Someone found my real name

Someone beside you in RL noticed that you were on open mike and said "Mike! Mike!!
- Ha, his name is Mike.

Or you mike was open and someone said " hey you"
- Ha, his name is Hugh.

And you said "What?" so he got that your surname was "Watt".

Pep (I hope Hugh's surname isn't Janus)

By the way Sirex, the picks in your profile are public..... anyone can see them

One person found my real name, and I must say that I was the culprit.

I was making a new email for my avatar in gmail. Once the page asked for an alternate email, I've put one of my real ones - at the time I didn't realised that was the one that I used for my Orkut acount. Through the google accounts, a friend from SL asked me a private chat to my RL's Orkut account. This is a way that you may reveal you actual identity if you are not very carefull all the time.

BTW - the two emails are not linked in Google anymore

Shirley you're making that up...

Not to mention: Facebook, myspace, etc., where the account is originally signed up under the typist's name and somehow mentioned in/about/to/for the avatar...

I had an AV by that name try to extort L$s from me back when I owned a club. Not the smarted thing to do, threaten me. What made it worse, the idiot was sitting in my office chair when he did it. No one was allowed to sit in my office chair.

Point. I was counting that as "in RL", but it's kind of a demimonde.

I make *everything* up.

Pep (In the forums anyway)

Another possible explanation is being stalked by a Linden Lab employee who has access to your information (I'd assume they probably all do). Or the employee isn't stalking, but gave it to a friend who gave some plausible reason why the employee should pass along the information despite company policy.

You could also accidentally give it away by using a third-party service related to SL. For example, a business like XStreetSL was before Linden Lab bought it; if you provided your avatar name and credit card to the company, that company and its employees had it.

Whatever their faults, I'd imagine Linden Labs are savvy enough to restrict access to that information to certain departments within the company. A careless breach of privacy could ruin them overnight.

PS: Hi Alan!

So people CAN get your first name from your IP? How?

I once saw someone look up all of someone's info (not literally saw - saw them post it in chat long before SL existed) merely from an ICQ number. They only said they used an IP. (Person who was 'looked up' had been harassing a woman in the chat, a regular.)

They also said most email clients are very easy to hack...

This gives me a bit of pause about ever enabling media stream anywhere but SL home.

That is really a SERIOUS security breach that I hope LL fixes immediately.

Oh, I'm sure Linden Lab has taken steps to prevent it. I also have quite enough experience to know that any security can be breached by one person in a secure position making a momentarily lapse in judgment.

I guess I just personally know about this sort of thing happening far too much.

It should be considered a real possibility. And I don't suggest a Linden Lab conspiracy; I'm pretty sure if management knew of a situation of an employee improperly accessing information, they'd want to fire that person immediately- don't pass Go, don't collect your last paycheck.

I think what he meant is: Posting here as Pep. Then posting at www.obnoxioustwits.com under your real name and someone who frequents both boards capturing your ISP in both places and putting the puzzle together. But I may be wrong.

Edit: No Peps were harmed in the writing of this post.

I believe that in certain countries, the police can demand such information from your internet provider, in the pursuit of a serious crime. Your IP of course will have your name and address, payment records etc.

Otherwise, no. People can tell who your IP is, and within a certain range they can tell where you are located, although the various tests I've done on my own IP put me anywhere between 20 and 5000 miles away from where I actually am.

Someone once claimed to me that they could find out anyone's RL name and address in ten minutes, just from google searches. I gave them my SL name and my most commonly-used email address. They found my RL blog but nothing else (and the blog doesn't refer to my RL name either). I once googled my RL name with town I live in, and got about 150,000 hits. After going through the first 30 pages I gave up - not one of them referred to me.

The most likely risk, if you've not actually told anyone yourself what your RL name is, is that one of your "friends" did.

Phew. Thanks Lewis.

I use a different screen name everywhere I go. I never connect any of it with my rl info.

I never tell anyone in SL anything traceable. Past that, we're all linked up worldwide by now if anyone really wanted to get any of our info. Scary. (Kinda)

And one reason I refuse to sign up w/Aristotle...Why make it easier??

Cross-reference your name with collections of names and IP addresses elsewhere on the net. Google is a useful tool for this.

For example, most email you send will have your IP address somewhere in it, even if you send it through a web service, so googling for the IP address may turn it up in mailing list archives.

Many forums will log your IP address, and some of them still leave log files visible to robots.

Harder, but still possible, if you update a Mediawiki your IP address will be tagged, and if you sometimes log on to Wikipedia before updating and sometimes you foget people can correlate the changes you make. This *has* been used to identify Wikipedia editors.

I can tell you I very rarely use streaming media in SL except with people who I believe already know who I am. Or at least knew at some point, because I told them.

In general, your IP does not tie you down closely enough to be a real threat. It might put you in a city. Only access to your ISPs records can tie it closer.
However, if you are posting out of a large corporate, the reverse DNS can ID your company and perhaps location depending on how the corporate network is configured. Depending on circumstances and other information that a person might have about you, they could get to you.

I answered the work phone a few years back once, and what started as a business inquiry became strange. I realised it was a creep who had been hassling me in various Net forums.
I'm much more careful now. And I like working out of a small operation with an IP that is not fixed. No corporate muppets and no IP exposure.

You got the name of the website wrong. Surprising, since you are a founder member.

Pep (It's www.obnoxiouswits.com )

Damn typos

And again if you've never actually given out your RL name, and neither have any of your friends, the best that will do is link your various online aliases. It can't find your RL details if they're not actually out there to begin with.

The only websites that have ever had my RL name are ones that require credit card and delivery details for online purchases; I guess they could be hacked and stolen, but they're not google-able.

My rl name is Debi, not that far off from Yummy, and lot's of people use my real name in game. Not that Ive ever noticed or cared.
No one is really going to show up on your front lawn because they know your rl name. Maybe your back lawn, though.

I never, ever, use my RL name in any online community. Jesse Barnett is the name I use in most and there is no tie in between it anywhere and my RL info. I am not one of those paranoid types and would not care at all except for the fact that I have a RL daughter. There are enough goofy people in this world so why take a chance when you do not need to? All anyone needs is your RL name and a hint or two to get your RL phone number and address.

Unfortunately this just happened in RL this week at work. A young, 25 year old decided to join a Christian dating site. She has met a couple of guys there but met someone new 3 weeks ago. We all warned her from his described actions that this guy was a creep and a stalker. She told him last weekend that it was over and sure enough he showed up at her front door Monday evening. Fortunately her father is an intimidating, retired Naval officer and he dealt with the situation. The only contact info the stalker needed, he had, from her Face Book page; RL name and town.

It's amazing what someone determined enough can piece together with just a few scraps like that. As Jesse said, why take the chance?

It isn't even whether someone might 'do' something. It's the lost sleep: who needs even five minutes' worry about it? That's the real harm a stalker/harasser causes. Stress.



I didn't know that, either. I am pretty sure my IP would be different but a long time back - hmm. Before message boards there were other ways to chat online, let's leave it there...

People forget that once it's online it's online for good.