The Deadbeat Dad List – How to Stay Off of It
By Vanessa Blais

Stay­ing off the dead­beat dad list doesn’t have to be, and cer­tainly should not be, a covert oper­a­tion to escape child sup­port debts. In the harsh eco­nomic cli­mate of the United States right now, it’s under­stand­able for any­one to suf­fer the effects of lay­offs and fir­ings, but whether a cou­ple is together or apart, once kids are involved, you pull together to make sure those kids are pro­vided for.

#1. Get rid of the neg­a­tive mind­set. The first indi­ca­tion that a father is a ‘dead­beat dad’ is when he utters the words, “I am not going to pay her bills.” Sim­ple math. Mom makes $24,000 a year, Dad makes $36,000 a year. That’s a com­bined income of $60,000 year when the fam­ily is ‘whole’ and the money goes into a ‘col­lec­tive pot.’ Divorce ensues, and IF Mom is awarded and does get, 1/3 of Dad’s income for ‘sup­port’ that only equates to $12,000 in addi­tion to her $24,000, now giv­ing her only $36,000 a year on which to raise her chil­dren.

This may seem like enough money to raise a child on, but when you con­sider that the fam­ily based their mortgage/rent, car pay­ments, etc, on what they could afford BEFORE the break up, and you see that there is a $40,000 loss to the fam­ily as a whole, dev­as­ta­tion like fore­clo­sure and repossession become a loom­ing real­ity, and unex­pected and unforeseen cat­a­stro­phes no longer have the ben­e­fit of that addi­tional $40,000 year. You are not pay­ing “HER” bills, you are pro­vid­ing for your child.

It could be argued that Mom, or Dad, who­ever the cus­to­dial par­ent is, can down­size to a more afford­able home, and in some cases, that might be in everyone’s best inter­est. BUT, if the chil­dren are in school and have friends in the neigh­bor­hood, it might not be in their best inter­est to cre­ate yet another upheaval in their life. After all, they have just suf­fered a loss from the divorce and they are grieving and have had enough turmoil.

#2. It’s about the kids. It’s not about her, it’s not about you. It’s about THE KIDS. See last para­graph of #1. If you can’t find a job, and she can’t find a job, you make arrange­ments to help each other with child care trade-offs, and with help­ing each other find ways to make money with­out a job.

#3. Goes back to rule #2, find cre­ative ways to make money. The United States is one of the eas­i­est places in the world to become an entre­pre­neur, and the Inter­net has pro­vided no short­age of oppor­tu­ni­ties to do so. One father, who pays his child sup­port on time, had to move to another state for his job. He went out and started col­lect­ing stuff that peo­ple were giv­ing away on Craigslist and sell­ing it on Craigslist, hav­ing garage sales every week­end, and even sell­ing stuff on eBay, just to have the extra money he needed for gas just to drive to exer­cise his vis­i­ta­tion with his daughter.

#4. Don’t pun­ish. Often­times, a par­ent will attempt to do things to ‘pun­ish’ the other par­ent. Look you prob­a­bly both did a lot wrong in the rela­tion­ship. Get over it. The kids deserve the best life that TWO par­ents can give them. They don’t deserve to suf­fer the wrath you have against the other par­ent. It not only hurts them, it makes you look like a sociopath.

#5. And this goes to both par­ents… you need to work together. I real­ize that if you could do that, odds are, you wouldn’t have split in the first place, but think about this… because of your imma­ture deci­sions to divorce, you chil­dren are already suf­fer­ing. Don’t make it any worse. They deserve so much more.

The deadbeat dad list is one that no one, man or woman, should ever be on. When you are lying on your deathbead, about to meet your maker, you are not going to be thinking, “I wish I could have done my kids other parent more harm.” You are going to think to yourself, “I wish I had been a better parent.” Be the best parent you can be. Take care of the kids. It’s more than not paying support that can make you a deadbeat dad.

