Random Personal Privacy/Security Thoughts

eMeS wrote: »

Am I paranoid

No. A little information can always be used to gain a lot more. If you know a child's name and school, you could call the school to "verify" your current address and phone number. Knowing the sport and schedule would give you a list of ideal times to carry out a burglary. Call from a payphone during those times to verify no one's home, and away you go. Same reason I think it would be incredibly foolish for a successful person to show when he's going to be out of town. It's almost as bad as using your company name as your avatar

Interesting read if you're curious about this type of thing: Amazon.com: The Art of Deception: Controlling the Human Element of Security (9780764542800): Kevin D. Mitnick, William L. Simon, Steve Wozniak: Books

Alif_Sadida_Ekin

I've wondered the same thing. I have a friend who uses an application called myloc.me. Every time he posts an update on facebook, that application provides a link to a google map that pinpoints his exact whereabouts. I think he's just inviting people to rob him when he's not home.

veritas_libertas

dynamik wrote: »

Interesting read if you're curious about this type of thing: Amazon.com: The Art of Deception: Controlling the Human Element of Security (9780764542800): Kevin D. Mitnick, William L. Simon, Steve Wozniak: Books

Good book, does get a little repetitive and boring sometimes though.

I can see that. I'm making my way through it now and am only doing a chapter a day.

Here's another one in a similar vein: Amazon.com: The Truth About Identity Theft (9780789737939): Jim Stickley: Books

Plantwiz

eMeS wrote: »

A...

Am I paranoid, or does this strike anyone as else offering up too much information?

Not paranoid, but certainly being observant.

If one really wants to find things out about a person, it is not that difficult, but certainly when it comes to children, parents should be a tad more observant about just how much info they provide.

Such as...labeling all your child's school clothes and bags...create a code name or symbol or favorite cartoon...rather then write SAM in giant letters so any stranger can walk up to 'SAM' and act like he knows the kid.

Being paranoid can be limiting, but I think it is wise to certainly pay attention to these sorts of things and at least not kidding oneself that someone can use that information to befriend your child....or even their friend.

Besides that....I just hate stickers and crap on my car.

undomiel

eMeS wrote: »

Am I paranoid, or does this strike anyone as else offering up too much information?

Interestingly enough my wife has ranted about this a lot as well. Those stick figure stickers let you know how much young prey is available are none too secretive as well. According to her safety standards, these would be the things to avoid:

Using kids' names on the internet
Pictures of kids that include school identifiers/uniform numbers
Personalized license plates that include names
The car stickers telling how many kids are in your family
Blogs/personal network sites telling when you'll be on vacation and for how long

Not at all paranoid, some criminals pay attention to little things like that. I'm one that's fairly paranoid about throwing away things that could identify pricey possessions. I cut up the cardboard boxes for big ticket items rather than just put the box at the curb like I witness many people do. That's just asking for it when you display "hey I just bought a 60" LCD TV!". The same thing about talking to friends, co-workers, etc - I don't mention big purchases like that openly. I trust my friends and co-workers, but you never know what they could say to some of their friends in general conversation.

I've been a bit more paranoid about those sorts of things after our home was broken into early this year. Fortunately nothing was stolen but it was an awakening. We don't label anything for our son yet, but when we have to start we'll probably use his initials.

dynamik wrote: »

It's almost as bad as using your company name as your avatar

Who says that's the legal name of my company?

eMeS wrote: »

Who says that's the legal name of my company?

MS

I know where you live

msteinhilber wrote: »

I know where you live

True, as does Dynamik....

But I know what you're wife looks like...

Isn't that her in your avatar holding that kid?

MS

eMeS wrote: »

look at the big wall around it, as well as the .50 caliber turret mounted gun on my roof....

No match for me and my sonic screwdriver!

The Google thing kind of irks me a bit now that you mention Google Maps with the street view. I admittedly scoured my neighborhood just to see what they captured, and found that there were pictures of some of our neighbors kids playing outside. Not only do you get to see your potential targets, you can see the surroundings and look for possible ways to get in and out. My place for example with a large green space behind our home that backs up to a park that gets no traffic afterhours. That's likely why our place was targeted when we were broken into. Easy target, walk through the expansive park and sneak up to the rear sliding glass door.

There's another person was upset as well. He doesn't live in that extravagant of a home but he does very well for himself and chooses to stick his money into cars which are his passion. His garage is pretty well concealed but Google happened to have been coming by when his 2007 Ferrari 599 GTB was in clearly visible in his driveway rather than garaged. To this day it's still the same photo on streetview.

eMeS wrote: »

True, as does Dynamik....

