Privacy, how much information is too much...

Hi,

Swazer brought up an interesting topic in one of my threads, and i thought it merits a seperate thread so here goes...

With all the polls in EF asking for you age, location, income level, personal preferences, etc... How much information is too much? How much information can you give about yourself without the risk of revelaing real information that can be used against you?

Discussion on!

Cheers

Dunno really? My real name, adress, personal number, bankaccount number, phonenumber, kids information, rl company/job name .. are my limits. Other than that, I have nothing to hide and nothing to fear .. or at least, I'm blind towards that If they dont know the rest, what can they possible use my age or income for?

Seriously, I might be too naive

Interesting that this has finally been brought up. I remember one particularly crazy thread asking people for the number of their gold card in order to see how many people had them.... As a rule i never post on any thread or vote which involves giving away any personal information cos u just cant be too carefull these days.

i'd be careful with giving too much personal info. it happened to me, that i found out things about other players (accidantely), that they never thought someone can know. i told them what, and also how, i found out, and they will be more careful now

(it's all about giving 'tiny pieces of info' here and there, and suddenly someone can find out your RL-adress. happened really!!! )

JackFree said:

Hi,

Swazer brought up an interesting topic in one of my threads, and i thought it merits a seperate thread so here goes...

With all the polls in EF asking for you age, location, income level, personal preferences, etc... How much information is too much? How much information can you give about yourself without the risk of revelaing real information that can be used against you?

Discussion on!

Cheers

Click to expand...

I couldn't possibly give you that information !!

Im comfortable giving my first name, age, country and city I live in. I dont give anything above that. Im more worried about people going through my rubbish and getting personal information there, but I suppose its relatively easy to get information on someone if you know how to do it. Bottom line, be careful and dont give information unless it is minor.

As much as you feel uncomfortable sharing. Of course account numbers and such would be way too much info. Then people with websites etc are open to having alot of thier personal info already out there for people to find if they really wanted to. Me personally I have my name in print many millions of times and most likely in alot of your homes from my work in the music biz. I could tell you who I am and think nothing of it. But then many would think I am rich or something, which I am not, and try to exploit that. It`s really a balancing act.

First of all, +rep to JackFree for making this post. This is an issue that I have thought about for some time ever since the first time I saw a poll asking people how much money they make IRL.

In a universe like this, any information of a RL person being publicly requested by a poll is too much.

Something to think about:

How many of you have credit cards activated on your accounts?

How many of you are known in-game and on EF both? (This means people know your avatar name as well as your EF name)

How many of you are concerned about your EU account ever being hacked?

What would make your account more of a hacking target?

Thinking about those questions, I can't imagine why so many people would willing give out information on their accounts like, "how much money I make" or "how much I deposited last year."

Personally, I think polls of that nature should just be prohibbited by the EF rules. Of course, that is just my opinion.

It doesn't bother me. I'll say as much here as I would a stranger In real life. The usual chit-chat stuff.

You shouldn't have to worry If your suffciently protected, such as a Gold Card and a sense of caution, ironically.

erm, cant you just not respond to the polls?

but yes, it does present a oppurtunity for people to gather info about you might otherwise have not given out, and might be usful to others with nefarious goals.

JackFree said:

Hi,

Swazer brought up an interesting topic in one of my threads, and i thought it merits a seperate thread so here goes...

With all the polls in EF asking for you age, location, income level, personal preferences, etc... How much information is too much? How much information can you give about yourself without the risk of revelaing real information that can be used against you?

Discussion on!

Cheers

Click to expand...

A good rule to go by is do not give out info you afterwoods feel uncomfortable with having shared

I have given out my real name (first name) town I live in, msn / email
Do not feel uncomfortable with it tbh.
Never had any threaths or such

Nakia said:

A good rule to go by is do not give out info you afterwoods feel uncomfortable with having shared

I have given out my real name (first name) town I live in, msn / email
Do not feel uncomfortable with it tbh.
Never had any threaths or such

Click to expand...

Yes and Im getting so close!

Dom_sufc said:

Yes and Im getting so close!

Click to expand...

awww well u r welcome to drop by anytime

An interesting topic for debate. I would +rep you but I need to spread it around first

I know when I first filled in some of the details on the profile page I was very hesitant. A lot of personnal information there for someone to get hold of and abuse if they so wished.

A little reminder (nice one - like this post) that there are unscrupulous out there willing to take all they can get may be enough to remind people to be careful.

black_rain13 said:

Personally, I think polls of that nature should just be prohibbited by the EF rules. Of course, that is just my opinion.

Click to expand...

