Underground market for stolen IDs thrives

USA Today is running a feature length story on ID theft and recent privacy/security incidents. Worth reading:

Yahoo! News - Underground market for stolen IDs thrives:

"...The incident underscores the trove of personal digital data floating in cyberspace and the thriving underground market for stolen IDs, law-enforcement officials and security experts say. It also highlights the conundrum of data brokers, who collect and sell personal information about virtually every U.S. resident but are not federally regulated.

'Crooks are getting better at hacking, scamming and breaking down doors,' says privacy expert Linda Goldman-Foley. 'And one of their biggest targets are data brokers.'

That has complicated the jobs of privacy advocates and security experts, who already face a rise in profit-motivated hackers and sophisticated computer viruses designed to filch personal information. Now, they must increasingly cope with paper records stolen from offices and dumpsters that are quickly spread over the Internet...."