I take any personal info I hear online with a grain of salt

It is incredibly naive to believe personal info others reveal to you online because it is very easy to make a believable fake persona online.

Someone claimed they were a 13 year old boy. Mind you this was on a legal site. My response was " I doubt you are actually a 13 year old boy because most ppl who claim to be minors are undercover cops". Who knows? He might actually be a 13 year old boy, but I doubt it. It easy to make up "evidence" of any phony persona. Use Google. Conduct research on what 13 year old boys like.

Someone claims to be an astrophysicist. He provided evidence (which is easy to make up). Again, I politely replied "whoa that's a very impressive job. You are a smart scientist. Unfortunately, I take every claim I hear on the internet with a grain of salt. Please show me some evidence". Unless somebody can offer concentrate evidence, every piece of personal info they reveal must be taken with a grain of salt.

Your opinions Wilderssecurity? I would like to hear it.

 

I agree. For all I know you never had any interactions with the boy or the astrophysicist and made both stories up. You just can't be sure of anything online.

 

So you're a sceptic, that's a good trait in my opinion.

What are you wanting to discuss exactly? I'd bet a lot of people here are sceptics, when it comes to the Internet at least. Being a security forum, most people will know that it's good to be cautious and/or sceptic about information online.

 

It's incredibly naive to believe anyone, even in real life. Kinda want to continue it but it's gonna be OT.

You meant Startpage, right? =V

 

It's difficult to define actual criteria for determining who to believe and about what with people you haven't actually met. It's almost as much intuition and gut feeling as anything else. There's so many factors, who they portray themselves to be, what they reveal, how it's revealed and over what time period, etc. On more than a few occasions, I've ran into those who weren't what they claimed. On a few rare occasions I've made friends with some amazing people over time. What started as a PM sent in response to questions I'd asked on another forum turned into one of the best learning experiences I've ever had.

 

Another thing is. The two could be soliciting person info from me. Luckily I gave them nothing.

 

But the degree of deception is even much greater online. I doubt a 40 year old man IRL can claim to be a 13 year old IRL but he could easily do it online.

oops I almost forgot about that one.

 

Yet the site I was on, I see people causally posting the city they live in (where they are from), their age and hell even their real name on their profiles. I don't post any personal info . Those people are not nearly cautious enough because it is almost always a bad idea to post any personal information online.

 

So let me get this straight.

You started a thread literally stating you "take any personal info I hear online with a grain of salt"...and offered an anecdote about someone claiming to be a 13 year old boy, and explaining how it could actually be anyone, and not a 13 year old boy at all.

And now you come back and tell us how you're so much more cautious and wise than other people because they all give out their personal info online, but you don't give out any.

So which is it? Can you tell that the info is real, or can't you?

 

No one can be 100% certain all of the time. Yes, a lot of people have no clue of the potential consequences of posting real personal info. On more than one occasion I've resorted to scaring the hell out of them just to make the point that they're literally endangering themselves. Sending them a map to their front door tends to get their full attention. That said, if you pay attention to what is said and how, you can usually tell deception from stupidity.

 

three thumbs up , hilarious , thats one way to teach em , i recon very effective as well , lmfao

 

It is not very hard to find somebody's real identity if they give out personal info. Search engines are very powerful.

 

Very true. Some people just need to be hit over the head with that fact before it sinks in.

 

I'd still like to know how exactly you all of a sudden know that the "personal information" someone is giving out is accurate...when the entire point of this thread was to point out that you're so wise because you don't trust what personal information people give out.