Geesh, half of page one is gone!

[PrincessShmoo]

Again how do they use this information if they don't know who I am? They don't know my name, where I live or any other actual identifying information? Not be snarky, I really am curious.

If it's a bot, it can compile the info from many different sources and probably figure out who/where you are.

 

[tarheelmjfan]

Again how do they use this information if they don't know who I am? They don't know my name, where I live or any other actual identifying information? Not be snarky, I really am curious.

If you provided enough information, by answering all of their questions over time, they could figure out where you live, as well as learning much more about you. I know a lot about many people here, based on the info they share. Honestly, I probably know enough about you to locate you, if I was motivated to do so.

 

[disneychrista]

If you provided enough information, by answering all of their questions over time, they could figure out where you live, as well as learning much more about you. I know a lot about many people here, based on the info they share. Honestly, I probably know enough about you to locate you, if I was motivated to do so.

PM me, tell me where you think.

 

[tarheelmjfan]

PM me, tell me where you think.

PM incoming.

 

[neverlandsky]

Actually surprised the mods haven’t put up rules or restrictions against excessive data mining posts by same users.

And yes the ignore feature works very well.

 

[luvmarypoppins]

I don’t answer any of those questions. I did catch said person in a lie. Referred to a previous post they gave info in. I asked for clarification and was ignored. Not surprising.

 

[Kitty 34]

I personally think when the Bots joined it changed the feel of the community board.

 

[Dan Murphy]

Ignore works!

Yes, ignore works. Have not used much here over the years. There was one person, maybe more than 20 years ago, several screennames, who was bent on being hurtful and mentally mean to others here. As a moderator back then, I could not really put that person, or any person, on ignore, obvious reason. The day I quit, that person and his various sock puppets went on my ignore. He's thankfully long gone.

Now just the 3 heavy duty questioners. Most of the time it's fine, maybe a third of page one., But sometimes, if super prolific they take up so much of page one, and two also. Yesterday it got up to 18 of a possible 30, 60%! That's a lot. But, such as it is.

 

[gmi3804]

Fine by me. If you put certain people on ignore, those daily nonsense questions vanish from my list. NONE of them seem like anything that matters regardless of the answers being posted. When the OP never returns to engage in any sort of conversation, I don't see any point in them.

Aw, c'mon. Who doesn't want to name a song with the word "coffee" in it? It's so much FUN!!!

 

[The Mayor]

Hate when that happens.

We must have the same people on ignore

 

[disneychrista]

Aw, c'mon. Who doesn't want to name a song with the word "coffee" in it? It's so much FUN!!!

May not be fun TO YOU doesn't mean it isn't fun for others. I have found some new (to me) music from such threads.

 

[luvthatduke]

I don't have one but there are programs you can download
that show the IP address and the location for anyone online.
There used to be a DIS'er here who ran it to alert anyone that
didn't use a VPN that they could see their location/IP address.

 

[robinb]

If you have someone blocked the number of threads on a page will be reduced.

There are actually 3 'someones' that take up a large part of the Community Board real estate. I've blocked one but not the other two.

 

[Chirple]

When 15 of your 18 ignored threads are by the same poster, it's time to put that poster on ignore.

 

[robinb]

When 15 of your 18 ignored threads are by the same poster, it's time to put that poster on ignore.

It’s 4 out of 5 for me. But that poster is not on my ignore yet.

 

[Imzadi]

Again how do they use this information if they don't know who I am? They don't know my name, where I live or any other actual identifying information? Not be snarky, I really am curious.

If you provided enough information, by answering all of their questions over time, they could figure out where you live, as well as learning much more about you. I know a lot about many people here, based on the info they share. Honestly, I probably know enough about you to locate you, if I was motivated to do so.

I don't have one but there are programs you can download
that show the IP address and the location for anyone online.
There used to be a DIS'er here who ran it to alert anyone that
didn't use a VPN that they could see their location/IP address.

Exactly. Ever Use Google Maps? Or the iPhone version of it? It's able to locate me down to the building I'm in. When I'm traveling on a bus, it locates me precisely, so I know when to ping the bus driver to stop at the next stop.

Every time I use Google or my browser, even though my settings are NOT to share my location, it ALWAYS gives the location of the closest Walgreens, Target, Lowes, etc. I've given up on telling it to block my location.

Facebook found out where I am, even though I NEVER shared my location or mentioned it in any post. Yet, it started showing me groups & interests in my neighborhood. So much for Zuckerberg not using my info once I've set up all those privacy tabs.

