The Online Underworld

Carrie Kirby reports for the San Francisco Chronicle on the online underworld where private personal information is quickly and easily sold over the Internet.

The credit card numbers, bank account numbers, eBay accounts and other data sold there are stolen in corporate security breaches like the one at ChoicePoint, through offline crime like old-fashioned pickpocketing, and through scams known as "phishing" attacks, in which criminals trick people into revealing account information with slick-looking fake e-mails.

In a related story, Kirby reports on the latest kinds of phishing attacks.