Sunday, February 11, 2007

Internet security

Let me say this now - never tell anyone anything online unless you want them to be able to track you down. Even if you don't go by your married name, don't give it on the same site where you've given your state and county.

Someone did that on a site I frequent. It took about 3 seconds to know that the person google pulled up wasn't her. It took about 2 minutes to go to her county site and pull up her marriage license.

In less than 15 minutes I had her home and office phone numbers, a drawing of her house, copies of her mortgage documents, etc.

And I'm not even good at this kind of thing.

People laugh at me because I won't reveal what county I'm in. Sure, I'll reveal my general region, but there are several counties in this region. They laugh because I don't want my first name out there or my last name. I'll be honest - my first and last name are extremely common. Beyond common. Except down here. They're extremely anglo and this is an hispanic area - not many anglo names here.

Of course, googling my name will never turn up my phone number because I use a cell only. But if you knew my county, you'd be able to find my deed information and my dh's name. It would be like shooting fish in a barrel.

So seriously, if you don't want to be tracked down, never reveal anything.

1 comment:

Tanya Brown said...

People shouldn't laugh at you about not revealing your county. Everyone has a different comfort level regarding the amount of information they disclose.

I'm saddened, though, that the old statement "on the internet, no one knows you're a dog" is no longer true.