Superb news from the Guardian today. This article about information collated through search engines is funny, but equally a little unnerving. However, it would be naive to assume any real privacy from these engines wouldnt it? Good read though. The part about the Florida man falling asleep was great.
Sample:Â
“On April 4, for instance, user 14162375, the melancholy Portuguese-American in Florida, seems to have passed out on the keyboard at 6.20pm, when he asked, suddenly, “llllfkkgjnnvjjfokrb” then “vvvvbmkmjk” and “vvglhkitopppfoppr”. An hour later he had recovered enough to search for variations on his wife’s name - he thought she might have moved to New England. On the evening of April 16, matters came to a head. “My cheating wife,” he typed; and then, five times, “I want to kill myself,” and then “I want to make my wife suffer,” followed quickly by “Kill my wifes mistress,” “My wifes ass,” “A cheating wife”. Two days after that he was back looking for audio surveillance and bugging equipment and four weeks later he seemed to have cheered up and was looking for motorcycle insurance.”
I have a slightly similar comment to add. We were selling a car recently and were corresponding via email with a potential buyer. They never disclosed any personal information either they were witholding on purpose or they just had no internet communication skills. Doesnt matter. He had an email address that was not an annonymous one (such as hotmail/gmail…)
I looked up the domain name of his email (the part after the @ symbol) wich also happened to be his name (the part before the @ symbol). I dont know if I want to disclose what his name is mainly if anyone searches for that name they will stumble across this post…
I will give a similar name to protect his identity. Let say his email was this VIPsups@VIPsups.com. Well using logic, it meant that he was most likely the owner of that domain name. I found that the domain name was registered through GoDaddy and had a full name and address and phone number of the person who registered the domain.
I looked up the address using google maps and could pretty much see the top of his house (in a very pixelated view). I dont know why, but this info gave me a sense of security in that it would be less likely that we would be ripped off on our transaction.
Not only did I find his address, phone number and full name, but I also did a google search of his online name. Finds out he sells or tries to sell weight lifing supplements online, and that he is probably a weight lifter of sorts.
Upon meeting him, my research was all correct. His name was the name on the GoDaddy registry, he looked like he was into weight lifting, and he lived at the address that I saw a satelite view of.
Ahh, the power of the (free) internet search. I am sure if you wanted more info, you could pay some site to pull way more information about someone… but i search out free info.
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