a SUNW 64 processor Starfire machine!!! Again, DO NOT send credit card info in email, that's the stupidest and laziest thing to do in the internet. Personally, when I registered with a secure site, if the secured site would send my password confirmation back to me thru email, I would immediately cancel that account. You got to be kidding me when you said you would send your credit card info thru email. Don't ever do that again.