Personal information in your profile

I've encountered a few people recently who had placed obvious links to personal information in their profile. I was astonished. I come from an older school that believes that my personal identity should be as protected as possible and only unveiled to those I know & trust pretty well. Otherwise, the only thing people in SL know about me is that my name is Cindy Claveau, I'm female, and the 1st Life tab on my profile says very clearly "What happens in SL stays in SL."

Last week I met a woman who had her Myspace.com address posted right on the front of her profile. We chatted a bit and I asked her if she was concerned about being stalked. She shrugged it off, so in order to prove something to her I looked up her myspace page, immediately found out which city she's in. From there, tracked down her yahoo email which contained her last name. From there, a brief trip to an online phone directory and within 10 minutes I came back to tell her her full name, her mailing address, city and phone number. She was a bit shocked, but I wanted to make a point to her: you cannot trust anyone - ANYONE - online without personally knowing them very well offline for a length of time. (And sometimes even then) It's just too easy to fool people.

She wasn't the only one. I've seen several other people -- all of these are younger folks, it seems, and most of them new to SL -- who have a wealth of RL personal info in their profiles.

Maybe I'm old fashioned. The Internet Generation doesn't seem to be as paranoid as me, and places like Yahoo and Myspace have created a culture of information sharing that can lead right to your front doorstep. My nieces do it and no axe murderer's come after them, but you never know. I'm just surprised we haven't heard of a modern-day Internet Ted Bundy, because this is a ripe field for plucking.

Do you try to protect your RL info, or does it not matter to you? Maybe we can swap war stories on bad things that can happen -- after 10 years online, I have some doozies. I learned long ago that Fox Muldar was only half right: "Don't trust, and always verify."

Yes... I'm sure stalkers all over the internet rejoiced when MySpace was invented. Scary stuff.

I do try to protect my real life identity. I feel that this is important for two reasons. First, I don't feel my RL identity is particularly relevant here - for most of the people that I know. And secondly, I have been stalked here (well, kinda), and it's not pleasant. I really do not need that following me into my real life world.

That being said, my closest SL friends do know my RL identity, and they know a great deal about me personally. They often know my name, where I live, what I do for a living, and a whole lot more. A friendship made here in SL is as real to me as one made off-line. I would never consider hiding my identity from a RL friend, and I won't do it here either.

So for me, I prefer to protect my RL identity for the vast majority of people I come into contact with. But for my friends ... nah ... you are gonna hear it all whether you want to or not

I don't do much to protect my identity in my profile. It's probably pretty easy to figure out who I am if you talk to me once and read my profile. But I'm here specifically to collaborate on things that are important to me irl too. And if my projects pan out, my real name is going to have be associated with them anyway.

Anyhow, for any potential stalkers out there: my actual name will bring to mind inappropriate eyewear.

I've three layers of my life in SL:

The vast majority of people know me as Phedre. My friends know my real first name. My close, close friends know my first and last name, and in many cases have spoken to me on the phone or exchanged Christmas cards. Of course, most of them knew me /before/ SL.

I'm not /terribly/ concerned about my RL being exposed to SL, or vice versa; if anyone's so bored as to want to stalk me, they need serious, serious help. ^_^

If people want to know somethng about me, I usually will tell them if they ask. I also have my 1st life pic in my profile, I don't see why not. This is how I met my current partner, both in SL, and moved to RL. There are some freaks out there, but I don't let that hinder my chance to make a new friend.

Plus, stalkers make life interesting!

I have my myspace in my RL info bitthingymabob, but i'm no more concerned about having a stalker follow me from SL than I am having one find me randomly on SL, I guess maybe I don't protect my RL identity enough and I guess I don't think about it all that much, but i'm more than willing to share MOST information with people if they ask!

I don't care if people know my real name. If it had been possible, I would have used my real name as my SL avatar name. I think this comes from my long experience of Usenet, where people using fake names were very often trolls and kooks. Thus I developed a bit of an aversion to not using my real life name over the computer.

a few people in Sl know my RL info, but they are people I have known for a long time and I trust, I have a very uncommon first name RL so I suppose if I told you my first name and location you could find me if you wanted to, but I'm really not that worried

It's really interesting that you posted this now because I have been wondering myself if disclosure of real life information that is openly available to anyone online is a legitimate TOS violation.

