Too Much Personal Information

[HotRodZilla]

The Facebook thread reminded me of this bulletin we got a couple weeks ago. One of the very few that is not "Law Enforcement Only." You guys are gonna shit, especially if you don't want every clown and his mom having access to all your info.

When I checked this site, it had every address at which I have ever lived. It had people related to me that are barely a relation. I opted out, as did most of the people I know. Follow the link and see what they have of yours. I'm betting you'll be surprised.

Here's the important part of the bulletin we got:

Hey this is just a heads up on a new link called Familytreenow.com, if you input your name it will show a current phone number and a current address for you. This is an Officer safety issue. If you want to opt out of it: (Search your name first and make sure this effects you)

1.Click on the privacy at the bottom of the page

2.Scroll down to the opt-out paragraph/ click the opt out link

3.Search name city and state along with birth year hit search

4.Verify the result is you

5.Click the red button at the top that reads opt-out

Here's a link that works: https://www.familytreenow.com

 

[Ignacio]

From Snopes it's "mostly true". Seems some reports suggest targeting cop information...which doesn't seem to be true.

This bit from Snopes also caught my eye:

In short, removing your personal information from display by Internet aggregators isn't a one-time deal, but rather more like a never-ending game of Whack-a-Mole: You might swat down an aggregator site or two, but more of them will inevitably pop up.

Far more disturbing is that the website displays relatives as "possible" relatives. This could indicate that they're tracking YOUR clicking on links and aggregating that date to reinforce connections or lack of clicking to reinforce non-connections. So, warning people about this could make it worse by their very visiting it to opt out.

I won't be visiting that site any more, won't click on anything, and won't opt out.

 

[FJRay]

Done.

 

[HotRodZilla]

The site isn't about targeting cops. What I don't like is that it had addresses for all of my family. If you think people haven't been targeting cops, you're asleep. We get bulletins all the time, always with different guy's houses being shown. Obviously, the cop car in the driveway doesn't help. There is no way to pull all of our info from the net permanently. This one site just makes a whole lot of it available in one easy to shop place. I used to specialize in Internet crimes, so I'm well aware how this works.

I do work hard to keep my phone number out of the public's hands, and this site had every number I'm linked to. I used to use search sites to track down suspects and even paid the whole $.99 for a month's worth of searches a couple times. These sites use any public records available. Tax rolls, utility bills, residential records, you name it. I just want it to be a little harder to find all my info. If you want assholes to have your mom's address, have at it. I'll do what I can to keep that info from whoever I can.

 

[CAJW]

Thanks for this AJ. A search for me and the Mrs. came up empty, but the site had way too much detail on my kids. I put the kibosh on that info post haste.

 

[thompsonian]

I didn't see phone numbers, but I was using the mobile version. Still....pretty crazy.

 

[Teehaml]

Done. Thanks AJ.

 

[Pterodactyl]

Interesting that in the long list of possible associated people there was no one that I've heard of.

I'm out.

 

[Bugnatr]

Man, I can't believe how many times I have been arrested.

Thanks AJ

 

[Geezer]

Thanks AJ. My wife is often complaining about how the internet makes too much personal information available. It would be helpful to get a change in the architecture of the internet protocol that allows users to refuse tracking of their location or IP address, but that is not likely in the near future. Modern browsers and some routers offer 'do not provide my location' or 'do not track', but until it becomes an architecture feature that is common to all equipment it doesn't help much.

 

[MrZappo]

Thanks AJ. My wife is often complaining about how the internet makes too much personal information available. It would be helpful to get a change in the architecture of the internet protocol that allows users to refuse tracking of their location or IP address, but that is not likely in the near future. Modern browsers and some routers offer 'do not provide my location' or 'do not track', but until it becomes an architecture feature that is common to all equipment it doesn't help much.

TOR

 

[rogdeb]

Thanks AJ -- done.

 

[RFlagg42]

Having moved 24 times in 44 years, that site hasn't even come close to catching up to my current address. Countermeasure successful.....

 

[russperry]

Thanks AJ. My wife is often complaining about how the internet makes too much personal information available. It would be helpful to get a change in the architecture of the internet protocol that allows users to refuse tracking of their location or IP address, but that is not likely in the near future. Modern browsers and some routers offer 'do not provide my location' or 'do not track', but until it becomes an architecture feature that is common to all equipment it doesn't help much.

The problem is that this personal info is exactly what Google and others "sell" to their customers. They usually portray aggregated data, but it takes specific data to create the aggregate. If everyone could opt out then Google has nothing to sell, then the earth implodes.

 

[Bounce]

Yep. PII and it's mining has always been a balancing act.

There's one example of the differences in "quality of service" have on certain OS features. People complain about how Siri doesn't work as well as Android's equivalent.

That's a direct result of Apple's design choices to protect customers' info more than Google does. That personal info feeds into the responses on Google's replies where there isn't that well of info for iOS to mine. It's a trade off of convenience vs privacy like it always has been. Choose your path and live with the impact.

Even using TOR (which still has to have an entry vector and the known use by governments to seed TOR routers), DO NOT TRACK (which isn't required to be honored), and other efforts to obscure or muddle your tracking info, TCP/IP wasn't designed to be a secure protocol so there will always be means of circumventing add-on efforts. There's a more secure protocol being developed but adoption will probably be a long battle because of backward compatibility and inertia in existing infrastructure.

 

[TomInPA]

I found my record easily. My brother is an assistant police chief in Ohio, and he has scrubbed his record, but his wife and connections to my mother and a couple other siblings were found through that link. My sister who has a security clearance is also off the list.

It seems people with sensitivity have completely or partially opted out, but it appears you need to advise family members to opt out, or do it for them if you want the information to be scrubbed.

Thanks A.J.

 

[BkerChuck]

Found more info than I cared to see. Shared this with a bunch of my coworkers too.

Thanks AJ

 

[Uncle Hud]

Opted out for my sons and for me. Thanks, HotRodZilla.

Have to agree with Ignacio, though. It's whack-a-mole. All that info came from public records: birth certificates, marriage licenses, property ownership, voter and vehicle registrations, etc, etc, etc. Any other super-search engine will recompile the same information again. It's no longer possible to keep your public info a secret.

There were a few wierdo names in my "Tree" that turned out to be the folks that bought my townhome when I got divorced. Just goes to show that the super-search engines assume relationships by all manner of connections, including sharing the same address.

 

[Bounce]

It's a genealogy site; just like Ancestry.com. Their info is probably volunteered by people doing their family trees.