"Dark web Monitoring" sofrware

[Barbara_C]

Is it worth the money? I don't know much about it but during a AMEX free credit report came out and said some of my data has been found on the dark web....whatever that means it does not sound good.
Should you sign up from one of the many services out there? or is it much to do about nothing....

[INC]

You will share your details for free... NO.

[m j b]

I'm a "no" as well. Lots of free services out there, I think it's one of my credit cards (Chase, perhaps?) that sends me periodic notifications.

Just assume that everything about you, including social security number and all passwords, are already out there and act accordingly. I'm serious. It's that bad now.

[danbl68]

Agree it is not worth it. Best thing to do is go on all of the credit agency sites and freeze your accounts. You can always unfreeze before a purchase.

[1William]

Pass.

[brandrea]

I must admit, I’m not familiar with this enough. I try to be careful about my personal information, but at the same time it’s “out there”.

[Dan Pierce]

Once you info is on the dark web not sure there's anything you can do about it anyway. As stated earlier, lock your credit and keep an eye on all your accounts.
dP

[brandrea]

So totally oblivious to this dark web stuff ….

How does your information get on there in the first place?
What is the dark web?

Thanks

[MrGoat]

Originally Posted by brandrea

So totally oblivious to this dark web stuff ….

How does your information get on there in the first place?
What is the dark web?

Thanks

Nefarious individuals steal your info through phishing or data breaches. The place they sell that data to scammers is on the dark web.

I’ve never been there but I’m told it is a very dark place. My understanding is individuals looking for ANYTHING can find it on the dark web. Sexual content, torture, death, identities and anything else you can think of that wouldn’t be legal to sell or view on the regular internet.

As for the OP’s question. There is nothing you can do about your info being on the dark web. If you’re not provided monitoring services through an employer or entity responsible for compromising your data in the first place, then you are the product. I am provided identity monitoring services for life through the OPM due to a data breach of the federal governments system. It has told me my info is on the dark web and it will show me a synopsis of what is available on the dark web. Luckily, the info there is not near current other than my name and social. Best idea as has been said by a few on this thread is lock your credit through all three bureaus.

Best of luck.


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[subtona]

Seems like every major entity that you have given your info to or have some govt requirement to have it, has been hacked over the years. Health care , credit reporting, pharmacies tech companies, social media etc

Experian comes to mind… their response to the hack was “ no one said your social security number has an expectation of privacy.”

In that statement they shrugged off their responsibility to protect your data and gave you an indication that they are selling your info.

Facebook get hacked regularly…I expect by design
Apple has been hacked
Chinese programmers have stolen IP to unfathomable levels

And each time the end user gets to jump through more hoops.
Facial
Authentication app
Routine password changes
15 character complex passwords
Random denial of actual correct passwords
Finger print
Phone number
Email
Captcha
Etc

And each of the entities requiring the expanded authentication practices are losing the very data that they are requiring.


But my most concerning expectation is that your phone and email are significant security factors to identify each of us. At the same time each of those is owned by a for profit entity. Each of those can be lost and access denied through a variety of obstacles that are growing.

When I am told by a random place, a restaurant or a shoe store for example, that I can not have service without providing my phone number.
it Makes me wonder wtf is going on.

Rant over :)

[Krash]

Dark Web is the Internet. There is no difference in terms of underlying infrastructure. But you typically need special software to access Dark Web Content.

Earlier this year, I was playing around with the Dark Web, but I just didn’t want to dig that deep into the rabbit hole. So I lost interest and gave up. Plus, it’s not very easy to navigate. There is no google search engine, for example.

In terms of data being available on the Dark Web, you need to know the context. If your SSN is on a list, that sounds bad, but if it’s not tied to your name, address, or an account number, then it’s not very useful to anyone with ill intent.

Same with a credit card account number. If that’s on some Dark Web list, that by itself is not an issue. But if your name, account number, zip code, and CVC code are on the same Dark Web list, then that’s a problem.


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[TRS1]

I’ve heard the dark web explained to me like this-

“picture the internet as the hood of your car, and the dark web is what’s underneath when you open the hood.”

[Barbara_C]

Originally Posted by brandrea

So totally oblivious to this dark web stuff ….

How does your information get on there in the first place?
What is the dark web?

Thanks

i thought it was some scam the credit reporting companies came up with to scare you into spending money for nothing.

