[Katrina-IT-Volunteers] phone numbers for FEMA id may be bad idea

[Gemar, Edward]

I'd recommend using their SNN for their password.  Hopefully that should
be relatively secure.  I know that's what my credit card company uses to
identify me, but whatever works.  Also, when they log in to the FEMA
account to check the status of their app FEMA makes you change the PIN
that they emailed to you.  So if you are setting up one of these
accounts, I'd recommend helping them log in at least once and changing
the PIN (again maybe to their SSN) before writing it down on the summary
paper slips.  Otherwise, their PIN will change the first time they log
in and they may not remember to write it down.  This helps out the next
volunteers too.

The main thing is putting all of the important info in a single place so
that the evacuee and the next person to help them have what they need.
There were some people I worked with last night that apparently hadn't
remembered their PIN, etc. and signed up for FEMA again.  When I helped
them check their status with the PIN they got the second time, it said
their new application was rejected because there was already one in the
system.  Unfortunately, these folks had no way to get to review their
original application because they didn't remember/write down/had wrong
the info to log into their original FEMA account.

I heard that people from FEMA were going to be at the convention center
today so hopefully they can help some of the people that submitted
applications but can't review their status with the info they have.



-----Original Message-----
From: katrina-it-volunteers-bounces at soaustin.net
[mailto:katrina-it-volunteers-bounces at soaustin.net] On Behalf Of David
DeMaris
Sent: Friday, September 09, 2005 2:32 PM
Cc: <katrina-it-volunteers at soaustin.net>
Subject: [Katrina-IT-Volunteers] phone numbers for FEMA id may be bad
idea

Phone number as ID/password scares me - sad to say there seem to be 
people trying to take advantage of the government revenue stream, 
insurance, etc.   If they could just put numbers from the phone book of 
flooded wards/parishes in, scammers could probably get in and change 
information like the address to receive benefits, etc.

On Sep 9, 2005, at 1:32 PM, Gemar, Edward wrote:
> transferring it to one of these.  Also, when possible I was having
> people use numbers (their phone number of SSN) for Id and Password
> information when signing up for FEMA etc. because there is no risk of
> problems with mixing up lower/upper case letters when doing this.  I
> worked with a person last night who did have all of their info written
> down, but they had gotten the case wrong so we had to try many
> combinations of upper/lower case, but it finally worked.
> Click here to donate to the Hurricane Katrina relief effort.
> http://store.yahoo.com/redcross-donate3/
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>
David DeMaris  demaris at well.com

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