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My personal car was rear ended slightly a few days ago on I45 on the way to work, clearly not my fault. Information was exchanged etc etc.

A few hours after I got to work my boss informed me that the companies international headquarters insurance department had called and a claim had been made about the accident, so a file had been opened and I would need to be drug tested and attend mandatory safety training.

What!!!

I had not given my place of employment at the scene only my name address and insurance company. How did this person find my place of employment I thought. Why would they call my companies corporate headquarters and file a claim, was this the beginning of a giant scam.

I found with a very quick search on the internet my whole life was visible.

This all turned out to be a practical joke by my former boss and my current boss conspiring to have fun with me, but at the time I did not know it. Later of course everyone had a big laugh.

So it caused me to look closely at my internet presence.

I thought I had been careful on the internet with personal information, but not really.

For some stupid reason I joined Linkedin. It had lots of general information including where I worked, etc. All you need to search is a name followed by linkedin and there it all is. I like many of you probably use the same username on every forum you join. Well I had used the same user name for facebook too. So facebook gave a username which then opened up a new avenue about me.

If you type a username you know and do a search it will tell you every hobby that person has, their politics, etc. etc. Plus the facebook link in my case gave them my name and all the other information on facebook you deem to be public including your picture. Search your username or names, amazing what will show up. When you go to that forum, you can then find out everything in their profile section.

This forum does not show very much information about a username, but many forums encourage you to "let everyone know who you are" thus your personal data contains lots of tidbits about your life that an criminal could use to capture your identity.

So I have gone though and edited a lot of information at forums changed usernames especially on facebook and generally made it just a little harder to put two and two together.

You may want to do the same.

Question: what about internet archive searches? If you edit an old post isn't the original still stored somewhere on the web? :headscratchn

philip964 wrote:This all turned out to be a practical joke by my former boss and my current boss conspiring to have fun with me, but at the time I did not know it. Later of course everyone had a big laugh.

Good for you that you could laugh about it ... I would have been sorely tempted to open up a can of Little Sicily on anybody who thought it amusing to mess with my life in that way.

mctowalot wrote:Question: what about internet archive searches? If you edit an old post isn't the original still stored somewhere on the web? :headscratchn

I assume any post you make is forever there, but it is not tied to you but to your username, but if you equate your name to your username some where else, then it can be directly tied to you.

One other thing, Googles substitute for facebook (most people have never used it as it is not popular) was completely there on googles search engine for all to see, not just your friends. Every post you made on it. So if you wrote "I'm leaving for a two week vacation" everyone in the world could find out if they wanted to.

Wow, I'm going to check and see what is out there about me. I always knew you could be linked to just about everything on the internet, I just never knew you could see it all in one place! It's time to cut off my info-trail!
Thanks for the heads-up!

Only the information you, or others, post about you will be available. Disinformation can be as effective as no information.

Tru-Glow sights changed their web page after I complained about them showing a 1911 sight available, but they really didn't have one, and then they claimed they never said they had one.

For years after there were still copies of their old web page floating around the 'net, with the 1911 sights clearly listed.

mctowalot wrote:Question: what about internet archive searches? If you edit an old post isn't the original still stored somewhere on the web? :headscratchn

WAYBACK MACHINE. Search any site you like.

philip964 wrote:A few hours after I got to work my boss informed me that the companies international headquarters insurance department had called and a claim had been made about the accident, so a file had been opened and I would need to be drug tested and attend mandatory safety training.

Take a hint from Dr House; as soon as somebody mentions drug testing, dump your coffee cup, hold it under the desk and start going through the motions.

Big bonus points if you actually do it and hand your boss a full cup.

Well in todays Wall Street journal they had a big article on my fears, resulting from the practical joke played on me, about my internet presence.

They called it "scraping". These information companies use automatic bots to scrape the 130 million forums that exist on the web. They even have programs to decipher the puzzles forum sites use to keep out bots.

People as well known as the Nielsens of TV ratings fame even do it.

A computer programmer has even developed a program that determines who you really are from your usename on a forum or forums you visit.

Apparently health forums are the worst. People with similar illnesses chat about illnesses like we do about guns. Scraping programs determine the names of unhealthy people from these forums and sell the name lists with illness the person has to health insurance companies.

Apparently its semi-legal.

This is scary stuff, especially when combined with how freely "todays generation" shares information on the internet. Where I work, we had a guy who was apparently inspired by some of the characters in "The Office". He had a running blog about how screwed up his work group was, how his boss was an idiot, etc. The trouble was that this was a public blog accessible from his Linked-in profile. His boss read the blog and was slightly less than pleased. Same goes for prospective employees. Kids need to realize that they should not be sharing intimate details of their lives in a public forum (Facebook, Myspace, etc., etc.). If you wouldn't tell your boss and others something face to face, then be very careful posting it on the internet, especially if it is linked directly to your name.

This is one of the biggest things that my wife and I disagree on, not that either of us is part of the younger generation. She looks at the social benefits of sharing her life on Facebook as a positive. I view it as an unnecessary risk.

I have an unlisted number, my blog is private, I'm really careful with my information, etc. but I still wonder if what I do is enough. It really is scary to think that any stuff you put out there on the 'net could be found and used. For sure, I see a lot of the younger generation is so free with their information, which will surely come back & bit 'em when they're older...

Can you imagine Karen Owen trying to get a job or even an interview with a family friendly company?

Try this search engine: http://www.pipl.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;. It REALLY will cause you to evaluate your presence!

Reloader wrote:Try this search engine: http://www.pipl.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;. It REALLY will cause you to evaluate your presence!

LOL. It even showed my Facebook pic.

Well, for once in my married life I'm glad to have an extremely common name. Only one of the people they "found" was really me and they have everything but my street address (and the fact that we have a pickup truck) wrong. Since the pickup is parked in the driveway, that didn't take rocket science to figure out. Wrong kids, wrong photos, wrong occupation, income level, house size and value, etc. And no, it didn't find me on Facebook, either, even though my FB page uses my real name.