Improved security for shredders

[Random Netizen]

Perhaps, but many cases of identity theft can be traced back to careless disposal of paper-based information.

[Dave]

Do you have a locked mailbox?

[mm]

What did they do to King on South Park. That's what I'm going to do to my documents.

>

[mm]

I'm sure that is true of you, but I like the story from a few years ago.

A man was doing something bad, stealing from the company or something.

Some woman would take his trash bags, leaving dummy trash bags of the same brand in their place. Then she would go home and glue the strips to a backing until she found out what they said, and I forget what he was doing but he got caught for it.

[Erik]

A couple of things I do...

1) I dump shredded documents straight into the garbage without a bag... that way someone can't easily just grab a bag and run. 2) I always dump them just before the trash truck comes. Not fool proof, but adds a couple of easy, effective free toughening protection layers. 3) I have a pair of 10" long sheet metal snips I keep in my desk to chop up old back up CD's, credit card's and the like. Cutting stuff like that is easy with them. BTW, a 'safer' cleaner way bust a CD in a pinch is to put it in the middle of a magazine, or newspaper section before flexing and snapping.

I actually caught some of my competition going through my trash late one night.

Those drive up post office mail boxes I think are dangerous too. They get full and the mail backs up the chute to where anyone can grab it. If your in a low car, you often can't even see if the mail is backing up. I've seen mail literally hanging out these boxes, and people there trying to jam in more... amazing.

[Mark Lloyd]

So you actually WANT spyware?

Something reminds me of wanting a bulletproof suit, and going out to buy a gun instead.

:-)

[Mark Lloyd]

[e-mail]

Some people are unable to think about more than ONE security threat.

[Mark Lloyd]

I didn't know that worms could read.

[Mys Terry]

One thing you can do is LOOK at all receipts before you throw them away. Most businesses equipment is set up so only the last 4 digits of your credit card number are visible. Some restaurants, gas stations and other small businesses have the whole account number printed on the receipt, along with your name. How handy! You REALLY don't want to throw that away without obliterating it completely.

NEVER throw receipts away at the place of business or in public places. Always keep them until you get home.

[mm]

Wow. What do you do for a living?

They don't anticipate problems. Neither do I most of the time, but I would consider leaving the mail hanging out to be "Put[ting] a stumbling block before the blind." Tempting someone to commit a crime by making it very easy. Can't do it.

[Erik]

I consult.

I just thought it to be amazing anyone anyone would leave their mail (or anything for all that matter) accessible like that....

Erik

[Goedjn]

That's why my house has a chimney.

[Goedjn]

Fine, unless you use your compost on your vegetable garden, in which case you'll want to know what chemicals are in the assorted inks, and what the uptake-rate is for your plants.

[mm]

They pay you to do that! I would have thought people consult you. ;)

[jtnospam]

Someone suggested mixing the shreddings with cat litter throwaways. Why not use the shreddings in the litterbox for litter?-Jitney

[Grumman-581]

Anything that has my name and address on it gets shredded, even junk mail if it isn't addressed to "Resident"... Bills and such that might have account numbers or junk mail that might be offering credit cards get shredded and then put in a 5g plastic bucket that I fill with water and pulp the mixture for a few days... I have a paint / sheetrock mud mixing blade that I put in my drill and use to stir it up... The shaft of the device comes through a hole in the 5g bucket so that it doesn't make a mess... Sometimes I'll take this mixture and mix with concrete if I'm building something -- a quart of it added to an 80 lb bag of concrete doesn't affect it much, especially if it's just concrete fill for a CMU (aka "cinder block")... Sometimes I'll mix it up with the dirt in the landscaping beds... Sometimes I'll just throw some of it in a plastic grocery bag, wait for the water to leak out of it, and then throw the semi-dry mass away... The term for it is "pulping" I seriously doubt that anyone could piece together the fibers of the slurry and make anything out of it... The advantage of it over burning is that you can deposit the paper bits into the existing slurry mix, run the mixer for a minute or so and forget about it... Burning requires you to monitor the burn process, stirring it frequently so that everything turns to ash, not just charred paper bits... Of course, you could periodically flush a cup of the slurry every time you went to the bathroom... I suspect mixing it with your landscaping soil is more ecologically sound, albeit not as convenient as a flush...