Interesting that you've posted about credit freezes today... Brian Krebs just posted about the (deficient) security measures around removing a freeze with Experian.

Every day I learn more about these credit bureaus it becomes more apparent what a shitshow the whole industry is. And for some reason, there is no alternative and we're all stuck with it. thisisfine.jpg

Security and privacy are distinct but interlinked processes that depend heavily on one's threat model. It is good to give concrete examples and measures, but it would help others to gain insight into the threats they face, how/why they would face it, and therefrom protect against it.

1. What kind of threats are out there? (e.g. Who/what is behind identity theft in America? Why is it so ubiquitous? How will virtually every American be affected by this in their lifetime?)
2. What measures are there to protect against this? (e.g. credit freeze, setting up 2fa for your bank accounts, etc)
3. What will these measures fail to protect against? (e.g. social engineering using publicly available or leaked data, how the "no-call list" fails to stop Chinese call spoofers/spammers, etc)

I think it should be specified in the title (or at least somewhere in your post) that this is for US citizens only.

I've been on that "do not call" list for years now. It has done absolutely nothing as far as I can tell. Still get up to 10 spam calls per day. The majority are from made up numbers, with the first three digits the same as my own. I have no idea why they keep bothering, since I never answer, and they don't leave messages.

Every once in a while I get a robot saying something in Chinese. I also get repeated calls from people asking for Alvin, no clue who that is.