But I know what you're wife looks like...

Isn't that her in your avatar holding that kid?

This revision beats the heck out of the .50 cal. My wife even got a chuckle out of it, though she chuckles out of anyone who insults me

msteinhilber wrote: »

No match for me and my sonic screwdriver!

The Google thing kind of irks me a bit now that you mention Google Maps with the street view. I admittedly scoured my neighborhood just to see what they captured, and found that there were pictures of some of our neighbors kids playing outside. Not only do you get to see your potential targets, you can see the surroundings and look for possible ways to get in and out. My place for example with a large green space behind our home that backs up to a park that gets no traffic afterhours. That's likely why our place was targeted when we were broken into. Easy target, walk through the expansive park and sneak up to the rear sliding glass door.

There's another person was upset as well. He doesn't live in that extravagant of a home but he does very well for himself and chooses to stick his money into cars which are his passion. His garage is pretty well concealed but Google happened to have been coming by when his 2007 Ferrari 599 GTB was in clearly visible in his driveway rather than garaged. To this day it's still the same photo on streetview.

I edited for humor as you were replying....

But yeah, all of that sucks......We have a similar wooded area behind our house...thankfully there's an 8ft. wall there and then about a 20ft. drop before you get down into anyone's yard that faces that part of the development.

One thing that I'm thankful for is that at least here in Texas if your vehicle is leased then you only get leasing company information if you look up the license plate. If you own your vehicle then I guess you're screwed...

MS

msteinhilber wrote: »

This revision beats the heck out of the .50 cal. My wife even got a chuckle out of it, though she chuckles out of anyone who insults me

Tell her she needs to shave....

MS

eMeS wrote:

look at the big wall around it, as well as the .50 caliber turret mounted gun on my roof....

Because that does so much good when you wife just lets me in...

dynamik wrote: »

Because that does so much good when you wife just lets me in...

The wife jokes are plentiful... I've witnessed threads take many strange turns, none quite like this though.

dynamik wrote: »

Because that does so much good when you wife just lets me in...

She keeps mentioning something about "1 on 1 Windows Vista training"...

All I can say is next time you're here, bring some toothpaste. We're almost out...

Funny story...one time many many years ago I was working nights in a data center. If you've ever done that then you know that no topic is really off limits. One night, we had this temp in mounting tapes. There was this one guy on shift that was very serious, and everyone pretty much avoided him.

Some of us had been joking around with the temp earlier, and he had pretty much become a part of the crowd. But I guess he didn't learn the boundaries, because at some point temp says to serious guy something along these lines:

Temp: "Hey man, I just wanted to let you know that you should stop for toothpaste on the way home."

Serious Guy: "What? Huh?"

Temp: "Yeah, you're out of toothpaste at home."

Serious Guy: "What? How do you know that?"

Temp: "When I was over there this morning ****ing your wife I noticed that the tube was almost empty."

At which point the Serious Guy took a swing at the Temp and knocked him out cold...

One of the many tales that will one day appear in my "Raise Floor Confessions" book....

MS

msteinhilber wrote: »

The wife jokes are plentiful... I've witnessed threads take many strange turns, none quite like this though.

I just wish dynamik would get off of wives, because I got off of his....

eMeS wrote: »

She keeps mentioning something about "1 on 1 Windows Vista training"...

You might want to clear the exceptions in her Windows Firewall and Windows Defender "dynamik - always allow".

eMeS wrote: »

I just wish dynamik would get off of wives, because I got off of his....

Me too! Good riddance! We can do so much better!

Plantwiz wrote: »

Besides that....I just hate stickers and crap on my car.

No kidding....

Psoasman

eMeS wrote: »

A couple of things always stand out to me as odd, and I thought I would see if some of you guys and gals have the same thoughts or your own examples to share.

First, it's quite common where I live for people to put stickers on their vehicles that list information like the names of their children, and an icon indicating the sport their children play or the activity they're involved in at school. Sometimes they go as far as to list the child's jersey number and other identifying information.

Am I paranoid, or does this strike anyone as else offering up too much information?

MS

Makes me wonder about my personalized license plates. Someone who is good at social engineering could use those or the stickers people put on their cars.

Psoasman wrote: »

Makes me wonder about my personalized license plates. Someone who is good at social engineering could use those or the stickers people put on their cars.

