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Two Bedrooms Up, One Bedroom Down—What Someone Can Find Out About You on the Internet

In the course of doing research for this book, we stumbled across someone who claimed to be an expert on cyber crime. We are always willing to share information about cyber crime with other professionals, but by our nature, we’re also very cautious about sharing too much information until we are certain of that person’s credentials.

As a matter of routine, we used public tools and websites to learn more about this person’s background. Her impetus for getting involved in cyber crime came from her claim of once having been a victim of a cyber stalker. We have worked with victims of both stalking and cyber stalking. People who have been through the horrors of being stalked are usually very careful afterward about revealing any personal details about themselves in public or online. This person, who we’ll call “Tanya,” was not. We started digging further by looking at the details Tanya was putting out on her personal and professional blogs.

Within an hour and with only web-accessible records, we were able to piece together an excruciatingly detailed background dossier about Tanya’s life. We knew her maiden name, the names of her family members and their email addresses, her previous married name, her maiden name, what brand of beer her current boyfriend preferred, and on and on. We were shocked at how much personal information she had put out on the Internet despite her claim to have once been a victim of a cyber stalker. It was frightening to see.

We’re not sure why Tanya put her private life on public view, but we hope that she, as well as everyone reading this book, understands that each bit of personal information one puts out on the Internet is like a puzzle piece. For example, if you use your email address to leave a note at an online obituary site that reads, “Uncle Joe, we will miss you,” you’ve provided another piece of the puzzle for a potential stalker who now knows your family name and can use that to reach out to other family members.

If you write on a blog that your boyfriend, Henry, is applying for a job at a specific location in a certain town, what’s to prevent a stalker from going to that location to befriend Henry?

Our point is this: There are numerous ways people can find out about you on the Internet (read on). Why make it any easier by providing such specific details about yourself that anyone with a head on their shoulders can use to find or stalk you? Use common sense!

Your Digital Footprint

Internet users are becoming more aware of their “digital footprint,” meaning their presence online. According to recent reports, 47% of those surveyed have searched for information about themselves online, up from just 22% just 5 years ago. However, few monitor their online presence with great regularity. Just 3% of self-searchers report that they make a regular habit of it, and 74% have checked up on their digital footprint only once or twice (source: Pew Internet & American Life Project, 2007).

The Best Sources to Find Out About People

Take it from us, the more personal information you reveal about yourself on the Internet—whether intentionally or unintentionally—the easier it is to profile you. Whenever we are investigating someone, one of the first places we look for information is Google (www.google.com). This “engine of all search engines” provides a quick source of any existing reference on the Internet. Through its Advanced Search feature, it is easy to customize searches for specific phrases, including names, email addresses, screen names, and so on.

If your name is publicly listed in the phone book, Google also produces a convenient map showing your exact address and location. How much easier can it get for a stalker?

We not only Google a suspect’s name, but variants of the name as well as the suspect’s email address. If the suspect has ever posted anywhere using his email address, we can usually follow that link back through a browser to see where and what he has been posting. Many postings on Usenet groups or online interest groups can be displayed by searching for the email address of the poster. Try entering your own email address in Google and see what comes up.

“Tracking Teresa”

The online safety group NetSmartz (www.netsmartz.org) has developed Internet safety presentations for students of all ages and their parents. One of the videos we often show to middle school and high school students, called “Tracking Teresa,” illustrates how much information the “bad guy” can garner from what appears to be a benign advertisement online in a matter of minutes.

This presentation has had an eye-opening impact on students, teachers, and parents alike, because it illustrates just how easy it is to find out about that unsuspecting potential victim. If you or your children have an opportunity to attend one of these presentations, we highly recommend you do so. As we will continue to say throughout this book, awareness and education are of the upmost importance in arming yourself against cyber crime.

Town and City Websites

Most major cities have put their property and tax assessment information online. Many smaller municipalities have done so as well. The level of detail that some of these websites provide is most disconcerting. Figure 2.1 shows what we found on a simple search of a major city’s website. (Note: In an effort to protect the owner’s privacy, we are not providing any specific location or owner information.)

