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[Mlamlah]

So i just found out that someone i know online got arrested, though i don't yet know for what. He's kind of a sketchy fellow, i knew that already, but he's big on internet activism and is sometimes on the... loopier side of conspiracy theories. So honestly i have a pretty good idea of the sort of thing that he was arrested for.

A mutual acquaintance who lives near him (in the same country, i dunno *how* close exactly), got a hold of his laptop. He had sort of arranged for her to get it if he was ever arrested or died or anything, because that's just sort of the paranoid fellow he is. As it turns out he built a bit of a stockpile of files, by the sounds of it with the intention of building evidence of some of his theories, and i guess it makes him look even loopier and more unstable than we thought he was.

Anyway... on to the relevant part of the story... as it turns out he's been building character profiles on some of the people in our little group of conversationalists. For me, he found pretty much all of my handles (including ones i do not want connected to me IRL) and he found out who i am. Now i havn't talked to either of these people in months, but i got messages on facebook and even a long distance phone call expressing an urgent need to talk. He found my facebook and phone number, and had it in his stalker bullshit character profile, which was how i was contacted and told all of this.

I am honestly pretty freaked out right now.

[GiglameshDespair]

Huh, yeah. That's pretty messed up, but that's conspiracy theorists for you.

[Mlamlah]

Huh, yeah. That's pretty messed up, but that's conspiracy theorists for you.

There *was* some stuff that we was more open about working on that seemed totally legit as far as that sort of thing goes, and some of us were kind of helping him research. Like, i personally thought he was just kind of quirky, so it's kind of shitty to also realize i was probably helping enable a really big problem he had. I mean, i havn't talked to him in like... six months, so i don't know if maybe he just got way worse in that time, but still. He clearly has some big issues, and on one hand i'm freaked out because of this huge breach of privacy, but on the other i might have helped make it worse to begin with.

[TheDarkStar]

Honestly, it doesn't take all that long to find out a lot about someone if you have something to start with (a username, a region, an age, etc). Depending on what you know, it could take less than 15 minutes (email might be enough, along with certain websites). Yes, it's creepy.

[gimlet]

And yet another reminder to remember that anything you ever post, anywhere, can be linked back to you...

[hops]

Huh, now I wonder if it's healthy for me to be building profiles of people I know online.
I don't exactly plan to stalk them, though, I just write down things I learn about them.

Although I suppose this could fall into wrong hands.

[Mlamlah]

Huh, now I wonder if it's healthy for me to be building profiles of people I know online.
I don't exactly plan to stalk them, though, I just write down things I learn about them.

Although I suppose this could fall into wrong hands.

It's mostly that he went out of his way to find out stuff about us that's in some cases pretty clearly stuff we don't want people knowing. I use a lot of different web handles for a lot of different stuff, and he found *all* of them. He then used those to find out who i really am, which he used to collect my phone number and stuff.

[QuakeIV]

I always found it odd how people believed that stuff they put on the internet is private.  I don't particularly profile people (read: I dont at all), but what do you expect when you type things into a machine you own, then have it send that information to generally thousands of other machines that you have no control over?

[Moogie]

Why would anyone put their phone number online?? That's just asking for trouble.

[GlyphGryph]

You dont have to put your phone number online for it to be available online. Actually, phone numbers are public for almost everyone, so someone having your phone number should be... quite unsurprising really. Do you know they even used to publish books full of stranger's phone numbers and lots of people bought them? The whole "phone numbers should be secret!!!" is sort of a modern delusion.

Honestly though if he wasnt sharing the information and didnt seem like he was going to use it for anyything bad, and it doesnt seem like he was, I wouldn't worry about it. He was clearly a guy with a fascination for connecting the pieces of puzzles, and that sort of "hobby" isn't unexpected for the type, but its pretty harmless. It is no doubt no less than the google machines and their ilk are doing to you 24/7, so if anything I think this is a good thing - he's done you a great favour by revealing to you the stuff any potential bad guys already know or can trivially find. If there's anything not on the list he found, you should be happy and think about what you did right there.

Personally, I know pretty much everything I post is pretty trivially linkable to the meat-me, and I'm not too concerned about it and someone simply collecting that information wouldn't bother me.

He may just have been desperate to know if he could really trust you - paranoia can be a powerful force. Or he may have wanted to be sure he could get a hold of you in case the black helicopters came. Who knows, really? But from what you've said, he doesn't seem tohave had any ill intent, nor does it sound like he got access to anything that wasn't already public, so its probably  not worth more than a shrug and moving on.

[GlyphGryph]

including ones i do not want connected to me IRL

Also if this is true, you ower him a favour, because those handles ARE connected to you in real life, and now you're not mistakenly believing that. You're the one who made the mistake here and connected to themself publicly, don't blame him for simply seeing the poor mistakes you made, because you can be sure he's certainly not the only one who's done so.

Now I am tempted to track them down myself to see what has you so worried, heh.

[alway]

For me, he found pretty much all of my handles (including ones i do not want connected to me IRL) and he found out who i am. Now i havn't talked to either of these people in months, but i got messages on facebook and even a long distance phone call expressing an urgent need to talk. He found my facebook and phone number, and had it in his stalker bullshit character profile, which was how i was contacted and told all of this.