The best idea is keep act locked.......since i only use one or two cards 99 percent of the time out of 11 i have.....but do jump on the free 0.0 stuff when it shows up.....but i use discover more than any other card.
I went back down to American Express green card which is still too high for what you get but since ive had a card with them for 42 years....wth
If i flew all over like i did 20 +
years ago it makes since for gold cards.....but in my old age no.

[Krash]

Originally Posted by TRS1

I’ve heard the dark web explained to me like this-

“picture the internet as the hood of your car, and the dark web is what’s underneath when you open the hood.”

Well, logically yes, but physically no.

We can create a Rolex Forum on the Dark Web if we wanted to. We would push all the content to web servers or the cloud just like any other website. No changes there.

The only difference is that we would go in dark. Nobody would see us.

All subscribers would be required to download special software to their desktop to access us. That would be the only way to see any of the content. It’s really not that different than how much of the internet worked in the early 1990s.

When they say dark web, that’s exactly what it is. It’s on the internet but it goes in dark and access is restricted to only people that have the right tools.


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[TC94]

Originally Posted by Barbara_C

i thought it was some scam the credit reporting companies came up with to scare you into spending money for nothing.

The best idea is keep act locked.......since i only use one or two cards 99 percent of the time out of 11 i have.....but do jump on the free 0.0 stuff when it shows up.....but i use discover more than any other card.
I went back down to American Express green card which is still too high for what you get but since ive had a card with them for 42 years....wth
If i flew all over like i did 20 +
years ago it makes since for gold cards.....but in my old age no.

Remember if your credit card is hacked, your risk and exposure are limited to a very small $$ amount. Just monitor transactions and report anything suspicious as soon as you notice it. My wife’s cards have been hacked and used around 5 times in the past 5 years. Each time she immediately called, the transactions were canceled and new card issued.

As others have said, almost all of our info is already out there due to data breaches. AMEX also notifies me of this occasionally. We all froze our credit, including the adult kids. That’s really all you need to do.

These monitoring services are really just another unneeded subscription expense, and they try to scare you into paying up. Every time a company gets hacked, I get an offer for 6-12 months of “free” monitoring. My friends tell me as soon as you sign up, they start the hard upsell emails and texts. The companies also hope you won’t cancel after the free period, thus wasting money for months to years after.

[330ci]

knowing your information is on the dark web is likely just due to a large data breach and it’s known that your data was apart of it.

As for it ending up on the dark web; basically you can buy lists of bank accounts or personal data, credit card lists, etc and people use these to make illegal purchases which are converted to cash. Your information will be amongst a list of 10s to dozens of others sold off to people who sort, test and find out who are the best targets.

Once your info is out there; it’s not like you aren’t already protected from fraud through CC & banks anyways. Not sure why one would pay for additional service.


Iykyk, a quick google search will tell you the up and running dark web markets still around. Once you go there, you will realize the evil that lies amongst us. Any object or service you can imagine at your fingertips.

The worst part is that the government is well aware and they just don’t care. They shut down Silk Road because they didn’t like the illegal weapons being sold on it(through a silk road subsidiary called “the armory” at the time) it posed national security threats. Then they arrested dread pirate Robert’s, and now the marketplaces are more or less left alone as long as the criminals don’t cross the invisible lines of the CIA

The craziest part is that the government will entrap people trying to hire hits; but won’t hire hits to entrap the actual hitmen. The monitoring of the marketplace is generally targeted at the end user and not organizer.

This is also how people are auctioned off for modern day human trafficking.i believe a lot more will come to light over the next year in regards to this topic. But it seems quite apparent that organizations are auctioning off humans, shipping them through ports and utilizing the dark web to facilitate the transactions.

I genuinely don’t understand how we aren’t doing more to stop crime given how easy it is for anyone to access and infiltrate the majority of these marketplaces. Even with a VPN and Tor; you’re not untraceable these days. Then theress blockchain signatures to transactions that can be matched up to sales and the only way to avoid that is to physically exchange a hard wallet for their purchase.



https://www.ice.gov/news/releases/ro...rison-creating

It is interesting this is more or less the only person they’ve gone after for hosting. If I were to place a bet; I’d bet that the US Government oversees the bulk of dark web transactions today. There were plenty of LEO actively trading on Silk Road back in the day as well; which was uncovered at the time, and I don’t think they all were apart of active investigations.

