Protect yourself when online

A friend of mine, let’s call him Dave, wrote to me recently about identity theft. He told me that all of his identifying information like phone numbers, email addresses, old passwords and his usual security questions, were all available on the dark web. He also had a number of notifications of personal information breaches that resulted in fraudulent charges, the need to replace credit cards and attempts to set up fake bank accounts in his name. The latter is used if a hacker is planning to get into your other accounts so they can transfer funds to themselves under your name.

– How does this happen? Information is being collected on you all the time. If you use services like TikTok, then it’s the Chinese government collecting the data. If you use other services, it will be…