It's not that ID theft is the new hot topic, but the Washington Post has a couple of good articles that ran recently regarding those numbers that should be handled or guarded with care.

Michelle Singletary's column, "Putting a Freeze on Identity Theft" comes in handy at a time when we're all getting notices about data security breaches by the stores, banks and other places that have our sensitive personal numbers.

Annys Shin's column, "Is Identity Theft Decreasing?" looks at a recent Javelin study's findings. You decide whether these numbers look right to you.