[enjoythemusic]

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[Blansky]

Originally Posted by subtona

And each time the end user gets to jump through more hoops.
Facial
Authentication app
Routine password changes
15 character complex passwords
Random denial of actual correct passwords
Finger print
Phone number
Email
Captcha
Etc

I love Captcha. It allows you to look at various pictures to choose which ones have telephone poles, buses or number of birds and you never get the right answer. I once went through 6 rounds of pictures for PayPal and 5 rounds to return a purchase a while back and still couldn't get in.

So much fun.

[Boothroyd]

Originally Posted by danbl68

Agree it is not worth it. Best thing to do is go on all of the credit agency sites and freeze your accounts. You can always unfreeze before a purchase.

This.

[wantonebad]

Yeah, many for-pay credit protection services are usually just offering the same options you can do on your own. Opting-out and credit freezes. No need to pay for this! Moreover everyone is on the "Darkweb" no one is 100% safe!

[Tricolore66]

Experian app and credit locks. I found out yesterday that I had an old Norton Lifelock account that auto renewed for $540. Spent 2 hours trying to fix that and get my money back. Worst company ever, total scumbag business practices. I’d rather negotiate with dark web hackers than deal with Norton.

[Barbara_C]

Originally Posted by Tricolore66

Experian app and credit locks. I found out yesterday that I had an old Norton Lifelock account that auto renewed for $540. Spent 2 hours trying to fix that and get my money back. Worst company ever, total scumbag business practices. I’d rather negotiate with dark web hackers than deal with Norton.

Many years and ago I signed up for some scam.....to make a long story short I had to call up the CC company.....I think it was discover and told them I had lost the card and to send a new one to get them to stop charging on my card. I've had Discover 24 years and AMEX for 43 years with stellar service....I know AMEX charges to much now and I'm back down to the green card....but I never leave home without those 2 cards. and some Wells Fargo Visa.

[BNA/LION]

We keep an eye on CC and bank accunts monitoring activity. We did get hacked once and they spent about $15k. We reported it, card was closed, did not have to pay, got new cards next day and the worst thing was contacting the companies we had the old card on file to update to the new one.

I'm not going to pay for a service. Simple watch your CC and bank accounts. Report any strange activity right away.

Good Luck Out There Everyone!

[Watchflair]

I recently froze all three of my bureaus. That seems like the only sure way to safeguard and protect.

I have a credit monitoring service from Amex and was constantly getting alerts about my information being on the dark web.

Couldn’t think of another way that would offer the level of confidence freezing does -


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[Krash]

Originally Posted by Watchflair

I recently froze all three of my bureaus. That seems like the only sure way to safeguard and protect.

I have a credit monitoring service from Amex and was constantly getting alerts about my information being on the dark web.

Couldn’t think of another way that would offer the level of confidence freezing does -


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We did that, too. Everyone should. But that still doesn’t totally prevent someone from commandeering your existing savings/checking/brokerage accounts. If you don’t have multi-factor authentication on one or more of your online banking/brokerage accounts, I strongly recommend moving your money to another bank that does.


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[TC94]

Originally Posted by Barbara_C

Many years and ago I signed up for some scam.....to make a long story short I had to call up the CC company.....I think it was discover and told them I had lost the card and to send a new one to get them to stop charging on my card.

One best practice is to never point out on the internet which cards you own using your real name and/or initials along with your current home location.

Especially in the era of AI data mining. You don’t have to be logged in here to capture the info.

Just meant to be a sincerely helpful tip.

[Calatrava r]

Isn't the dark web websites which the search engines do not list. So, you would have to have the address to access such a website. I would be careful and not log onto any site you are not familiar with if it does not come up on a search engine. Just logging on some places can cause legal issues.

[Krash]

Originally Posted by Calatrava r

Isn't the dark web websites which the search engines do not list. So, you would have to have the address to access such a website. I would be careful and not log onto any site you are not familiar with if it does not come up on a search engine. Just logging on some places can cause legal issues.

Yes. Basically, dark websites are not accessible via search engines or traditional browsers. But they utilize the same underlying infrastructure. It’s not like a completely different internet (like some people believe). You typically need special software to access these sites.

That’s why they call it the dark web, because these sites are literally dark from the average person’s point of view.


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[TC94]

Originally Posted by Calatrava r

Isn't the dark web websites which the search engines do not list. So, you would have to have the address to access such a website. I would be careful and not log onto any site you are not familiar with if it does not come up on a search engine. Just logging on some places can cause legal issues.

Correct. The Tor browser is most commonly used to access sites on the dark web. There are other ways.

[Blansky]

Saw this today on the dark web browsing....


https://lifehacker.com/tech/how-to-browse-the-dark-web