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Thin Client Technology, Laptops and Identity Theft
By John Young

The Laptop Theft Epidemic

Possibly one of the most terrifying thefts that can happen to you is the theft of your laptop. Whether it’s your own personal computer, or a company computer you’ve taken along on a business trip, your laptop holds unaccountable information that probably you yourself don’t even know is there. A lot of information is in the form of passwords and web url’s that give a thief access to anything from your bank account numbers to your credit card statements, Federal and State tax forms, and that Holy Grail of all Holy Grails — your Social Security Number. Data on your computer is, of course, fully accessible to the thief.

According to Laptop Theft Resources, 20% of Data Breaches in 2008 were due to laptop theft.

Beyond the personal nightmare

But beyond the personal nightmare of having your own identity stolen comes information about your clients, either of your personal business or the company you may be working for. Recent horror stories include stolen laptops from insurance companies that keep the personal data of 10′s of thousands of clients. These have been stolen from employees who took the computer out of the office to do some work at home.

It’s estimated that an ordinary notebook contains $972,000 dollars worth of sensitive information and some could store over eight million dollars. Theft of a laptop makes up over 54% of all Identity Theft incidents and since 2005, there have been more than 150 million data breaches resulting in Identity Theft (Absolute Software). Yet, there seems to be an unaccountable apathy toward laptop theft. Starbucks, for example, reported in 2008 a theft that involved 97000 unencrypted records, social security numbers, and passwords but according to Laptop Theft Resources, media response was minimal, and the public seemed uninterested.

The Thin Client Solution to Identity Theft

By placing the lion’s share of information on a remote server and gaining access to it by strongly encrypted passwords, a thin client laptop effectively puts all the information processed by it out of the ID thief’s reach. The theft of a laptop would then involve only the hardware involved, and since a thin client’s value is only $500 – $600 (or less) this represents a much lower loss than a fully equipped laptop which can run well over $2000. And with modern theft recovery services such as LOJACK, the thin client can be easily recovered.

So why isn’t there a high demand for thin client laptops?

Little Demand for Thin Client Laptops?

So far, consideration of thin client technology has been pretty much limited to the Corporation. Consumers seem to have little demand for it. Several reasons might account for this: 1) Consumers want all of their software, data, and storage under their direct control. 2)The infrastructure is not yet fully developed. Google is working on the back end services necessary for thin client solutions. 3)The “airplane solution” has not yet been fully worked out. This solution would enable you to work on your data in places where access to the Internet is not available. 4) Wireless networks need to improve in band width and security. 5) Security of the remote servers and databases would have to be absolute and not hackable. Hacking into remote systems would be far more devastating than the theft of a single laptop. Instead of exposing 96000 people to Identity Theft, conceivably 100 million could be exposed once the system becomes universally accepted.

Is There a Future for Thin Client Notebooks?

Perhaps, though, the main hindrance to consumer acceptance of thin client laptops is apathy toward Identity Theft. In spite of the daily horror stories appearing in newspapers and on the Internet, we seem to cling to the attitude that “it happened to the other guy but it can’t happen to me”. Nothing could be farther from the truth, but until we as consumers really face the fact that any one of us can become victims at any time, we won’t really be willing to overcome our aversion to complete control, and possession, of all of our data on our personal computers.

Data can be made absolutely secure on a remote server; we have the technology for that. With that in mind, it becomes obvious that thin client laptops are the ultimate answer to laptop Identity Theft. But will we all someday be processing our data remotely, when a laptop theft involves the theft of hardware only? Will that day come?

It depends… It depends on you and me, and whether we are willing to take the step to the new paradigm of having our data and processing power located on a remote computer, not in our direct possession. We need first to recognize that Identity Theft is a horror that can indeed happen to us, and make whatever changes are necessary to prevent it. Secondly, we need to realize that the data we think is under our control can easily fall into the hands of a thief and will NO LONGER be in our possession.

Then we will be ready for “thin client” laptops.

Your Identity Stolen (http://www.youridentitystolen.com) is an online magazine devoted to publishing articles on Identity Theft and to provide information and resources for those who may have fallen victim to this crime epidemic.

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