Of course. This was the encouraged behavior in the early 2k. There were little PSA's about it online. You never put your real info online, because there are crazy people out there that will use it.
I've tried to explain to friends and family that they shouldn't put their first, middle, and last name, all employment info, city, state, etc in their social media bio, and use the same headshot in all their accounts, but they seem to think the sociability/sanity filter that exists in their immediate circle somehow applies to the entire population on the internet.
The fact that you shouldn't use your real info online is clear to many. That being said, is it better to leave the fields empty, call yourself "anon," or create an imaginary online persona with inaccurate data to throw OSINT investigators off?
Not everyone wants to wear a mask in public. Free speech requires anonymity and pseudonymity to remain a possibility, but most humans are just fine with a single all-purpose identity.
Yet you'll find exactly nobody walking around, in public, with all of this information on their shirt. People seem to treat the internet as safer than real life public.
I had the good sense to use a fake name long ago when I first signed up for facebook. A handful of my friends did the same. Over the years it has paid off in terms of people I don't know not being able to look me up. I'm also lucky to have a very common name. I am very un-googlable unless you know actual details about my professional life, in which case you can learn a bit more about what I do for work, but nothing else.
I also have a secondary facebook account with my real name whose "friends" are only random acquaintances who have bothered trying to connect with me over the years. I have used this in the past when potential employers, or border guards, have asked about my online presence.
I've been online since I was young and deep dark secrets about me are contained and findable on old forum databases and fragments of lost proto-social networks. I might be over-confident, but I'm almost sure not even palantir knows.
All our accounts will eventually be linked by our writing style.
I love having a really common name. Growing up, my neighbor down the road had the same name and we'd get each other mail sometimes. One time I even met a guy who had the same middle name as me. It's kind of funny, my name is so common you can't find me on Google, and my girlfriend's name is so unique that there's almost 100% certainty that nobody else in the world has her name, so very googleable. I love the anonymity of my common name and she loves the unique identifier that is hers.
Noisy signals about tech literate people is still a signal. If only few experts are planting fake data about themselves, companies can cordon you off and spend more resources in deanonymizing you. By muddying the water, you are planting a target on yourself if many others aren't doing it.
I find that at least for the goofy “look up anyone and brace yourself” data hoovering companies having a super common name means my info gets muddled in with a ton of other people’s.
Everyone legally change their name to the current most common name.
I got myself a Pulitzer Prize, which helps a lot. Well ok, the guy who shares my name and writes terrible books managed to get himself a prize, but it really helps with hiding myself in searches. Well that and the Florida man who also shares my name who caught charges for terrible things :(
I remember the distinctly mixed feelings I got in the late 90s to early 2000s watching a search of my real name go from nothing but me, to mostly me, to "hey I'm still in the top 10", to not even on the front page depending on what search engine you use. (I still see myself on Google's front page, but not Bing's. Bing suggests that if I want more information on my real name I should postfix it with the word "fired", so, hey, I guess things could be worse because that's not me....)
Depends. Does that include making questionable Google searches about hundreds of different crime plots so that government handlers get super confused later on down the line?
Gotta make at least one-bank-heist-search a month.
As a Texan, minority owned business living in alaska using a VPN via the artic circle through the EU GDPR, I think everyone should be their authentic self.
"For educational and lawful purposes only"
I've tried to explain to friends and family that they shouldn't put their first, middle, and last name, all employment info, city, state, etc in their social media bio, and use the same headshot in all their accounts, but they seem to think the sociability/sanity filter that exists in their immediate circle somehow applies to the entire population on the internet.
Yet you'll find exactly nobody walking around, in public, with all of this information on their shirt. People seem to treat the internet as safer than real life public.
I also have a secondary facebook account with my real name whose "friends" are only random acquaintances who have bothered trying to connect with me over the years. I have used this in the past when potential employers, or border guards, have asked about my online presence.
I've been online since I was young and deep dark secrets about me are contained and findable on old forum databases and fragments of lost proto-social networks. I might be over-confident, but I'm almost sure not even palantir knows.
I love having a really common name. Growing up, my neighbor down the road had the same name and we'd get each other mail sometimes. One time I even met a guy who had the same middle name as me. It's kind of funny, my name is so common you can't find me on Google, and my girlfriend's name is so unique that there's almost 100% certainty that nobody else in the world has her name, so very googleable. I love the anonymity of my common name and she loves the unique identifier that is hers.
> Create and post a back-story to answer (instead of avoid) the frequently asked questions.
1: https://sive.rs/anon
Everyone legally change their name to the current most common name.
Insanely attractive people follow me around constantly and I need some more privacy.
Gotta make at least one-bank-heist-search a month.