Does The Fraud Museum Give Too Much Away?

from the information-is-power dept

There's a continuous argument over whether or not more fraud is prevented by getting information out into the world, or by keeping it private. Those who believe that information can only help believe that knowing how people commit fraud will help others build better preventative systems. Those who are against that, feel that the information is only teaching another generation of hackers. Dan Clements clearly falls onto the "information should be free" side, and has set up a (for profit) online museum of credit card hacks that describes in detail how many credit card hacks take place. The idea, he claims, is that companies can get all of this information in one place and prepare better systems to combat credit card fraud. His critics (including the person who wrote the article) fear that there's too much info presented that tell a wannabe credit card hacker how to get started in virtual breaking and entering. I'd agree that the entrance fee probably stops many credit card hacker types from joining, but I'd imagine they've found their own, non-paying, ways in to the site already. It's also pretty clear that most of the info on his site is not new. If someone really wants to learn the tricks of the trade of online credit card fraud, they're going to learn it somewhere else.

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