Someone found my real name

I was involved in a chat with someone, when all of a sudden they started to use my real name. How do I protect myself from that? I was pretty upset..

I'm sorry you were upset. I don't think there's any way for anyone to find out your real name short of you telling someone. So if you get upset by people using your real name, you should be really, really careful not to tell anyone what it is. That's the only way to "protect" yourself because it's the only way someone could find it out.

You may not have told this particular person, but it seems likely that you told someone else or posted that information somewhere. It's the only way, short of a very lucky guess, that the person could have found out your name.

How do you think they got your name?

Hiya Alan!,

You can AR them for violating the disclosure section of the TOS.

I'm sorry about that too.

If you are really comfortable with someone and you refer to each by your rl names, you have to be very careful where you do this at. On occasion Will and I have done this in open chat forgetting that we are not in private chat and someone picks it up. But they are only picking up our rl first names. Or, if someone has chat log activated it will capture whatever is discussed, including your rl name.

Make sure if you are referencing your rl names, make sure you are in private chat. Better yet, don't tell anyone. That is the most safest way to protect your privacy.

So... are you the person the Sirex is talking about?

I guess for starters you need to report the entire event to LL, complete with any chat logs and any other information you can give them to help investigate. Unless you somehow disclosed the RL information, the person who got it and used it is in *very* deep trouble.

Unfortunately, they may be in trouble, but you may be in serious RL danger. You have to make a judgment call about whether to alert RL authorities; I probably wouldn't, just because no threat has been received (I assume), so I'm not sure what you'd say in a complaint. But I'd make sure somebody in RL knows about the situation, just in case something happens.

Unless there's some innocent explanation for this, you just have to assume you're now being stalked in RL. Under those circumstances, it doesn't really matter what you do with your SL account; it's your RL that's at risk now.

A couple of questions about mechanics: Do you use voice? And if so, did you use that new "dial an avatar" feature? (If so, that's almost certainly how the RL info was disclosed; the idiots made it forward the ANI spew by default, so recipients get the RL phone number of the calling party. )

Well, there's a few ways they can find your real name.

1. You use your real name in SL.
2. You use your SL name in RL.
3. They find some 'hook' shared with posts you make with your real name. The hook could be a distinctive phrase or style (your 'fist'), or something geeky like your IP address.

It could have been a random guess as a joke
... and you confirmed it by reacting?

Do you have a very unusual first name or unusual name in your culture that would be very unlikely to be guessed at?

My first name could be guessed by anyone who knew where I was from and thought about it. I'm aware of that but it doesn't matter. It's a very common name in my country.

Do you suffer from a multiple-personality disorder?

Pep (Even more so than most sl inhabitants)

Chuck?

Pep (I thought that was a nickname?)

I remember a guy that was angry because he thought we were makinig fun of his name after somebody typed "ROFL" and another guy (whom he knew in RL) typed "LOL!".

From that we all figured out his name was Rolf.

Obviously everybody then made fun of his name.

Thanks for the replies.

I have NEVER used my real name in any context in SL. I have never had a private chat, that is why it was so odd. I am new to this and am trying to be exceedingly careful. I just thought that it might be visible in some account setting.

Do you have any unique quotes in your profile that somebody could go search for on facebook/myspace and see the same quote (with your RL name)?

my real life name is N'Kara. you can call me Kara for short. tell your friends.

Once upon a time somebody tracked my email address from my IP address while I was connected to their game server using dialup. This was many years ago though, and I don't think it'll be possible to do this with today's setup. But maybe if you've got an unusual connection then it may still be possible to locate somebody's email address from their IP address.

I thought your real name was Mead.

I think that Pep's real name is Giraffe

- because the pee is silent - as in giraffe.

If you have ever been to a zoo you will know that a giraffe's pee is far from silent, hitting the ground with some force after the long descent.

Pep (I always thought there was a silent P in banana, which as everyone knows has a chemical composition of two thirds sodium and one third barium)

No, it's "silent p as in swimming". Sheesh.

Yea. That's what I meant.

When (P)serendipity has a pee, everybody hears about it.

Your name normally stays on the login screen, so if someone you know clicked on the SL icon on your desktop and brought up the login screen, they could see your name there. The main line of investigation would be to recall who, if anyone, might have seen your login screen or might have looked over your shoulder while you're logged in.

What's worse, if you leave the 'remember password' box ticked, they could also log in as 'you'.

So, is it possible that someone's seen your login screen, seen your SL name and then told someone else? Of course, once somebody else knows your RL and SL names, they can tell as many people as they like or even post the details on the net. That might be against SL terms of service but that doesn't make it impossible to do.

In such a situation, the person who knows your name might already have been an SL resident or they might have joined just to find you in-world.

A keylogger or some other type of malware installed on your PC could also rat out your RL info..

No, there is no account setting that will reveal your RL name to other residents.

As others said, it might be an IP trace. If you use a fixed IP, such as from a business site, it is easier to pin you down. If you have parcel media enabled, it gives others a handle to do an IP trace.

Or it could have been a lucky guess.

Or, if you were on voice and left your mike live, someone could have come into the room and said "Whatcha doin', John?" and others overheard it in world. That's my guess.

It's Rumplestiltzken!