Well, this is interesting and terrifying...

[HoneyBadger]

Found this through a property manager's association: http://www.instantcheckmate.com/

It basically pulls together EVERYTHING that may be associated with your online presence: Everything from social media inputs (anything from FB, twitter, LinkedIn, picasa, photobucket, imgur, reddit, google profile, microsoft profile, and many more) to various email addresses that you may use, every address you've ever reported living at, anything that shows up on your credit report, criminal records, court documents, relationship information, any public data such as property information and tax values, any federal state or local licenses they hold, online dating sites, web forums, financial info, political activity and contributions, etc. For just a few dollars and about 10 minutes, you can pull together more info, and more accurate info, than a private detective could over the course of a month or more.




Just food for thought: Consider your online presence.

[sellersm]

I'd reply to this but then it would show up in my online presence...

Good reminder, thanks HB! I've deleted most of my online stuff, no FB, no social media stuff, etc. Even this post is from my alter ego who's not really me...

[Irving]

I wish I could change the name of my Youtube channel. Everything else is pretty bland, except for sites like this.

[HoneyBadger]

I'd reply to this but then it would show up in my online presence...

Good reminder, thanks HB! I've deleted most of my online stuff, no FB, no social media stuff, etc. Even this post is from my alter ego who's not really me...

Deleting stuff is probably not effective. If it's ever been cataloged (hint: everything is constantly cataloged by the major search engines), then it's still out there.

I wish I could change the name of my Youtube channel. Everything else is pretty bland, except for sites like this.

Over the past 2 years, I've been trying to make it more difficult to track me in a number of ways, but if you're on the internet, it's basically impossible. You can only surf anonymously for so long until you either A) have to log into a site or B) establish a browsing pattern that matches your known online profile. Using stuff like TOR is only mostly effective if you change your browsing habits and don't log in anywhere. Maybe some of our network nerds can chime in here, but I think the most effective way would probably be to intentionally create for yourself an online version of Multiple Personality Disorder - where you have different online logins, names, etc., for different browsing habits (and they can't ever overlap). Maybe some of them could be correlated with your known online profile, but maybe some wouldn't. Even true end-to-end encryption is only as secure as the distant end server you are connected to.

[sellersm]

Unfortunately, if you've ever been on FB, all you can do is follow their (very tedious) procedures to request them to delete your account/info, as opposed to just deactivating your account. I know it's not really gone, but neither is any data stored on most servers across the 'net!
And don't have your cell phone in the same location as where you're browsing/using the computer!

And go outside with your face covered, at all times.

And change your voice every other day.

Encryption? Ummm, yeah. Not gonna be secure. All algorithms are controlled. So are the actual hardware devices (NIC cards, etc.), even the OS itself has back doors.

I think your best option is to just live in a cave...

[Zundfolge]

Well that was a waste of my time ... it doesn't really show you anything all that interesting unless you pony up some cash (and since I didn't I have no idea if you actually get anything useful out of it).

$10 says all those progress bars are just animated gifs and aren't actually measuring any actual work done.

[sellersm]

Well that was a waste of my time ... it doesn't really show you anything all that interesting unless you pony up some cash (and since I didn't I have no idea if you actually get anything useful out of it).

$10 says all those progress bars are just animated gifs and aren't actually measuring any actual work done.

Shhhhhh... don't tell anyone.

[Monky]

The internet is forever. All your data is belong to google! ps - incognito browsing... really isn't.

[HoneyBadger]

Well that was a waste of my time ... it doesn't really show you anything all that interesting unless you pony up some cash (and since I didn't I have no idea if you actually get anything useful out of it).

$10 says all those progress bars are just animated gifs and aren't actually measuring any actual work done.

Yes to the bit about progress bars, but I ponied up the $1 to see my own report. 98% of it was accurate.

(It asks for a stupid amount of money, but if you hit the "back" button on your browser, it will give you a little flash warning offering you 5 days of unlimited searches for just $1.)

[Rooskibar03]

We talked about this at work just yesterday. Don't put anything online or in an email you wouldn't want to see in court or on the news.