Thread: And What Alice Found There

Hee hee. So, my post in the Rule Update Account Cap thread got me thinking. A lot of people really have no freaking idea how much can be found out about a person with certain given information. I actually had my identity stolen from things I put out online that at the time, I thought to be completely inconsequential. I've been stalked by a creeper from Facebook, who I didn't even know, thanks to things they were able to pull about me online . I even had a friend who was kidnapped and had horrible thing happen to her because of... guess what, shit people found online. However, she was also rescued and the people prosecuted because of things that could be found online and access to her computer. The things I'm about to provide is not intended to be used in a malicious manner in against someone else but more educational purposes on just what can be found and how you can be tracked. Because of this, I'm hoping you'll use your own information, accounts, etc. What is in a Username? This is probably the least effective method of finding out who a person is, but can still be pretty damn scary. Pipl, PeekYou, and Wink are awesome. You can enter a username and come up with a lot of possible results. The more someone knows about you sex, round about age, a general location, can be used to refine their searches for sometimes better results. Pipl I just put in main username I use online No, not Halo and Horns. 8 pages of results came. 74 hits 59 profiles and 15 web results. One of two of these accounts were mine. However, when I tried to refine my search by age which has a gap of 10 year spans, those accounts were eliminated. PeekYou The one of the most accurate places for looking up usernames that I've found. My twitter account was the second result. Though, again, when I tried to refine my search with just my first name or just my last name, things got muddled. Wink By FAR the absolute best. My username picked up 20 hits when I put in the state I lived in, it brought up 2. The top one was mine. This was an old Myspace account that I deleted years ago, but there my picture from 5 years ago was. KnowEm This site is a better example of being able to track someone by a username. It is supposed to be for business purposes and brand marketing. It lets you know if domain names are taken, if it is a registered trademark, and places where a username is available. It also shows you which ones are unavailable. Then it is just a matter of hopping on a place that is unavailable and looking for the username to get more information to be used. What's in an Email? Almost everything. There are many reverse e-mail searches that are free. If you have sent an e-mail to a person or site from that address a lot of sites require verification e-mails so this is pretty inevitable makes it even better. Pipl Again, this is a damn good site. My e-mail pulled only me up, but registered on a Myspace account that was supposed to be deleted. This is a good example of things ALWAYS being on the internet. Spokeo Okay, so this is something that you have to pay for but at a piddly 4 for a six month membership that allows name, username, e-mail, phone, and address searches if someone really wants this information, it is worth it. And yes, the information is accurate though can bring back a lot of results. In an e-mail that is sent out, a person can use advanced headers to grab your IP address andor city, state, zip code information. So even signing up with a throw away address, can get you found. Your Name? Well, everyone knows how dangerous but also inaccurate this can be. It is easy to give false information. However, I bet you didn't know that even with a real first name and a state, you can still find a person. As people become friends, this is usually given or just mentioned in passing. Thing is though, when it is somewhere on a public place, anyone can get it. Wink My first name and my state brought up 178 results. I do have an uncommon name though. However, it only shows a few of them, and I was on the first page. Intelius This one... you need a last name for. It will pull up several results, but you can see their ages, citystates, and close relatives who have probably listed you on their tax information at one time. For a full report, it's 40 but it includes EVERYTHING. Criminal check, e-mail addresses associated with the name, list of social media, credit information, even a list of relatives, roomies, and freaking neighbors. Your home information and maps. I've used this for background checks on hiring people and what comes back in the reports is extremely comprehensive. Usually at least 3 pages worth of stuff. I think the longest I got back was 16 pages. IP Address There is actually a lot of conflicting opinions when it comes from what can be found by tracking an IP. Using just an IP, you won't get much. But your IP address coupled with other information can be damning. An IP actually tracks back to your service provider. The location that comes up is generally the location of an equipment where the signal is coming from. It can also give people some pretty spiffy tools like the OS and Browser. Static IP Addresses do not change and are most often used in places where security isn't too big a factor. Dynamic IP Addresses change when connecting to a network and used for basic browsing, downloads, mails, etc. Again, your average person isn't going to be able to find out much with just this. But then you have the people who know what they're doing, how to manipulate things, and want to screw with you and they will do it. Four programssoftware that are bitches Sub7, RATs, Webscarab, and Nmapper A lot of people think Proxies are a lot safer. Bad thing about proxies, they store all of your information. Sometimes more so than a static IP. Most proxy sites are actually on the shady side. The fact that you have to register a screen name does make them traceable, and hackable. Even so called anonymous ones store information to some extent. Your best bet, if you still have any idea what I'm talking about, is to use a transparent proxy and various programs to create a chain of other proxies. Even this isn't foolproof, but it certainly will piss off people who are trying to locate you. 3 Best advice for staying safe? Find out more about hacking. Download tools and software and test it out on your own stuff. This is how I learned besides having a paranoid ass husband. Though, the catch is you need to have an intermediate knowledge of computers to do this. Again, I can do a lot and I'm pretty new. The other option, Find a nice hacker. Those two words may seem contradictory, but there are people out there who will try hacktrack your comp and let you know what they got, how they got it, and what you can do to prevent it. Alternately you could look for a security control tech, but they usually want you to pay pretty big. So yeah, there you have it.