Genealogy Chat

Seems we teach our kids how to be safe on the internet but forget the basics ourselves.

What you type in to Genes can also appear on Google, therefore be careful what you write especially on the top row of a thread.
There are 78 people on here with Mickey Mouse in their tree, point being that person you are talking to may not be who they are reporting to be.
Never ever post your email address on a thread, if you trust someone with it, send it PM
Never ever post a telephone number on a thread especially someone else's!
Follow the same principles with addresses, only post those from many years ago.
You may wish to find a lost living relation but remember they may not want their personal info spread across the internet.

Also be aware of what you are doing when doing lookups on living people. Probably a genuine query but could be something more sinister


I'm sorry to bang on about this but I've seen all of the above done. It's an unfortunate fact of life the fraudsters & criminals have internet access.

Thats the point Claire, we all tend to be so trusting - believing people are what they say they are and of course sometimes they arent!

I do worry now and then just how much a crook could pick up from the threads on here - dates, names, addresses etc.

So true Heather, honest folk tend to think everyone else is as honest as themselves.

This place must be an absolute goldmine for the crooks.

nudge

Have you ever sent an e-mail to a paper or radio/TV programme?
If so, google your e-mail address and see what you find!!
I was shocked to see some personal details about myself - written by me in an e-mail to a programme - on the internet,
Fortunately my e-mail address isn't my name, and I have since changed it so I have been saved the embarrassment of work colleagues etc finding out things that have nothing to do with them and I don't want them to know!!!

maggie

Bookmarked, to give a nudge to another time, too.

Some people may not realise that whatever is posted in public can always be seen again later, even if it has been deleted.

I had one of the letters, supposedly from a barrister about money left. I replied 'you must think I am bonkers'.
Also from banks, building societies asking for my details, did not use either, so just deleted.

So beware of these

nudge for Amanda

I forward all the banks, building socities, ebay and paypal ones on to them. ebay and paypal is just spoof@ followed by their name and .com.

The others I just dump in junk. I did lose my cool one day when I received a horrific one - I didnt see any pics but the words were bad enough re bestiality. I couldnt help it, I replied to them in the strongest terms basically telling them to rot in hell. Afterwards I thought Ill probably get dozens more now, but surprisingly Ive never had any more porn ones since then.

I get the occasional PM on here that are obviously from cranks. They use names I have never seen on here before and I am asked personal questions. Had one this morning!

Hi Christine, I have noted two of them and by accident binned a couple more last week.

Susan,

Many companies (or other folk) use random blocks of numbers so if your telephone number (ex-directory or not) is picked up within a block that's how a connection is made. Your replying confirms that you are a 'live' number.

This is bad because your number has been 'found' but not so bad in that it wasn't directly aimed at your number.

All systems have a down-side. Don't forget, you are on the Electoral Listings and we are pleased to be able to peruse those, just as any with criminal intent can.

As careful as we all may be with personal details, even Banks, Building and Insurance Societies lose them for us!

Be vigilant but don't have nightmares!

Many people run businesses online with easily found websites and telephone and e-mail contact details. These details may also appear in various publications. I'm an artist and out of interest I did a Google search for myself. I am mentioned on 214 webpages. I think only one of them is someone with the same name.

I think it's wise to be a bit cautious who you give out personal details to but we can't all hide if we have to be available to customers.

Sue

Try googling the name or names you use on here ............... several of us did this over on FR Connections a few weeks ago, and got some very interesting results!!


BTW ................ I googled our phone number after seeing the above message. It's apparently the same as a hotel in Malaysia.


isn't that interesting?!!!!!!!!!

Nudge

Hope you don't mind me asking, Sue, but did you find it hard to get established as an artist? I only ask as I'm starting out as a photographer and I'm finding it is much harder to get your name around than I expected it to be.

Currently doing the rounds of asking local places to take my business cards and sending enquiries out to all sorts of places.

Just another boost for this one -- because I was recently quite taken aback by a thread here at GR in which the names and possible addresses of people someone was looking for, who had no idea they were being talked about in cyberspace like this, were laid out.

It isn't just fraud -- it's that you never know whom you're talking to, or who is reading what you write. I've been stalked on line, by someone who disagreed with me about a political issue.

First she pitched a fit and accused me of having hacked her computer and threatened to shoot her children (heh, one of the things I piss people off about in political discusisons is gun control -- I'm all for all of it!). Doing that in public exposed me to ill will on the part of anyone reading who also disagreed with me -- and the political issue in question is one that attracts violent crazy people to her side.

I had stupidly disclosed the city where I live. So then she made a point of talking about a holiday her family took to attend an event ... in my city, about 6 blocks from where I live.

Believe me, you don't want to live with that kind of anxiety. This woman was obviously a nutbar, and I didn't want to be in the same hemisphere as her. She continued to follow me around the net for a while, until I and someone else she had harassed got to work and actually figured out who *she* was -- she herself had left too many traces in cyberspace. We got her name, her place of employment, and her current husband's name. It took several attempts at persuading her that she was heading down the path of destruction if she kept it up -- that we *would* disclose this information publicly -- but the hints I dropped that only she would have understood finally worked, and she went on to new victims, I suppose.

You just can't know what unbalanced loon you might annoy in cyberspace. You don't want to give them access to you in real life. Let alone to your family members.

And you don't want to expose anyone else to whatever the consequences of someone learning their identity and personal info might be.

But you may want people to be able to contact you, and here's where you need an anonymous, net-based email account. Once again, I can't recommend Gmail too highly.

http://www.gmail.com

You can have as many accounts as you want. So you want at least one that is non-identifying, that you can use to give to strangers and to sign up for stuff on line, etc. You could be judyjudyjudy at gmail dot com, if your name was Helena Troy. If you wanted to establish more personal contact with someone later, you could give them a more personal email address.

A net-based email account does not disclose your ISP to email recipients. Your ISP often identifies where you are, often very precisely. By using a net-based account, you keep that info hidden.

So never ever give out your "home" email address to a stranger, or email someone you don't know from that address.

And another thing, while I'm here -- never ever "forward" emails that have someone else's personal info in them. If your cousin sends you a funny email that you just can't resist passing on, delete all of your cousin's info from it before forwarding.

And learn that the BCC function for email is your friend. If you are sending something to multiple people (who aren't already all part of a conversation), address it to yourself and "blind copy" it to all of the others. They don't need to have the names and email addresses of everybody else you're sending it to.

We're all still fairly new at this internet business, and sometimes it just doesn't occur to us that we're violating someone else's privacy or jeopardizing the security of our own personal info.

And never, ever talk about your kids by their personal details in the cyberworld!!

A much needed nudge!

nudge

& if you are going to post on the boards, DELETE YOUR BIRTH SURNAME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!