This & That, Ceci et Cela

Another reason to start keeping your money under your mattress:
“Along a crowded stretch of highway just south of central Miami is a shopping area that might be called the data theft capital of the United States. Criminals have obtained the cardholder information of tens of thousands of customers at four major stores there, including the retail chain DSW Shoes. Recent investigations reveal that the thieves targeted stores with strong wireless signals and weakly protected data. While their exact methods are not known, they could have parked a car outside a store or set up in the local Starbucks, using a laptop computer outfitted with an ordinary Wi-Fi receiver. The thieves robbed the same shops again and again of premium card account numbers stored in their databanks. Then, after about a month or so they moved on - to another shop on the same side of the street.” (IHT)