Governments, schools, businesses and other organisations may have already collected personal information about you. Information collected by governments is sometimes publicly available in the form of Public Registers. The Electoral Roll, and the Telephone Directory are Public Registers. Your school, university or employer may publish your name or other information about you. Much personal information which is publicly available has been collected and combined into databases by web based companies which then sell this information to businesses or individuals. Comprehensive and sometimes inaccurate profiles of individuals can be derived by combining information from many sources.
That quoted, let's consider the following.
Let's consider that a wierdo happens across the forum and sees that someone has dropped a full name. For the purposes of this example, I've contrived a name that I shant reveal here on the off chance that it's a real name.
A google search for this name reveals 261,000 results for said name. Not a very good guide. Let's now say that I have a decent idea which country said person might reside in. Let's say the US.
Oho! A search from a certain source cuts it down to 30 results. If I know the city or even the state, I can narrow that further to 3 results.
This gives me their name, their address, their phone number and their rough age.
By dropping someone elses name, and letting slip certain tidbits of information such as country, city, state and so forth, I've opened the door for some wierdo to do some real damage to someone I know simply because I mentioned them by name.
That includes the following
Threats through the mail
Threats via phonecall
Threats via actually visiting their address
By engaging in further nefarious activities, a particularly nasty one could easily stalk said person and glean further information about their working habits, whether they have any pets, even go so far as to impersonate mailmen and other service personnell to gain further information about the individual.
Granted this is an extreme example of what someone can do.
But remember, I'm using public resources here. With a name and a country, I can narrow my possibilities as far down as 30 individuals.
With the way information is just being thrown out there with facebook and myspace and so forth, it's become easier then ever to track someones age, date of birth, location, gain a picture of said person, phone number, email address, phone numbers (Mobile and landline) and more. This opens the door not only to stalker-like behavior but also to the possibility of identity theft.
Ever had a credit card bill arrive for 5,000 dollars of stuff you never went out and bought? That's identity theft right there.
I again state that this is someone using public information sources and a little bit of shrewd investigation capabilities. A particularly nefarious individual could uncover your IP and track you through that, able to see who your ISP is, hack into your computer (You should be using a firewall, but that wont stop a bright and dedicated hacker type) and can do all kinds of damage, personally or otherwise.
Now that's out in the open, lets also consider that corporations have webcrawlers out there on the internet, always sniffing out for personal information such as names or addresses, emails, IP's and telephone numbers. These automated programs scour every corner of the web looking for this stuff.
Ever wonder where all those telemarketer callers get your number from?
Ever consider why you get so much junk mail in your mailbox? Snail or E?
Ever Ponder who exactly it was that rang you up, you said "Hello?" and they hung up instantly?
NEVER give your personal info out on the web.
I've never doled out my phone number. Never put out my full name. The most you'll ever get is my country and city, and for most of last year I wasnt even there. With only one notable exception, it took me years to even let other long term web contacts know my first name and years more before I ever committed to meeting them in person, with only one notable exception.
To know my name is a privilege. To knoy my number is an honor. To know my place of residence is
GIFT!
To conclude this long winded, exaggerated, but nonetheless necessary PSA, and because I cant say this enough.
NEVER give your personal info out on the web.
NEVER give your personal info out on the web.
NEVER give your personal info out on the web.
NEVER give your personal info out on the web.
NEVER give your personal info out on the web.
NEVER give your personal info out on the web.
NEVER give your personal info out on the web.
NEVER give your personal info out on the web.
NEVER give your personal info out on the web.
NEVER give your personal info out on the web.
NEVER give your personal info out on the web.
NEVER give your personal info out on the web.
NEVER give your personal info out on the web.
NEVER give your personal info out on the web.
NEVER give your personal info out on the web.
NEVER give your personal info out on the web.
NEVER give your personal info out on the web.
NEVER give your personal info out on the web.
NEVER give your personal info out on the web.
NEVER give your personal info out on the web.
NEVER give your personal info out on the web.
NEVER give your personal info out on the web.
NEVER give your personal info out on the web.
NEVER give your personal info out on the web.
NEVER give your personal info out on the web.
NEVER give your personal info out on the web.