Yeah, so the thing is, most of that isn't really hard. With about 2-3 minutes of googling really basic information provided by your bay12 account, I immediately found accounts for twitter, facebook, and a variety of websites. You provide a lot of information about yourself <cityname> <state/province/territory> <nation>; you frequently reuse your username; you have your personal tagline; your age... And that can all be acquired just from your Bay12 profile. From there, google immediately gives your real name, your twitter (and who you've been talking with on twitter as a result), information about political views, ect ect ect... Real name + location = Facebook info.
Another 2-3 minutes searching a <cityname> phone book, and I, or anyone else, could have called you. From 5 minutes of searching on google.

You tossed all that information out there, and if you don't want it to be found, that's up to you to change. If you truly don't want them to be found, your alternate personas should have different names, possibly different locations, and definitely different taglines. They shouldn't so much as share a substring with your other account personas. You then deny you use those other websites from a different internet person, and give the impression of having no knowledge what they even are. The only alternative is to be like you are now, and be easily located everywhere you go.

As for me, I'm perfectly searchable, I've given out my name, workplace, ect; and my portfolio website will show up pretty well on google. You could even read my resume if you wanted. I'm perfectly fine with people knowing those things. I don't have anything to hide.

Or do I? Hidden away on some unsearchable, unrelated website persona linkable to me by nothing short of the NSA, perhaps?

Na, probably not.

[Vector]

.

[Mlamlah]

For me, he found pretty much all of my handles (including ones i do not want connected to me IRL) and he found out who i am. Now i havn't talked to either of these people in months, but i got messages on facebook and even a long distance phone call expressing an urgent need to talk. He found my facebook and phone number, and had it in his stalker bullshit character profile, which was how i was contacted and told all of this.

Yeah, so the thing is, most of that isn't really hard. With about 2-3 minutes of googling really basic information provided by your bay12 account, I immediately found accounts for twitter, facebook, and a variety of websites. You provide a lot of information about yourself <cityname> <state/province/territory> <nation>; you frequently reuse your username; you have your personal tagline; your age... And that can all be acquired just from your Bay12 profile. From there, google immediately gives your real name, your twitter (and who you've been talking with on twitter as a result), information about political views, ect ect ect... Real name + location = Facebook info.
Another 2-3 minutes searching a <cityname> phone book, and I, or anyone else, could have called you. From 5 minutes of searching on google.

You tossed all that information out there, and if you don't want it to be found, that's up to you to change. If you truly don't want them to be found, your alternate personas should have different names, possibly different locations, and definitely different taglines. They shouldn't so much as share a substring with your other account personas. You then deny you use those other websites from a different internet person, and give the impression of having no knowledge what they even are. The only alternative is to be like you are now, and be easily located everywhere you go.

As for me, I'm perfectly searchable, I've given out my name, workplace, ect; and my portfolio website will show up pretty well on google. You could even read my resume if you wanted. I'm perfectly fine with people knowing those things. I don't have anything to hide.

Or do I? Hidden away on some unsearchable, unrelated website persona linkable to me by nothing short of the NSA, perhaps?

Na, probably not.

This profile isn't really intended to be secretive at all, to be fair. I actually have different handles for different stuff, but this is my most common one, and the one i'm most okay with connecting to real life me.

There are a few other handles i'm generally a lot more careful with however, for various reasons. The handle he knew me by though, is one i have connected very little information to. Before now, a couple people in that circle even assumed i was a girl. I'm well aware Mlamlah has oodles of information attached to it, i've used it for a long time, and it's a pet name people irl know me by. But he found *all* of my handles. Including an alias i've only used once. It's the pure invasion of privacy that really gets me, particularly from a person who believes so strongly in a person's right to it. It probably hits harder because this comes at the same time as the revelation he's been arrested, and that it sounds like he's struggling with undiagnosed mental illness. The truth is we don't know what he's doing with all this crap. I guess for some of the others he has some legitimate blackmail material in hand.

[GiglameshDespair]

For me, he found pretty much all of my handles (including ones i do not want connected to me IRL) and he found out who i am. Now i havn't talked to either of these people in months, but i got messages on facebook and even a long distance phone call expressing an urgent need to talk. He found my facebook and phone number, and had it in his stalker bullshit character profile, which was how i was contacted and told all of this.

Yeah, so the thing is, most of that isn't really hard. With about 2-3 minutes of googling really basic information provided by your bay12 account, I immediately found accounts for twitter, facebook, and a variety of websites. You provide a lot of information about yourself <cityname> <state/province/territory> <nation>; you frequently reuse your username; you have your personal tagline; your age... And that can all be acquired just from your Bay12 profile. From there, google immediately gives your real name, your twitter (and who you've been talking with on twitter as a result), information about political views, ect ect ect... Real name + location = Facebook info.
Another 2-3 minutes searching a <cityname> phone book, and I, or anyone else, could have called you. From 5 minutes of searching on google.

You tossed all that information out there, and if you don't want it to be found, that's up to you to change. If you truly don't want them to be found, your alternate personas should have different names, possibly different locations, and definitely different taglines. They shouldn't so much as share a substring with your other account personas. You then deny you use those other websites from a different internet person, and give the impression of having no knowledge what they even are. The only alternative is to be like you are now, and be easily located everywhere you go.

Absolutely this. I now know far more about you than I should, and all of it was the work of seconds to get.

Oddly, googling Giglamesh leads to a series of books called 'Giglamesh must die!'. I guess someone doesn't like me