Hide Your Identity With a Pseudonym and Free Email Accounts

Make no mistake, you can be tracked down by the information you leave behind on the internet. For instance if your email address is yourname-and-birthday@yourisp.com (face it LOTS of people include their birthday) and you let this email address out into the wild, say in a comment to a blog post, a chat room, online forum, or even a résumé/job post etc, it can be quite easy to find even more of your personal information. Think about it, many Internet Service Providers only serve a specific geographic location, if you exclude the big guys like SBC (even the big guys have subdivisions that someone might be able to find out about). Someone of nefarious intent can do a simple online search and find out what area your ISP serves. Just like that they have narrowed there search to a specific area. Next they just search for your name in that area. Kinda scary and that’s just from your email address.

Here’s the problem with all those great websites: Many of them require that you “Sign Up” to gain full access to what they have to offer. This “Sign up” process may require as little as an email address while others may want a lot more including your name, address, phone number, and first born male child. Ok, maybe that last one is a bit of a stretch but I think you can see where I’m going with this.

Just because someone asks you for information does not mean that you have to give it to them or that it be 100% true. Let me pose this scenario: You meet someone in a club while out of town on business and they are very nice, in fact you spend quite some time having intelligent conversation. Finally when it’s time to go home to your family (let’s say you’re married) and this nice person asks you for your number. The thought of your jealous spouse answering a call from strange man/women you met in a club just isn’t very appealing to you, but you don’t want to reject your new friend either. So you give him/her your cell number, or as happens more than you might think, you give him/her a fake number reasoning that you will most likely never see this person again.

This same strategy works marvelously with those annoying website “sign ups” only without the hurt feelings 2 days later when your new ‘friend’ realizes you gave them a bogus number. Unless I am purchasing a product or service from a website or creating some type of business relationship, I always use a pseudonym (fake name) and an email address from an online provider such as Yahoo or Hotmail. I generally use a real email address that I have set up with one of the online providers so that I can receive the information I requested and because many of these sites have gotten wise to this trick so they only grant you access or allow you to download the requested file after you confirm your email address by clicking a link in an email that the website sends you.

Don’t use your real name. Use a nickname or even a fake one. Do not make your name part of your email address except the one used for real business contacts and friends/family. The same goes for including your birthday or other private information. Remember your email address is seen by anyone you send mail to from that address.

By using a pseudonym and a free email account you not only protect your privacy but you are also creating a buffer from spam. If one of your free email accounts begins to get completely out of hand with spam you can always ‘throw it away’ and create a new one. If you have cultivated any real contacts with your ‘throw away’ account that you wish to keep you can always provide them with your new ‘throw away’ email address.

Anti-Spyware Saves Your Private Information

In an effort to protect users from themselves, most Anti-Spyware programs create backups of the very things they're supposed to delete. Now, I'm definitely not saying that you shouldn't use Anti-Spyware, far from it in fact. I can't begin to tell you how many times that Ad-Aware SE or Spybot S&D have saved my bacon. Many of these programs delete more than just spyware, they attempt to help you protect your privacy by deleting many of the "Recent" lists that Windows stores such as documents that you have recently opened or web pages you've visited. Many Anti-Spyware programs also delete cookies.
However: To keep users from accidentally deleting an important file or list (Let's face it, how many users really know what is safe to delete?) most of the programs store the information that they are "deleting" in a quarantine file, which is another nice way of saying, "You thought you deleted those files but we really backed them up so they can be retrieved later." Again let me say that Anti-Spyware programs are a GOOD thing, but there are some things most users don't realize, and the quarantine file is a biggest one. This is not a huge problem: the file is easily emptied and you can also tweak the program's settings to not store the files or to store them for a limited period of time. The problem is that many users won't know to change the settings or delete the file themselves. Many people may not even care, but for those of you who are concerned about your privacy, you should take the time to look into your particular program's settings, to see what is saved and what you can do about it. The only thing worse than being paranoid is having a false sense of security.

Is Google Maps a Threat to Indvidual Privacy?

Privacy groups are keeping a watchful eye on Google as it posts pictures of thousands of homes on their Street View website which is accessed through Google Maps. While being able to drop in to 360 degree photographic view Times Square from a map on their site is pretty cool, many privacy groups have expressed concern about what this may mean to individual privacy. Since the Street View project started Google has been outfitting cars with special cameras and sending them to drive the streets of the world snapping pictures of everything in their path, and everything along side of it.
The cause for concern is that someone may unknowingly be photographed in a compromising position (no more mowing the front yard in the nude for me), or that a criminal may use the information to case you home before he breaks in. For the first concern, if you're doing something you shouldn't; don't do it in public dummy! Law enforcement in many parts of the world already has a much better system of cameras feeding real-time data to "the man". Of course that's a whole other story. As for the crooks casing you place, that seems like a valid concern. Nothing is seen in the photographs online that couldn't be seen from the street, but at least before Google Streets the bad guys had to go out and look around in person.
Currently the database of photographs boasts 51 cities in the US as well as parts of Italy and France. Britain and Australia are on the way later this year. The sole purpose of the campaign is to capture pictures of streets and landmarks, not the people in them, however you just can't take a picture of a busy street and not expect to catch a glimpse of a person or a car license plate. To allay concerns that someone in a photo may be identified or a license lumber tracked down, Google has created a system that blurs most recognizable faces and license plates.
Yes, I said most. No automated system is perfect so Google allows users to report inappropriate images from within the application, and may request to have their pictures taken down. Though I think the "Report Inappropriate Image" link could have been more prominent it is easily located by clicking the "Help" link. Also what about the individuals that have been photographed and don't know to look at the website to see if they want their photos removed. After reviewing the photos available on the site I think they can add quite a bit of value for navigation, landmarks have always been easier to remember than street names. Also the photos a good enough quality to see the neighbors house and read some street signs, there was not enough detail to zoom in on any windows and see inside a house.
In all I think the risk to individuals privacy is minimal since the photos are low resolution and not real-time. The danger I see is in the precedent that this might set. Once everyone gets used to cameras everywhere, it will get easier to slip more intrusions into our private lives. I guess the best question to ask is, does the public have a reasonable expectation of privacy when in public. Does spying on the drug dealer on the corner openly selling his wares in full view place your privacy in danger or protect you from the bad guys? I won't tell you how to answer these questions because everyones limits are different. But I hope my rambling will cause you to pause for a moment to decide just where your limits do lie.