Once the scammers have your IP address, they can actually locate you within the block, if not the actual building/house you live in. Once they figure that out, they find your name, address, and age - most of that is posted online already, along with your relatives - your daughter who moved out, so they can try to locate her too. They can then use the info you so freely provided in all the "innocent" posts on the DIS and elsewhere that's GOOGLEABLE for their AI to compile your personal details.

I remember decades ago I was in Macy's trying to get one of their store credit cards. They actually had me talk to an agent on the phone and he went over "security questions" with me to qualify for the card.

When I couldn't remember the answer to the the question, "Which of these cars did I once own?" due to the fact that a relative owned a used car lot, and I had owned more cars than a person gets changes of clothes, the agent said, prompting my memory, "It's online. It's general information about you on the Internet." that's WHERE I realized they got the answers to these "security questions" about me.

Another time, I was on the phone for another security question, some other business. They wanted to verify it was really me. They asked, what i thought was the insanely stupid question of, "What month and year did you open a bank account with _______ Bank?" I didn't have a smart phone back then, where I could have opened up my account online and looked up the info. I also thought, I'm not from a third world country where the month and year I had opened a new American bank account would be seared into my memory as a momentous occasion to remember forever.

I forgot that my old bank had been bought out by another bank. ALL of us had to open a new bank account with this new bank after the takeover. The month and year that happened is public record in the news.

Even though I can't remember security details about my own life, it shows that someone armed WITH that info and other details written down, could easily call for a credit card or loan, pretending to be "Imzadi Doe," and when asked security questions, might get a number of them right, and get a credit card with my name. Once they get one, they keep using that info to get more cards. That is identity theft and how it's used.

 

[china mom]

While I personally don't answer any of the questions on those inane threads and I have the three main culprits on ignore, I also am not worried about them being used to data mine. Mostly because, as noted above, most of our private information is out there to begin with anyway but second, If I were to play and any of the questions asked something that could possibly be one of my security questions (which street did you grow up on, or name your first pet) I would either not answer or give a bogus answer. I just find all those threads super annoying and useless.

But, just to give you an idea of the information out there, run yourself on

fastpeopleserch.com
zabasearch.com
truepeoplesearch.com

or any one of a dozen other sites. My personal favorite is fastpeoplesearch.com I use it all the time at work when I am trying to find someone to return property to. I will look them up and if there currently listed phone number is bad, I will relative hop until I find someone who knows them.

 

[robinb]

While I personally don't answer any of the questions on those inane threads and I have the three main culprits on ignore, I also am not worried about them being used to data mine. Mostly because, as noted above, most of our private information is out there to begin with anyway but second, If I were to play and any of the questions asked something that could possibly be one of my security questions (which street did you grow up on, or name your first pet) I would either not answer or give a bogus answer. I just find all those threads super annoying and useless.

But, just to give you an idea of the information out there, run yourself on

fastpeopleserch.com
zabasearch.com
truepeoplesearch.com

or any one of a dozen other sites. My personal favorite is fastpeoplesearch.com I use it all the time at work when I am trying to find someone to return property to. I will look them up and if there currently listed phone number is bad, I will relative hop until I find someone who knows them.

FWIW, you can contact all of those websites and request them to remove your data so it is no longer public. I contacted a number of them that popped up when I googled myself about a year ago. I suspect that I have to do that again, but all companies complies.

 

[tvguy]

FWIW, you can contact all of those websites and request them to remove your data so it is no longer public. I contacted a number of them that popped up when I googled myself about a year ago. I suspect that I have to do that again, but all companies complies.

So much of my information is on websites that are no longer maintained, so nobody to contact to remove it. I was our Little League website administrator in 2000. The provider.....hired by Little League Baseball to provide websites to every Little League in the nation, has long since gone out of business, and the live website is long gone, but lives on on websites like archive.org. If someone contacted me, I would have no way to remove their info.
And I have a broken laptop I used then, that has every players information on it in the registration software Little League had us use. And in 2000, many folks medical ID numbers were their Social Security Numbers. I have put off taking it apart to remove the hard drive, but I will do that before I recycle that computer.

 

[china mom]

FWIW, you can contact all of those websites and request them to remove your data so it is no longer public. I contacted a number of them that popped up when I googled myself about a year ago. I suspect that I have to do that again, but all companies complies.

Yes, this 100%. I check every few years and once in a while I pop back up and have to be removed again but it is worth doing.