In this publicly accessible tax assessor’s database, we were able to tell the owner’s name and address, the value of their house, and how many bedrooms it has and on which floor; see a detailed map of where the house is located, view an aerial photo of the house, and see a floor map describing each room. We also had access to the prior owner’s name, the type of heating system the house has, any outbuildings or other structures (including whether or not the garage was attached), plus a host of other details that would provide those with criminal intent plenty of information to make their efforts easy.

Unfortunately, this kind of information is considered in the public domain and is difficult to keep off the Internet. Real-estate transactions are often printed in local papers with the owner and seller’s name.

If having your name and address appear on public tax assessment or real-estate transaction records is a concern for you, you may be able to work with your realtor and attorney to stay anonymous. It may be possible to place the property in the name of a trust. The trust name could be the name of the location, such as “123 Main Street Trust,” so your name never appears on any of the tax records.

If this a personal safety issue for you, contact your attorney and ask prior to transacting the closing to explain what your options are. Most realtors are very cooperative and will work with you on this.

Zillow—We Know Your Neighborhood

Oftentimes we come across tools that, from one perspective, serve a valuable purpose, but from our perspective, give criminals an edge. For example, the website Zillow (www.zillow.com) is a useful real-estate tool that provides quick information on neighborhoods. We put it to the test and, sure enough, within minutes we were able to view aerial photos of neighborhoods displaying the overhead view of houses and could quickly flag where the more valuable houses were located.

We understand that perspective buyers would want this information and see the value in its ease of use, but we’re trained to think like the bad guys. What a tremendous tool this would be for burglars who were looking to target specific neighborhoods and houses. Burglars often stay in their own areas because this is the kind of information they gather intelligence about—which houses are in upscale neighborhoods, which houses are surrounded by fences, which houses are on streets with easy access, and which areas to hide in. With tools like these, criminals could easily expand their territory.

We Know Your Dog’s Name

Dog license registration information is considered in the “public domain,” so many cities are now including this information online as well. Think about the ramifications of a total stranger with less-than-honest intent, knowing not only your dog’s name but its breed. A burglar would certainly love to know that you have a toy dachshund in the house and not a pit bull.

Online Memorials

In dealing with the death of a loved one, it’s only natural to want to express your memories of the dearly departed. As sick as it sounds, this is a treasure trove for cyber stalkers. Many times the loved ones of the deceased not only will pay tribute to the deceased online, but give their full names, their relationship to the departed, and often provide an email contact.

Preying on those who are grieving is a heinous thing, but that’s just the kind of information that would empower a stalker. Remember that a stalker equates information with power.

Recall the supposed “cyber crime expert” we mentioned earlier? In the course of reviewing this person’s blog, she mentioned that a family member had recently passed away. Given that small tidbit of information, we were able to quickly locate the obituary in an online paper. That obituary had a link to the online memorial provided by the funeral home. These online memorials are quite common, and with good intent they allow everyone to express their feelings about a dearly departed friend or family member. However, by reading the obituary and the online memorial, we were able to piece together an extremely detailed family tree of this individual. The obituary provided her maiden name, meaning we now had the means to track her history prior to her marriage. More importantly, we were able to obtain the email addresses of most of her immediate family members. Were our intentions unscrupulous, we could have easily delved further into her family history and even contacted family members under false pretenses to gain their confidence and trust.

It is difficult in times of mourning and grief to think about the potential danger this information could present, but it needs to be said: Provide limited personal information in online memorials. “Aunt Kate” is better than “Kate Jones of Podunk, New York”. Do not include your email address. Assume that close family members already have it.

Political Contributions

Politicians are obligated under law to report all contributions made to their campaign. This information must be disclosed to whomever requests it and is usually published somewhere, often on the Internet or in news stories. We are not trying to discourage anyone from contributing to a politician’s campaign, but be aware that if you use your home address, it becomes public information. Better to use a P.O. box or business address if at all possible.

People Search Sites

Many search sites on the Internet can be used to quickly return records about people. Many of these sites charge a fee, depending on the level of information sought, including background checks, criminal history checks, property owned, civil actions, and so on. However, many also allow a “free” check with a limited return of information. Just running the free check may surprise you by how much information is returned. We ran such a check without paying any fees and were able to determine what town a person had lived in previously, other names associated with this person, the name of this person’s ex, previous neighbors’ names, as well as this person’s maiden name and age.

