How privacy/anonymity conscious are our friends/peers?

Most of my peers are facebook addicts. They are certainly not privacy/anonymity conscious. They may think they are privacy conscious, since they have their facebook settings maxed out, but that's misleading because all your personal info on facebook is used to datamine you. Facebook, in conjunction with Google, will datamine your personal info so that you cannot have any privacy whatsoever.

Works like this in a nutshell,

On Facebook (your "likes" and "favorites")------>Google (registers those "likes" and "favorites"). So whenever you mention those likes and favorites on any anonymous profile, you will no longer be anonymous, because google and facebook can link those likes and favorites to your real identity.

Let's say you liked and favorited x cartoons and y rock music on facebook.
Then google datamines it and links it to your real identity on facebook. So are you no longer anonymous.

Maybe I'm too paranoid. I doubt google and facebook have this kind of datamining ability, but it will only be a matter of time. At the very least, you definitely shouldn't hit the "sign in with facebook" button when signing up for any site. Luckily, Wilderssecurity doesn't have this feature, and if it did, then it doesn't deserve to call itself a security forum.

Which is why any privacy/conscious individual avoids Facebook at all costs.

I use to be a facebook addict, but I am breaking away from facebook. I haven't logged onto facebook for at least one week. And quite frankly, I don't feel any withdrawal symptoms. I am glad I am staying as far away as possible from facebook. I'm hanging out with you guys in order to reinforce my privacy-oriented beliefs.

I need other like-mined, privacy conscious individuals to enforce my privacy-beliefs. Google has betrayed me. They use to have a "do no evil" motto, but we now know they are data-mining every piece of info in order to build a complete profile of everything we do online. Thereby completing destroying our constitutionally-give rights to privacy and anonymity. Privacy and anonymity is essential for assuring your safety on the internet because you just don't know who's out there to harm you.

One of my best "friends" is a textbook example of Internet unsafe. He uses the same username across every site. This username contains his real last name + a verb.

Let's say his full name is Gordan Bang. His username would be "BangPwns". Plus his twitter public account--which contains his full real name, the schools he attended to, the city he currently lives in, the sports teams he played on, and other very personal info--can easily be searched up on google. So anyone with his username BangPwns can easily access ALL of his personal info from a simple google search on BangPwns. I am not kidding you. This guy is that unsafe!!!


He uses the username BangPwns on every site. On any game site he uses JordanPwns. So any random stranger can search up BangPwns on google and quickly find out EVERYTHING about his real identity--his real name, his city of residence, the school he attended and even his street address.

This guy is ripe for identity theft. Hell you don't even need to be a script kiddie to still his identity. Just google BangPwns (ok that's not his real username. It is just an example of the unsafe practices he uses) and you can quickly find out his real identity. In less than 30 seconds!

Strange finds "Bang Pwns" on game website.
Strange searches BangPwns on Google.
At the top of the first page, he sees BangPwn's Twitter profile.
Clicks on it, and all of BangPwn's personal info is publicly displayed!!
This whole process takes under 30 seconds.

How anyone could be this unsafe is beyond me. This guy shouldn't even be on the internet for his own safety,

Bottom line: Never post use facebook or any site that requires your personal info. Never, ever, ever give out any personal info on the internet under any circumstances.

 

isn't that bit extreme? Have you never ordered anything online? Never filled out a resume? online banking? paid a bill?

Dude, all your personal information is stored in data centers regardless if you ever posted any personal info online. What if your bank gets hacked? don't have bank account? what if your school or employer or cell phone provider gets hacked? what if a government server that is storing your personal information gets compromised?

We live in a scary world, you have to be cautious, but being OVERLY cautious and paranoid and can lead one to delusional thinking. That is not a good thing.

 

Normally, I'd be glad that a story like PRISM leaked, as it was a major eye opener for a lot of folks that I know, but sadly I think it might be doing more harm than good. A lot of these folks didn't particularly take an interest in privacy beyond keeping their passwords safe, watching what they gab about and share on social network sites, etc. But since the story broke, I've had a lot of them discussing how they are worried about keeping their privacy and most of them are looking to these targeted web articles that are really just marketing software.

I think we should be be privacy conscious and I think we should discard any notion that we can expect privacy. People are already predisposed to snooping, and companies have a monetary incentive to do it. The extent of your efforts will ultimately reflect upon what you seek to keep private and from what entity you seek to keep it private: people (co-workers, boss, friends, family, etc.), companies (advertisers, google, etc.), governments.(law enforcement, FBI, NSA, etc.). The problem is despite every effort you make your still have little control over what happens server side with exception to how you encrypt data you send, what sites you visit, and what information you transmit. I think privacy is a big concern we should all have, but how to go about it and to what extent may be a problem. I just saw an article about a doctors wanting me to swallow a smart pill. On one hand I've got to worry about pharmaceutical companies trying to keep me medicated and on the other I've got to worry about insurance companies looking for excuses to deny me low cost insurance so I have to pay a premium. Am I only one noticing the BMI index changes every year and not in a positive way. If the trend continues by 2020 every one 10 pounds above average will be considered obese and diabetic. They don't do prediabetic anymore.

 

When it comes to privacy, I have no friends.

 

Pseudonyms exist for a reason, you don't need a Facebook account with real information. Why lose that convenience? (Connect, giveaways, information, games, etc.) Only thing is, you can't let anyone else know who you really are.

 

Well i should have said. It is probably a bad idea to post personal info publicly on the internet. I might think twice before posting my real name for a research paper I wrote on the internet. If possible I might use a pseudonymn for that research paper.

 

thanks for clarifying. I can agree with that.