It seems hard to imagine that someone can steal your home but it can happen. With everything becoming digital these days proof of ownership is key. In the UK proof of ownership of a property resides with the Land Registry. It maintains a database of all registered properties within the UK along with the names and contact details of their owners.
A criminal using identity theft can assume the identity of a legitimate owner of a property and then either instruct a solicitor to sell it or a lettings agent to rent it out with the proceeds of the sale or rental agreement going to an account set up in the name of the stolen identity. These types of thefts are often targeted at unmortgaged, rented, or unoccupied properties.
To combat this type of fraud property owners can set up an alert for any properties they own with the Land Registry’s free Property Alert service here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/property-alert
After your home your next biggest asset is probably your car. In the UK proof of ownership is a combination of the V5C document combined with receipts from wherever you purchased the vehicle. Scammers target the V5C by attempting to get you to share a copy of it (for example in order to advertise it for sale online) or by applying for a copy reporting it lost or stolen after cloning your identity or intercepting your communications. You can reduce the chance of this from happening by keeping your V5C safe and secure and not sharing it with anyone. Also keep a copy of all receipts relating to the vehicle to support your proof of ownership.
Tag: digital
Digital mindfulness
I’ve discovered a new form of relaxation, using a digital form of procrastination that I like to call digital mindfulness.
To indulge in this past-time you have to have reached a god-like mode in an open-world video game. Something that can be played offline where you have completed the game, or campaign, and unlocked everything. By everything I mean one hundred percent completion of absolutely everything and every easter egg found and all weaponry and power-ups unlocked. Your character is essentially pretty indestructible.
Once in this state whenever you are bored you can just boot your game and just go explore the digital world aimlessly, maybe collecting more stuff, killing stuff, exploring looking for possible easter eggs that no one has found yet, or at least reported online.
There are several such go-to games in my collection depending on my mood.
For something mild where children are around I like to dip into Lego City Undercover. I enable a few mods such as turbo on all vehicles so I can get around faster. It’s a pleasant PG way to pass some time.
For something more adult there’s Days Gone. Get on your customised motorbike and head out into the post apocalyptic wasteland hunting freakers and looking for easter eggs. There are a few. Have you found the naughty photograph or bottles of whiskey?
My current favourite is Horizon Zero Dawn. I have the sequel to play but somehow I just like dipping back into the game with my shimmering armour exploring the various landmass areas hunting machines and crafting. Hours can easily pass before you notice.
They say everyone should practise mindfulness as a form of meditation and a way to relax. I’d like to add digital mindfulness to that recommendation. Go try it.
Digital Minimalism
There’s an almost OCD quality around the art of minimalism. Owning only the fewest of items necessary to deliver the quality and experiences you desire from life. Everything in its place and position. Feng shui’d to perfection if you will. A tidy desk / room / office / house is a tidy mind as they say.
I’ve been thinking about minimalism recently, but in terms of the digital world. I hate clutter. I mean I really hate it. Things have to be tidy and in their place, and this goes for my devices. My laptop and tablet desktops need to be organised and de-cluttered. The amount of apps installed must not be excessive. The amount of data on my hard drives should not be more than is necessary to allow me to complete my work and to entertain me. Anything else should be backed-up to secure storage.
Many years ago when working for a large corporation, one of my tasks was OS-hardening. This involved taking a working solution and performing a deep-dive into the operating system of each server with a view to reducing its footprint. By that I mean reducing the amount of hard drive space needed in order for the system to perform the required tasks to the agreed requirements, securely. That meant removing all unnecessary applications and files, streamlining the OS down to the bare minimum, thus reducing its footprint. This reduced the need for large storage media, sped up install and backup times, and reduced the attack surface.
Although I no longer perform OS-hardening these days, I still have this almost OCD compulsion to continue to optimise all my devices, reducing the amount of apps installed to just enough to perform the required tasks, and to keep the data on the devices to a minimum. It can be very cathartic at times, and it keeps my devices from running out of storage space and from draining the battery too quickly.
I call it digital minimalism.