We recently demonstrated the level of information available through a paid subscription to a “people” database site to an author doing research on a book. Granted, law enforcement has greater access to some parts of this information, but to give a more realistic view, we did a generic, non–law enforcement search. The author was amazed to find names of former neighbors, clubs she had been a member of, every address she had ever lived at, cars she owned or had previously owned, the status of loans and judgments, and so forth. Much of this information can be purchased by anyone online for a fee, and if someone was trying to build a dossier of someone, this is exactly the type of information they’d be willing to pay for. How much easier it would be to taunt a victim by describing the old apartment they lived in or to mention an ex-neighbor’s name. The cyber stalker, at the very least, is going after an emotional reaction to inflict psychological trauma and power.

Search Your Own Name

We encourage you to search for your own name and see what comes up at the following sites:

•  Intelius (http://find.intelius.com/)

•  People Finders (www.peoplefinders.com)

•  U.S. Search (www.ussearch.com)

•  ZabaSearch (www.zabasearch.com)

•  Pipl (www.pipl.com)

•  Wink (www.wink.com)

•  Spock (www.spock.com)

•  LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com)

Is there a way around this information being made public? Unfortunately, public records are just that—public. However, in this day of greater awareness of online privacy concerns, if you can document through a police report that you are, in fact, a victim of cyber crime or cyber stalking, it is possible to try and work with some of the reporting companies to restrict your information. We’re not saying it’s easy to do, because once the information is on the Internet, it’s out there, but short of legally changing your name (which some victims have done), it’s very hard to completely remove all trails.

The Wayback Machine

The Wayback Machine, located at www.archive.org, is a nonprofit site that makes it possible to go back and visit websites that have long since been removed from the Internet.

The founders of this project, which include the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian, have a legitimate purpose. Like any other historical collection, the Internet mirrors societal and language changes and is ever-evolving. The founders of this project are attempting to catalog those changes so future historians can look back and see what the Internet looked like a hundred years ago. Unfortunately, this also means that many sites with your personal information may be permanently archived and still available.

Website Registration Records

Believe it or not, privately registered websites can lead to a trough of information about someone. When a website is registered, certain information has to be provided, including the owner’s name as well as billing and administration information. Many web hosting companies make this information public. There are numerous online tools for looking at website registration information. One we use quite frequently is www.betterwhois.com, shown in Figure 2.2.

If you are going to register a website, see if the hosting company allows for private or “domain discreet” registrations; otherwise, your personal registration information can be quite public. If you were to design a family website, for example, we might be able to go to the domain registry and access your home address, home phone, alternative email address, alternative phone, and how long the site has been up. We recently showed someone who, for professional purposes, had her own domain name, just how much information we could find out about her. She was shocked. Using a “discreet registration” is a much safer way to register and will restrict any personal information from being revealed. The betterwhois.com entry will go back to the hosting site with a note about the information being private or restricted.

E-Venge

In an interesting twist, several new sites have sprung up that allow the public to exact revenge on those they feel have done them wrong. This electronic revenge (or “e-venge”) is wide open and, in our opinion, borders on the libelous in many cases.

DontDateHimGirl.com

For example, there’s the Don’t Date Him Girl website. Here’s a recent posting about a profiled man. The actual posting includes his real name, his picture, and his screen name.

Beware! This is the worst of the worst. He does it all. Lies. Cheats. Steals your money. All while being sweet as pie to your face. I didn’t find out until the end, but for the entire 2 years we were together, he cheated on me. Even while we were living together. Even while I was in surgery. After 26 years of dating, I can honestly say he is the most despicable dirtbag I ever had the misfortune to come across. There’s much much more so if you run across him and want to know more, contact me and I’ll tell you all about it.

Lessons Learned

If there is one lesson to be learned here, it is this: Although you may not be able to control the fact that your city puts your homeowner information on the World Wide Web where anyone can find it, you do have control over what you put out about yourself. Consider every detail of what you reveal about yourself when posting to that jewelry exchange forum. Did you just let someone know you love expensive rubies? When putting that rare book up for auction on a site such as eBay, are you letting someone know that you might have an even larger collection? When you post pictures of your Rottweiler on the dog lover’s forum and say, “King is a gentle giant,” consider how a thief would react to that. Take control and limit personal details. You’re not talking to another person in the same room. You’re talking to millions of people who could potentially stumble on these details you’ve just provided.