How Anonymous are we?

[Scot_Lover 1,876]

A bunch of our nerdy friends got together and had a giggle over hacking, the dark web, and other ’grey, murky’ things and we got to talking about how anonymous you really are on the internet.

 

Do you know how easy it is to find someone without a name?

 

Consider this, most people won't bat an eyelid when filling out a survey, thinking that it's anonymous. After all, you're not giving your name away, or your phone number, right?

 

You happily enter a postcode, what make of car you drive, how many cats you have, usual inane survey things, but when you put all of this together in one place, what can you make of it?

 

How many 37-year-old single females, who own a Nissan Maxima, has 2 cats and likes fresh bread from The Hummingbird Bakery live in SW7 London?

 

Because people are so different, things like this can work against you. Given this information, could you find this person? Our group said yes, and you could probably find her without the internet. The general consensus was that you could go gumshoe, ask a few innocent questions and probably get an address easy enough. Social engineering is good for this, spin a line, make a sob story, it's amazing what people will divulge.

 

Can anyone see the dangers here? Can anyone guess what would happen if this info was sold to footpads and vagabonds on the dark web?

 

Be careful with anything you do online, no matter how safe it seems.

 

[spywareonya 37,961]

11 minutes ago, Scot_Lover said:

Can anyone see the dangers here?

Guess why I never tell in which country do I live

With all I shared, it would be easy to track me down

I am exposing, but I do for a cause, I know that I could one day regret of ANYTHING I posted here

But I go nonetheless, as I believe in the message I am spreading, in the people whose lives I am slightly embettering with my love...

...and with my piss!!!

In the past, both @Admin and @steve25805 explained to us that absolute anonymacy is impossible and yet this forum is definitely well protected, so people should trust that, but cross-checking of infos has nothing to do with hacking and can lead to persons, it's so obvious

I have to admit that I quite knows these technics myself, back in my vigilante life…

I have already said a lot telling I'm in Europe

Anonymacy doesn't exist, we can just be careful, and fatalistically welcome the risk of living, loving, and posting our piss deed

[Guest UnabashedUser]

You can be tracked by your heart waves by small phone sized instruments while clothed and walking on the street. It's as reliable as retina scan and far better than fingerprints. If you've ever had an EKG or MRI this info is on file. 

The govt's of the world are doing this right now. 

[spywareonya 37,961]

56 minutes ago, UnabashedUser said:

The govt's of the world are doing this right now. 

I'm definitely sure of this

[HitEmAll 1,066]

2 hours ago, UnabashedUser said:

You can be tracked by your heart waves by small phone sized instruments while clothed and walking on the street. It's as reliable as retina scan and far better than fingerprints. If you've ever had an EKG or MRI this info is on file.

For most people (including myself) the phone sends all this data anyway "for free" to multiple companies (ever noticed that you have to agree to "give access to gps data" for pretty much any app you have on your phone lol)!

 

5 hours ago, spywareonya said:

Anonymacy doesn't exist, we can just be careful, and fatalistically welcome the risk of living, loving, and posting our piss deed

W.r.t. anonymity in the internet: let's be honest, e.g. Google for sure has enough data about anyone of us to link our pee fetish-related internet activities to our "real identities". I guess they do not compute such things on a regular basis, but I am sure they could do that if they wanted to.

[Peefreak99 3,722]

IP can be hidden but surveys etc you should always be carefull with. But on the other hand who would want to track any of us down? There's no reasson and they would not get anything out of it. 

[steve25805 126,023]

I guess if anyone had a good enough reason to track us down and expose us, it would be easy enough. I have revealed my first name, the city and country in which I live, my age and gender and the kind of job I do. If all this and more were put together I suspect I could be tracked down. It is just a matter of anyone having good enough motive or reason to want to bother.

And there's the rub. Although only an ordinary footsoldier, so to speak, in my real life I am politically active, and under my real name am all over facebook politics forums and twitter with political posts. If I ever gained enough of a following to be influential, that is the point at which political opponents could see value in seeking dirt on me. 

Therein lies the inherent risk as I see it. So I wish to have my voice heard without standing out too much from the crowd.

[Scot_Lover 1,876]

Mmmm, I'm also not all that worried. My isp uses a group of ip addresses that equate to about 400km from where I live, mobile phones now have unrestricted numbers that don't ’belong’ to a particular Telco, and our life in this little country town is pretty bland.

This whole discussion came about over the Capital One hack, and while no cc and login details were nicked, over 100 million credit and loan applications were exposed. How much info is on a bank loan application?

The girl who did the hack was pretty clueless, she used her twitter/facebook name, she bragged about doing it in a chat room, and had the ’authorities’ on her doorstep fairly quickly. The ’authorities’ think that the data went nowhere, but what if she was hacked before they frog marched her away?

When corporations have a data breach, they go to great lengths telling people that credit card details are safe, but don't tell you what else has been taken. 

It amazing what shots of tequila and vodka can accomplish, lol.

[gldenwetgoose 21,487]

It amazes me the stuff that people open themselves up to on Facebook - and it's the most prolific platform.   There are all those 'fan sites' which carry the banner of a large popular company, eg. 'Kuoni Travel' with a logo and profile pic, they post 'Share to win a holiday of a lifetime' and loads of clueless muppets instantly do.  When you look at their 'about' tab, they're nothing to do with the main company - absolutely no contact details, nothing to link them other than a borrowed logo - yet you've shared your FB profile with them.  I've seen them for supermarkets offering a year's groceries, win a car, holiday, whatever - but supposedly sensible grown ups jumping in there.

Then there's the apps and filters, like that ageing app - which makes you look old.  Our company IT actually issued a company-wide global warning on that - Russian run, the terms and conditions were scary to say the least - giving a lifetime license to your content online!

[Bacardi 10,134]

On facebook, my other social networking sites, and fanfiction platforms I use a fake last name. One of my biggest fears (aside from being doxxed/hacked/whatever) is that I'm going to put in all this work in college and then an employer is going to dig up my trashy, smutty, fanfiction and deny me a job lol! I'm sure with the different names and emails I used it's still possible, but still. I try to be careful. Once you post something on the internet it's out there forever and you can never get it back. I've even cut down my use of Facebook because people are getting fired left and right for posting stupid shit. One of my favorite quotes is "if you wouldn't shout it in the middle of Times Square, don't post it to social media." 

[appletree_man 28]

Very true, if you wouldnt say it someones face, dont say it at all seems to work too.  Decide (or in this case post) in haste, repent at leisure.

[Guest UnabashedUser]

11 hours ago, Bacardi said:

On facebook, my other social networking sites, and fanfiction platforms I use a fake last name. One of my biggest fears (aside from being doxxed/hacked/whatever) is that I'm going to put in all this work in college and then an employer is going to dig up my trashy, smutty, fanfiction and deny me a job lol! I'm sure with the different names and emails I used it's still possible, but still. I try to be careful. Once you post something on the internet it's out there forever and you can never get it back. I've even cut down my use of Facebook because people are getting fired left and right for posting stupid shit. One of my favorite quotes is "if you wouldn't shout it in the middle of Times Square, don't post it to social media." 

One of the smartest and safest moves you can make is to delete Facebook and never go back. 

[speedy3471 10,655]

11 hours ago, UnabashedUser said:

One of the smartest and safest moves you can make is to delete Facebook and never go back. 

I never was or ever will be on Facebook