People who put business names on their plates, or who advertise their business on their car and possibly use it for work. You get the advertisement, but if it's a business vehicle in appearance you may risk it being broken into in hopes of tools/parts being left in it.

I was an idiot when I built up my last car. It didn't look flashy by any means, it was modded to be a sleeper so stock wheels with sticky tires and lot of cash under the hood. Then I go pull a dumb move with personalized plates "turbo sc".

There are a ton of possible risk factors associated with much of what we do everyday, a lot of people are just oblivious to it.

RobertKaucher

One thing I do believe is that the “child molester around every corner” hysteria is not based on any reality. While having your child’s name and jersey number on your car might increase the possibility of a child-molester or other undesirable knowing your child’s name it will probably not increase your risk in any significant way. A child’s name is no secret, is not treated as sensitive information in any way by anyone in your family nor their friends, and can be obtained in a hundred other ways: listening to you cheer at a sporting event, listening to you reprimand the child in a store, etc. The fact is in order for this information to be useful in any significant way (other than a crime of opportunity where the child is abducted near the car when the parents are not around and it is just as likely the child’s name would play no significant role in such an abduction) the criminal in question would need to know where the family lives. Once said hypothetical criminal has this knowledge learning the names of the children in the house will be relatively easy anyway. How many times do you yell “Johnny, time for dinner!” to your kid playing in the yard or riding bikes on the street? This criminal could simply obtain the info from your garbage, from social engineering one of the neighbor kids, anything. The fact is a child’s name does not in any way need to be known by a criminal (be it a child molester, kidnapper, whoever) for the child to be in danger. To lure a child into close enough physical proximity for a crime to occur the criminal only needs access to a puppy, a toy commonly liked by your child’s age group, to know the name of one of the kids in the neighborhood, and the list could go on.

What is the difference between the following? How is the child in the first scenario in any more danger than those in the following?

“Hey Billy, I’m friends with your dad. Where is he?”
“Hey, kid, is this your Transformer (Pokémon, Barbie doll etc)?”
“Hey, kid, I found this puppy and he’s hurt. Can you help me find who he belongs to?”
“Hey, kid, are you friend with Bill? I’m friends with his dad and can’t remember where they live?”

As adults we might think that knowing the name of the child would increase the danger because the child might feel safer around the strange adult. But that is not how kids think. Once the child sees the puppy, transformer, whatever, they will immediately be distracted and, unless educated properly, their sense of danger will not be triggered.

RobertKaucher wrote: »

One thing I do believe is that the “child molester around every corner” hysteria is not based on any reality.

I'm with you on that. In fact it's been shown that the child molester is often someone in one's own family.

For me it's not the child molester that I'm worried about as much as the run-of-the-mill criminal looking to break into a house while everyone's away, etc...

RobertKaucher wrote: »

While having your child’s name and jersey number on your car might increase the possibility of a child-molester or other undesirable knowing your child’s name it will probably not increase your risk in any significant way. A child’s name is no secret, is not treated as sensitive information in any way by anyone in your family nor their friends, and can be obtained in a hundred other ways: listening to you cheer at a sporting event, listening to you reprimand the child in a store, etc. The fact is in order for this information to be useful in any significant way (other than a crime of opportunity where the child is abducted near the car when the parents are not around and it is just as likely the child’s name would play no significant role in such an abduction) the criminal in question would need to know where the family lives. Once said hypothetical criminal has this knowledge learning the names of the children in the house will be relatively easy anyway. How many times do you yell “Johnny, time for dinner!” to your kid playing in the yard or riding bikes on the street? This criminal could simply obtain the info from your garbage, from social engineering one of the neighbor kids, anything. The fact is a child’s name does not in any way need to be known by a criminal (be it a child molester, kidnapper, whoever) for the child to be in danger. To lure a child into close enough physical proximity for a crime to occur the criminal only needs access to a puppy, a toy commonly liked by your child’s age group, to know the name of one of the kids in the neighborhood, and the list could go on.

What is the difference between the following? How is the child in the first scenario in any more danger than those in the following?

“Hey Billy, I’m friends with your dad. Where is he?”
“Hey, kid, is this your Transformer (Pokémon, Barbie doll etc)?”
“Hey, kid, I found this puppy and he’s hurt. Can you help me find who he belongs to?”
“Hey, kid, are you friend with Bill? I’m friends with his dad and can’t remember where they live?”

As adults we might think that knowing the name of the child would increase the danger because the child might feel safer around the strange adult. But that is not how kids think. Once the child sees the puppy, transformer, whatever, they will immediately be distracted and, unless educated properly, their sense of danger will not be triggered.

