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.

Gmail and cell phones

Maybe it's just me but I didn't much like the idea that you have to give up your cell number in order to sign up for gmail. Yeah it's a great email app and all, and google say's they won't release it to anyone. But here is my concern; what if you are looking for a moderately annonymous email account. You can't just say your name is Joe Smith and fake your zip code like with Yahoo! or Hotmail. Yes giving them your cell number adds lot's of funcionaliy and that's great if you plan to use those features. They say it helps cut down on abuse and spam, we'll see....
I went ahead and gave up my number but elected to not have it attatched to my account as it was required to use blogger. Not too sure what this means to my privacy as I have no proof of what they do with the information after all is said and done. They must keep it somewhere if it is being used to control user abuse.
Anyone else have any thoughts on the subject?
DARKHELM