Obtaining your personal information is easy.  Just by someone simply digging in your garbage can, can, get a hold of your information.  That's why it's so important to tear up or better yet shred up your personal documents.  A wise investment would be to by a paper and credit card shredder and use it on a consistent bases.  Using the same article by Obringer, page 3, she goes on to say about obtaining your personal information, "Basically, anywhere you've provided that information can be a target. Often, employees who have access to the information are bribed or offered a cut of the profits in exchange for personal information about other employees. The more sophisticated the perpetrator, the more money is stolen and the more people scammed. Clerks can even put skimmers on the credit card machines that will record credit card information for later use. Temporary employees seem to be more frequently involved in identity theft scandals than permanent employees, simply because fewer background checks are done on them." 

Below is a list of different ways that thieves can obtain your personal information.  Watch out for this and be sure to protect yourself from people stealing your information.

From a dumpster, known as dumpster diving.

Memorized or copied by sales clerks and waiters Removed from your mailbox in the form of tax notices,

Financial account statements and other bills before you have a chance to get them or even know they are there Removed from your employer's files, either secretly or with the help of an inside accomplice Removed from your hospital records, usually with the help of an inside accomplice )

In online (or offline) databases Collected from "cloned" Web sites (Someone may recreate a legitimate merchant Web site in order capture your personal information and credit card information when you place an order.)

Stolen from a merchant database through computer hacking (This is not as simple as other forms of theft.) Stolen through hacking into commercial Web sites or your personal computer and using software to mirror keystrokes to capture credit card account information Collected from "cloned" chat rooms that include links to outside Web sites that offer services or products.