Sending Personal Information Over the Internet.

Who are those guys? I couldn't do that. Could you do that? Why can they do it? Who ARE those guys?

--Butch Cassidy in the movie Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

When sending personal information over the internet, you should know or check out the guys to whom you're sending the information. And what does sending personal information over the net have to do with trucking? Well, drivers are increasingly looking on-line to find companies and driving jobs. Many times the company or site will invite you to put in an application, including personal information such as your social security number, name and date of birth, state of license and license number, etc.

This is information that identity thieves covet and while being the most publicized, on-line identity theft is not the most common form of identity theft. Most identity theft occurs in old-fashioned ways: your billfold or purse is stolen, your mail is intercepted or someone goes through your trash to get records you have thrown out.

That's not to say your personal information cannot be intercepted on the internet. You should be careful. As more drivers go to the web for job hunting help, the likelihood of unscrupulous entities following increases.

When you provide personal information over the web, make sure the page is secure. Check the security by looking for the "https" rather than "http" in the address bar, and look for the padlock (on some browsers) next to the address bar or elsewhere.

Checking for this security is important for several reasons.

Security of your information during transmission

A secure connection is an encrypted exchange of information between the website you are visiting and your internet browser. Encryption is provided through a document the website provides called a certificate. When you send information to the website, it is encrypted at your computer and decrypted at the website. Under normal circumstances, the information cannot be read or tampered with while it is being sent. As for the abnormal circumstances, most thieves will find a simpler way to steal the information.

Authentication Practices

Frankly, I think the authentication of the business asking for your information is as important as the encryption. It's somewhat of a hassle and costs money to get-some unscrupulous companies would rather just try their schemes without getting the certificate.

Every SSL Certificate is created for a particular server in a specific domain for a verified business entity. Like a passport or a driver's license, an SSL Certificate is issued by a trusted authority, the Certificate Authority (CA). When the SSL handshake occurs, the browser requires authentication from the server. A customer sees the organization name when they click certain SSL trust marks or use a browser that supports Extended Validation. If the information does not match or the certificate has expired, the browser displays an error message or warning.

How to Check Out/Validate the Identity of a Website.

The following instructions apply for Internet Explorer, if you use a different browser, it could be different.

1. Open you browser.
2. Go to the website that you want to validate.
3. Click on the certificate (e.g., VeriSign, GeoTrust, etc.) If there is no certificate go to one of the pages that asks you to input personal information.
4. This page asking for personal information should be secure (https in the address bar).
5. Click the "Padlock" icon
   Basic certificate information (for example, the name and address of the website owner and information about who certified the site) will be displayed. To see additional information, click View Certificates.