Let’s imagine an SDMB user named, oh, StalkerMan. He starts reading your posts and becomes obsessed with you. He searches the archive, and reads every single post you’ve ever made here. Based on all that information – all the references you may have made to your job, where you live, how you look, what you’re interested in, etc. – how long would it take for StalkerMan to track you down, figure out who you are, and show up at your front door? Could he do it at all? He cannot contact you by e-mail, or e-mail anyone else about you. All he has to go on is what you’ve posted here.
Don’t mean to freak anyone out with this question; it’s extremely unlikely anything like this would happen, of course. This thread just got me thinking about how easily someone could piece together where we live. If you want to put a more positive spin on it, imagine you stopped using this board and someone had to track you down to tell you that you’d won a million dollars, or something like that.
It wouldn’t be too hard. One thread I started is about my new apartment. My profile links to my myspace page, and there are pictures of me and friends outside of said apartment. It also lists the city I live in.
If **StalkerMan ** was throrough enough, I’m sure he could figure out which apt. complex it is and hang around waiting for me to appear.
But, I know karate and carry Mace and always have a very large pit bull by my side. I have motion detectors and weight sensors and infrared beams protecting my apartment and I am very friendly with the 12 members of the police SWAT team that live in the apartment to my right and even friendlier with the 10 Mafia hitmen that live to my left.
Well, if he’d seen the blog post and gone to my blog, than -pow!- Stalkerman could be at my doorstep.
Of course, then he’d have to contend with the large dogs, a gunwielding spouse and a little woman with no reservation regarding survival streetfighting and its application to bundles of nerves and mucous membranes.
Ooh, that’s kind of a simulpost. Guess us wimmins are a little defensive, eh? Anyway, I have a small business. Much of my life is now private record to those who care enough to dig.
Ooh, that’s kind of a simulpost. Guess us wimmins are a little defensive, eh? Anyway, I have a small business. Much of my life is now public record to those who care enough to dig.
You probably couldn’t figure out where I work or live, but I’d be really easy to track down otherwise. I’ve posted my picture and about my rowing activities. There’s only one place to row here and I’m not hard to spot.
It’d take about five minutes to find both my workplace and my home. I started out using my real name, but changed it recently; and I used to list my city and state in my profile. Now, I just list the county road I live on. But spend a few minutes reading my previous posts, you’ll know everything but my shoe size (10 wide. Oops!)
Eh. There’s a possibility, but when posting something quite personal, I will often throw in a deliberately misleading little factoid on purpose - something that won’t derail my post or ruin the basic facts, but allows me to stay slippery. We’ve moved a couple of times since I’ve posted any “giveaway” locations. Even my name, though I’ve posted it in full here several times, bothers me not at all. It, too, is deliberately misleading, while being the truth at the same time. It is my real name. But good luck looking it up, since it will lead you nowhere.
Unless the stalker is one of the Seattle Trivia mafia. They know what’s what. At least two or three of them, anyway, having had a good gander at one of my ID cards last Tuesday night. If anything happens to me, it was Cervaise, picunurse, and/or possibly stargazer! Hide your kids and small animals! They’re coming for YOU next! AHHH!
I’ve made no secret of where I work, where I live, what I teach, etc. All it would take is 2 minutes with Google and they’d have my school data, and then 411 for the address.
Well, I posted my full name once and my first name several times, and it is probably child’s play to figure out my university and area of specialization, so yeah, a really determined stalker would be able to pull it off. He’d have to be prepared to wade through all my posts, though, and I take comfort in the fact that I’m just not that interesting.
From what I’ve posted here, he could probably find me at a hockey game with no problem. At home, not so easy. And I have all these trained attack cats, you see, in addition to the guns, and the moat…
I certainly haven’t posted enough information about my home that anyone could find my house, though I’ve been explicit about my hometown and the business I work for, but there’s plenty of people with the same title as me. Maybe by asking around, and some good guessing about my age and interests, Stalkerman could catch me at work. If he figured out the reasoning behind my username, it’d be a dead giveaway.
I’ve been reasonably careful here. Have never posted my state or town. If Stalkerman bothered to read all my posts, he’d find what I’ve said about guns, the Castle Doctrine, and my personal policy regarding self defense, and then either chose someone else, or qualify for a Darwin award.
I’ve never posted my last name, though I’ve posted my first–I think. I have acknowledged at least 3 schools I’ve attended, at least one with sufficient info datewise and otherwise that coupled with my first name, someone might be able to figure out who I am, especially if they had access to a yearbook. Someone showing up on my doorstep is unlikely, as I’ve not posted anything about my present location. Mostly, I avoid threads which are too obviously listings of personal data, to make it harder to find information on me, but I can think of an “it’s a small world” thread in which I provided more information than usual, which is non-obviously a small world thread.
If anything happens to me, it was Cervaise, picunurse, and/or possibly stargazer! Hide your kids and small animals! They’re coming for YOU next! AHHH!