While most people are smart enough to thwart these types of 'information leaks' on their own there are plenty of people who lack the foresight to see what damage it could cause them. However do we need MORE censorship and rules to get the protection out there? Or is education a better alternative? Whenever i have a chance i try my best to aid people in the lack of knowledge in this area, but it doesn't reach the full spectrum unfortunately and perhaps the people reading are just reading and not absorbing any of the information.

I personally am not into censoring things of this nature. I don't believe you can run a society (I use society because it has direct links to real life politics) governed to aid the stupid/unknowing/ignorant people. (Sorry to put it so blatant, and i mean no disrespect to people who don't know better) But i believe in survival of the fittest, and if you don't adhere to the lessons and learn from them then you WILL be walked all over regardless of what rules and regulations are set into place. to pull a page out of the State Police of my state (probably others as well). "Negligence is no excuse". I think that applies here too. Theres not always going to be rules to "protect" you so do a little bit to Protect Yourself.

People can ask me for my CC# or Social Security number all they want. They are not going to get a serious response from me. in most cases even if they "Think" they have a legitimate reason to ask me for it i will refuse them that information. The same goes for the rest of your "Personal Information" If you consider the information Personal or directly relating to your Person, then its not really going to be personal for long if you start telling people this stuff.

Now i see no harm in general census type stuff like your typical AOL kiddies A/S/L questions. I personally don't answer such questions as most the time people are looking to forge some sort of relationship from these types of questions and to be blunt i don't' play games for this goal. So i may answer or i may just have fun with you and make any ol' answer up.

Anyways Great topic! that was my 2 pecs

For all the surveys i see here, none of then collect enough information to identify an individual.

Even your first and last name does not actually identify you, as a google for my name came up with over 150 results all of which refer to people other than myself, who have my name. Go on try it.

Income is no way personal, if it's not known who you are.
A date of birth is no use with out a name, and even then i guess it wont be that unique.
a country is no use, without a name and date of birth.
a bank account number is no use without knowing the bank (& sort code as well i guess).
a credit card number is no use with out valid dates, names, addresses ect. (and probably the card issuer too.)

The only piece of information that actually will come close to identifying you, out of all the other billions of people is you full postal address, or a land line phone number.

There can be only one house that is:

102 Any street,
Erehwon,
Countyshire.
UK.
Post-code.
Tel 044 1234 567890

all the other information can apply to soooo many others it's of no practical use in working out who you are.

That's how i see it,.


(mods, I know linking to outside images is not allowed, but this one wont work if internally hosted in EF)

Thnx Jackfree for making this thread
please forgive me for making posts on your earlier thread today,as you know it was never my intention to assiociate you in a negative light in anyway,more of a generic point i was trying to make

Yes i do have a problem with all the polls requesting what i deem to be sensitive infomation,there are various haking and cracking programmes out there that strive to decode passwords and user names when enough infomation has been enterd.
Like the old saying goes"just cos iam paranoid doesnt mean that people are not still out to get me"its a swaziodism i quite like it

My point is this,why in the world do people start a lot of this info grabbing polls?what purpose do they serve?why ask for them in the first place?

Just gives me an uneasy feeling tbh,and i think its something that was needed to be highlighted,is it phishing?maybe we just need to be on our guard

Dorsai said:

For all the surveys i see here, none of then collect enough information to identify an individual.

Even your first and last name does not actually identify you, as a google for my name came up with over 150 results all of which refer to people other than myself, who have my name. Go on try it.

Income is no way personal, if it's not known who you are.
A date of birth is no use with out a name, and even then i guess it wont be that unique.
a country is no use, without a name and date of birth.
a bank account number is no use without knowing the bank (& sort code as well i guess).
a credit card number is no use with out valid dates, names, addresses ect. (and probably the card issuer too.)

The only piece of information that actually will come close to identifying you, out of all the other billions of people is you full postal address, or a land line phone number.

There can be only one house that is:

102 Any street,
Erehwon,
Countyshire.
UK.
Post-code.
Tel 044 1234 567890

all the other information can apply to soooo many others it's of no practical use in working out who you are.

That's how i see it,.

(mods, I know linking to outside images is not allowed, but this one wont work if internally hosted in EF)

Click to expand...

well sum ppl have rather unique last names, which is an exception

Nakia said:

well sum ppl have rather unique last names, which is an exception

Click to expand...

In my job, I see plenty of unique first names too. At least, for the poor children's sake, I hope they're unique. Bad enough one kid has to have the name...

I think that everyone should be cautious when giving any type of personal information on the Internet. I try to keep my own indentity as far away from my avatar as possible. In respect to the polls that are used in EF, as long as the poll is anonymous I don't see any danger. Of course when people volunteer information, they have to be aware of the risks. It all depends on the information.