I can't disagree with your logic, it's infallible. However, simply because information is available in one place does not mean that it's advisable to provide that information in another place or form. Additionally, there's more to this than a child being molested.

Advertising my child's name and his or her activities on a vehicle that's driven ~30 miles per day is very different than calling the child in for dinner. Advertising where my next trip is, the dates of that trip, and the details of prior trips is foolish for many reasons.

Part of the reality of this is that to some extent this is all a losing battle. As you've indicated, there is quite a bit of information available to anyone who's willing to dig for it.

MS

Pash

eMeS wrote: »

I just wish dynamik would get off of wives, because I got off of his....

That's a beauty. You are getting more rep Emes....ohh yes.

hi5

Actually hang on a sec isnt he going through a divorce at the moment?

RobertKaucher

eMeS, I'm not saying that you’re incorrect. As was mentioned earlier any bit of information can be used to obtain more. My point being is this a perceived threat or real threat? The vast majority of families probably do not have anything to fear from putting this information on a window decal or bumper sticker. It is far more likely that any “attack” on the child will come from a person who already has this information any way.

How would a child’s name and the fact that they play soccer (as advertised on a decal) assist a criminal? I find it unlikely that a criminal who sees your car out at a soccer tournament or simply driving on the road would see the decal and then begin to plot a way to rob your house. It is far more likely that the criminal will begin by casing a neighborhood and see which families have any sort of activities that they attend which keep them away for extended periods of time. This criminal will not need to see any sort of decal to obtain this information. What you do when you leave will be unimportant. It will only matter that you are away for long enough. They will also be able to gain this information in other ways (like when you are packing up the car).

Is it reasonable that a decal on your car with your child’s name and sport makes you more susceptible to being robbed? I just do not see a reasonable connection. Now I do see a connection between putting out a Sony box from your new 50 inch TV and getting robbed. This fits better with how criminals actually operate. They first begin by checking a neighborhood and looking for potential houses that might have what they want. They do not begin by following cars of people whose children play soccer, or base ball, or whatever.

I just don’t see how this information could be used in a significant way in an attempt to rob a house. And as far as in an attempt to attack or harm a child, the average family has far more to fear from an uncle, a grandfather, a friend of the family or even a sibling before they would need to worry about a predator gathering information about a child based on these stickers (as you pointed out). Now the family of a millionaire or the CEO of some international firm or another, I could see this as possibly being an issue, as their families are far more likely to be targeted by a criminal.

I think this really relates to your other post about security… What are the chances of a family being targeted by a criminal so that this information could be used in a significant way? Does worrying about your family/home being targeted so that it prevents you from displaying outward signs of support for their activities not sound like security causing undue restrictions on family life?

Turgon

eMeS wrote: »

A couple of things always stand out to me as odd, and I thought I would see if some of you guys and gals have the same thoughts or your own examples to share.

First, it's quite common where I live for people to put stickers on their vehicles that list information like the names of their children, and an icon indicating the sport their children play or the activity they're involved in at school. Sometimes they go as far as to list the child's jersey number and other identifying information.

Am I paranoid, or does this strike anyone as else offering up too much information?

The next thing that has stood out to me recently as a bit odd is the "Tripit" application on LinkedIn. Using this app, it's possible to share your travel schedule, show how many miles you've traveled, etc.. I've never installed it, so I don't really know what privacy settings it has.

I won't install it primarily because I really don't want a general audience to know that I'm traveling. It seems very risky to me to advertise that type of information.

Thoughts?

MS

There are devious and sick people out there so some caution would be wise I think. But at the same time I do wonder if the worry about risks like this lead to more and more distrust and more guns in the world.

RobertKaucher

eMeS wrote: »

Some of us had been joking around with the temp earlier, and he had pretty much become a part of the crowd. But I guess he didn't learn the boundaries, because at some point temp says to serious guy something along these lines:

Temp: "Hey man, I just wanted to let you know that you should stop for toothpaste on the way home."

Serious Guy: "What? Huh?"

Temp: "Yeah, you're out of toothpaste at home."

Serious Guy: "What? How do you know that?"

Temp: "When I was over there this morning ****ing your wife I noticed that the tube was almost empty."

At which point the Serious Guy took a swing at the Temp and knocked him out cold...

One of the many tales that will one day appear in my "Raise Floor Confessions" book....

MS

So this is how you and Dynamik met?

What a way for someone's career to go down! Just like Dynamik's mom... Hard and fast.