Your Secrets Are My Business: A Security Expert Reveals How Your Trash, Telephone, License Plate, Credit Cards, Computer, and Even Your Mail Make You an Easy Target for Today's Information Thieves [Hardcover]

Kevin McKeown (Author), Dave Stern (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 25, 2001

Filled with fascinating stories, this is an eye-opening look at the private investigation business and how vulnerable we all are to information and identity thieves.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Privacy is almost obsolete. There's an army of data miners out there digging up as much dirt as possible on you, your loved ones, and practically everyone else in the world, but you can plug up the leaks if you know their tricks. Security experts Kevin McKeown and Dave Stern want to show you who's looking, what he or she is looking for, and how that person is getting access to your most private information, starting with Social Security number, address, and employer, and moving up to your buying habits and your children's play habits. Your Secrets Are My Business is a 250-page self-help manual for the paranoid--and if you're not even a little nervous about who might be looking over your shoulder, by the time you've read the first chapter, you'll be eager for McKeown's suggestions. Even that holiest of holies, your credit-card number, is seen by more people than you probably trust--but if you carefully observe your purchasing habits, you can catch fraud before it wrecks your bank account.

The book alternates, on the one hand, between morbidly entertaining stories of McKeown's days in the trenches following the trail of insurance fraud to the Caribbean and digging through Dumpsters to piece together criminal profiles and, on the other, extremely practical tips for ensuring your privacy (even if you aren't a villainous mastermind). The authors keep the reader interested while making their case for a return to old-fashioned notions of private life. It takes quite a bit of energy to protect your personal information, but the freedom from harassment by junk mailers, telephone solicitors, and other unsavory types is worth it. Whether you want to know how to stay in hiding or just want to learn why people care about what car you drive, Your Secrets Are My Business will make your life seem a thousand times more interesting, because you'll see it through the eyes of a professional investigator. --Rob Lightner

From Library Journal

Private investigator McKeown relates many fascinating stories of his trade in this guide to protecting one's privacy. He argues that anything and everything about a person can be found with little effort or cost; caller ID and "cookies" in the computer system can compromise our privacy, and public records, mail, and trash are all accessible to those who want to harm us. McKeown's advice is timely and practical, e.g., he suggests keeping a disposable camera in the glove compartment to document an accident or road rage and shredding or bleaching any papers being thrown away. The book includes a brief list of online resources and organizations that promote privacy rights, but because it is written from the perspective of the victim, it does not list resources for information brokers or databases that allow online searches of tax liens, judgments, and court cases. A valuable addition to the books on personal privacy; for all collections.AHarry Charles, Attorney at Law, St. Louis
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Taylor Trade Publishing (October 25, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1563525771
• ISBN-13: 978-1563525773
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,042,221 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Learn how to reclaim your privacy, October 27, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Your Secrets Are My Business: Security Expert Reveals How your Trash License Plate Credit Cards cmptr Even you (Paperback)

This book makes it really clear that privacy doesn't exist. McKeown uses some very funny stories to illustrate the techniques the con men use to steal people's identities. Not only is this a fun read, it also has great reference information as to how to protect your credit, secure your privacy, and make it so you are NOT a target for the criminals. This is a book for everyone -- if you don't think you could be a target for the identity theives, you're wrong. If you're not careful, they can get enough information just from looking at your car parked in a parking lot to rip you off -- scary stuff.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Unusually informative!, September 30, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Your Secrets Are My Business: A Security Expert Reveals How Your Trash, Telephone, License Plate, Credit Cards, Computer, and Even Your Mail Make You an Easy Target for Today's Information Thieves (Hardcover)

I publish a newsletter on personal privacy and I am the author of a forthcoming book on this subject. Most of the books in this field--and I have them all--are full of generalizations and rehashed ideas. Kevin McKeown furnishes some surprising new information and co-author Dave Stern writes in an entertaining (if sometimes disorganized) fashion. If you wish to find out how private investigators can track you down, buy this book.

23 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Complete Waste of Time, March 10, 2006

By 

Clark (Bay Area, California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Your Secrets Are My Business: Security Expert Reveals How your Trash License Plate Credit Cards cmptr Even you (Paperback)

This book is WAY past its pull date. Full of warnings about not calling back the unrecognized number on your pager (pager?), the ease of using a consumer-grade scanner to evesdrop your cell phone calls (not since the cell network went digital!), and how you should shred paperwork with identifying information on it (duh!).

The over-riding assumption is that anyone with something to hide must be a criminal. The reader is told to vary your hours, commute route, and habits so 'they' can't catch you, because you must be trying to get away with something. For the rest of us law-abiding types, the message is "privacy is obsolete. get over it."

Even worse, the author and the ghost-writer (this is one of those books by someone WITH someone else) must have been paid by the word. It goes on and on and on, just to convey the merest morsel of a factoid.

But worst of all, the author is such a big shot, you're supposed to be really impressed with the names he drops and the James Bond-style exploits he pulled. He walked right into office buildings after-hours and stole bags of trash! He staked out the parking lot of the YMCA residence and guessed that the only non-hoopty in the lot belonged to the embezzeler! He shoulder-surfed the old man in line in front of him at the bank to learn his identity! Shaken-not-stirred stuff, you bet!

I have a lot of books on my shelf, and I don't mind reading a lot of pages to get a little information. But this turkey yielded NO information of use, and so it went right back in the box and back to Amazon.