The thing is that if you answer several polls:
How old are you? 20
where do you live? Austin, Texas
how much do you earn? $5000
what car do you drive? BMW 530D
favorite restaurant? Burger King
and maybe a few more and post photos of yourself...

What can someone who is really looking for you do with that information? Is it enough to find you? Maybe...

I don't think that the polls used in EF are a problem, it is the information that is offered in addition to the polls.

Cheers

Dorsai said:

Even your first and last name does not actually identify you, as a google for my name came up with over 150 results all of which refer to people other than myself, who have my name.

Click to expand...

I happen to be one of those easily identifiable people . Only 1 of me shows up on the internet and if I skip my middle initial then the hits spike up to 3

@Dorsai - please get rid of that signature. I don't really need someone logging my IP address. I already know my ISP, OS and browser version.

information is a weapon. AND any information given online is data which others will see. As i see it, all data you give out should be randomized, meaning never use same identifiable string of text in two places which could be correlated, never mention anything that can be traced back to you or any of your other identities, make different kinds of spelling errors in what you write.

have multiple identities, several stories to tell in case someone is way too eager to get to know you and be aware of technical means of information garthering.

that way noone will ever track you

PS: scammers, dont follow this advice, cos then i cant call you at night

Erinome said:

@Dorsai - please get rid of that signature. I don't really need someone logging my IP address. I already know my ISP, OS and browser version.

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Your IP address is logged the moment you visit this or any site for that matter. His signature is just a subtle reminder that information you may consider to be private is NOT. In fact far from it.

Sending something on the internet is like sending a post card. Anyone that wants to read it can!

+rep to the topic starter. Great topics, and I believe giving out anything above, age/city/country is too much. (but if you got a really common name like me I guess its okay: With my first name and last name I get: 23,000,000 hits, first name middle initial and last name I get: 21,600,000 hits, with my full name I get: 1,320,000 hits and my full name in parenthesis gets 1 hit that isn't me, so I'm safe....for now)

i think too much for me would be the adress, the phone number, gold card number.. and these stuff

I fall under the category where my surname is too unique to post online.

Fortunately I have been online for about 11 years now and I learnt my lessons a while back. It is not fun receiving death threats that are actually serious.

People just need to be careful with what information they give out to others. Credit card, address, surname are all big no-no's, anything that can identify you uniquely. Things such as age and your first name(provided it is a common first name), what car you drive don't give enough information to cause trouble. #1 rule about being online, don't trust anyone you don't know personally.

I have no problem with most of the polls that go up here, I can promise you no one is going to be able to track you purely because of your age or how much you earn

My limit are any informations that someone can use in a way I am not aware of and dont get money by his/her gain.

Tough times, these days

JackFree said:

... How much information is too much? How much information can you give about yourself without the risk of revelaing real information that can be used against you?
...

Click to expand...

How much? Only the amount you are wiling to give...

You can see that I live in Portugal (but I could be chinese), you can see I have 34 years old (but I could be a 13 years old kid), you cant see my email, cause I dont want you to send me spam, virus or something else (not personaly ofc).

I mean, each one should know his/her limits. I know some people over the internet and not specific to PE that I know how they look (webcam) know they voice (mic) and I know where they live, but, that is a small precentage.

It might take years for 2 people share more then we share here over the internet. I have good friends that I never meet and never saw they face. They help me with financial problems in the past. That kind of trust is pricelless. They never saw me, they dindt know nothing about me, and they borrow me money to pay some urgent debts that I had in the past. I paid back all...and they dindt have any reason to trust me.

Now, you know that I had money problems. Why? Cause I chose to share with you and the rest of the comunity. Im not going to give u details of my first sexual experience. Why? None of your bussiness.

imo it is quite easy to track ppl in the net. even though i'm not aware of the possibilities of some hacker-tools, it's enough to check ppl's friendlists on web-comunities, guestbookentries and - of course - their email-adressebook, which they still send you in a nice list with CC (even when you told them 1000x to use BCC) to get a pretty complete picture of their life and 'private-sphere'. if ppl tell you some personal things in EU, and give you acess to all the above mentioned (by giving you their skype or msn) you know about everything. age, first name, city and job are enough to find you, believe me.
(you can also offer to send someone that old batman-poster that he was looking for his whole life, to get it easy)

long story short: be careful by giving too much to unknown ppl.
personally, i told my friends ingame about my job, and my city. that would be enough to track me down, but hey, you have to share something, you have to trust someone. but not anyone!!!


now strictly on topic:

i think, EF-polls are more of a use for PR-companies and market-researchers than individuals. so you think that is no danger? well, these companies are after your money (same as the evil individuals). and these companies get your money, sooner or later, no matter if you feel invulnerable to PR or not..
and if not from you, then they get it from your neighbor

just my thoughts..

trux