For example, anyone who discloses the URL to their web site automatically allows others to look up their registration information on sites such as whois. Does that mean if I repeat a web site URL belonging to a member to another member that I am disclosing real life info? It's a stretch, isn't it.

I too have noticed many myspace urls in profiles and many contain the members real name, or that info is readily available to anyone who visits the site.

I also noticed that Linden Lab seems to be pushing programs that require members to reveal their real life identity to other members and other Linden employees in order to participate. For example. participation in the new Linden Viewpoint program, for those who are chosen to receive an invitation to San Francisco, would require a complete loss of any privacy or anonymity for that member. The same applies to the SL conventions and meet ups.

Those of us who have encountered stalkers, whether online or in real life, are very cautious about this kind of disclosure.

I have a pretty extensive web site with a lot of stuff on it -- anyone who interacts with me in my non-SL hobby life (mainly robotics, but lots of other stuff as well) is going to know my real name. I'm no more worried about people from SL finding me than I am about people visiting my web site finding me.

- Jon

I'm not really that worried about it, but then I'm not a delicious and nubile 19-year-old girl, so maybe I don't have to be.

I think I even dropped my cell number in #secondlife once. Oz called me and pretended he thought he was ordering a pizza. I called him on it and he got all nervous and wouldn't talk to me.

meh, my RL & SL lives are pretty much intertwined as it is so I'm not bothered. That said, if anyone ever tried to stalk / harrass / blackmail / intimidate me in RL or SL they're in for a nasty shock: I prosecute to the full extent of the law without exception.

i can't see the pictures in your signature. just fyi

you're just saying that to throw the stalkers off.

Ingrid, my sig changes all the time. If you want, I can send you a copy of that piccy. It's the gatefold picture from the 'Tales from Topographic Oceans' album by Yes.

I don't handle my personal info online any differently than I do offline. You are much more likely to be stalked/harassed by someone you meet in rl than by someone you meet online. Do you hesitate to give out your last name in rl? What about your phone number and address?

A local TV stations just did a story about how most people will give out personal info to a total stranger without hesitation. They had a young woman out on the street asking people if they would like to help with a survey, for which she would pay them $5 for about 5 minutes of their time. She then hands them a clipboard with a form on it that they are to fill out for the $5. The form asked their name, address, phone number, mother's maiden name and their social security number, among other things. Dozens and dozens of people blithely filled out the form and gave it back to her for $5. When told by reporters that they had given out more than enough info for an identity thief to wreck their lives, most of them just sort of shrugged and said something to the effect of “Gee, that was dumb I guess.”

So the way I handle it is that I don't give out info online that I would not give out in rl. When I am signing up for some kind of service or “membership” with a business and they ask for my social security number, and it's not required by law that I give it to them, I give them Richard Nixon's SSN.

hell yes im careful!
I have and have had stalkers on the net and in sl.
I think all the geeky gamer girls out there will agree with me on this one.
Theres a lot of lonely guys out there.

I dont give out info irl, why would i here?

I never offer up my last name or exact location.

My first name? Sure.

Myspace? Yeah, but it doesn't have my addy, or anything that says where I live.

My website? I make pictures of my daughter private, mine are public. Nothing is offered that would give away my last name or anything.

Where did you get this statistic from?

Yeah, I sure do. My phone number is unlisted and I stopped wearing a t-shirt with my home address on it years ago.

I come from a new school that believes if you have nothing to hide, there's nothing people can use against you
But yeah I am not a woman and I live in a place with low crime rates. Maybe you should work on that instead of living in fear
Transparency is a good thing. There is a reason why people demand it of governments and corporations. I believe it's high time people realized they should apply it to themselves.

i wonder if more stalkers are men or women... i do think women need to be extra careful online. but of course there are women stalkers *shrug*

I think at the end of the day there are about an equal number of male and female stalkers out there although it may seem like there's definitely more male ones. The mistake in perception is due to the fact that most women have been doing it longer and they're better at it so they go on unnoticed by most.

Now now, don't get all touchy on me. I am just making a statement of equality.

Troy

But, but, but... If people stopped posting so much of their RL information on the web, how could I continue to support myself through identity theft?

Who's gonna stalk an egg? Maybe if you were an egg with breasts you'd understand.

I have a german shepherd with really big teeth.