What are some ways creepers can get your info?

[OoJesusoO]

Lets say you don't give out any information about your RL what so ever when you talk to others inworld nor post any information leading to your Facebook/twitter pages and you don't give any information in your RL section of your profile neither. Basically, what happens IRL stays IRL and your identity is a mystery. So, my question is are there some ways creepers may try to access this information or mistakes others make leading to having their information out in public such as where the live? If so, what are they and how can you prevent it?

[Frawmusl]

So long as you keep images of yourself away from SL and same with personal info etc, theres not much creepers can do. Images are a super easy thanks to googles new image search, plop that in..happens to be your FB photo too BAM they have your facebook and a ton of person info  :\ 

Just be smart and be safe

[Syo Emerald]

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Frawmusl wrote:

So long as you keep images of yourself away from SL and same with personal info etc, theres not much creepers can do. Images are a super easy thanks to googles new image search, plop that in..happens to be your FB photo too BAM they have your facebook and a ton of person info  :\ 

 

Just be smart and be safe

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Nobody should allow strangers to see the whole facebook page without being friends. If someone leaves their facebookpage open like this and shares RL informations on the other hand, they scream for creepers to come in and mess around.

 

For SL: I think besides all fears for creepers...most of them stay in SL only. Why? Because people are from around the world in SL. If someone knows the city you live in they can't do anything, because that doesn't tell them enough and the possibly live hundreds, if not tousands of miles away.

Its good to not throw RL informations around, but becoming paralyzed by fear isn't a healty way either. Not all information is so sensitive that sharing it will be dangerous and not all people are here to do bad things. The majority is just like you: Pretty much normal.

[Nova Convair]

Others can get that infos that you give.

Thats everything you say in chats or IM's or in your profile or in a forum.

If you use your SL name for other account names like computer games, forums, facebook, ebay, twitter, email and so on then someone can find connections and draw links and conclusions that will lead to more traces. I see alot of accounts and posts for OoJesusoO by just using google. But to see what belongs to you and what not someone needs at least some basic infos to start with.

So, as long as you don't install a trojan on your system it's up to you how hidden you are.

If someone gathers your IP, that leads to the country, city and maybe section of the city. It's not possible to get a name or adress by that .... well at least not in my country ... to my knowledge

 

[WADE1 Jya]

Just don't use social networks. They are all garbage spyware and a creeper's paradise. If you don't use Facebook or Google+ then you are 100% safe. If you got accounts at either just delete those. Go email only and you gain 100% privacy, a worry free life. Facebook & Google have proven themselves repeatedly to be not trustworthy companies :catfrustrated:

[Madelaine McMasters]

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OoJesusoO wrote:

Lets say you don't give out any information about your RL what so ever when you talk to others inworld nor post any information leading to your Facebook/twitter pages and you don't give any information in your RL section of your profile neither. Basically, what happens IRL stays IRL and your identity is a mystery. So, my question is are there some ways creepers may try to access this information or mistakes others make leading to having their information out in public such as where the live? If so, what are they and how can you prevent it?

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Beyond picking up information you knowingly provide in your profile, feed posts, public chat, IMs. links to external stuff, etc, there are more subtle ways someone can learn more about you. These methods require significant effort on the part of the creepers so you'd have to be worth the effort. The methods I describe do not solely apply to SL.

Any link posted here is a potential vector for, at a minimum, obtaining your IP address, though not your username. Unless you know a link is to a reputable site, like YouTube, you can't rule out the possibility of your IP address being logged if you visit.

Here in the forums, we are often given exciting opportunities to help students with their research by participating in surveys. Those surveys might ask for SL identity, which could then be linked to your IP address. If you are the cautious sort, it's not a bad idea to examine the survey URL before participating. If it's not a link to a university or one of the larger survey engines (SurveyMonkey for example), then tread carefully. If you are going to be wary, be particularly wary of embedded links that 

. If you do participate in a survey, be careful about revealing personal information and think twice about replying with "I took your survey" or "I visited your blog" in any thread linking you to a URL of questionable integrity. Even if you didn't reveal your SL username in the survey, your reply in the thread puts your username on the list for matching to captured IP addresses.

It's also possible to obtain IP addresses and user names of residents who use media streams. Media is streamed to your viewer from servers linked by the media URL given to your viewer by any sim you visit. A nefarious DJ or sim owner can obtain a list of IP addresses and usernames that use parcel media and, over time, spot correlations that allow linking a particular username to a specific IP address. Getting your IP address doesn't generally allow someone to find you in RL, but it can narrow their search.

Many modern cameras, particularly those in cell phones, can tag photographs with EXIF metadata containing GPS coordinates. Posting a snapshot of your cat napping on top of your computer can reveal your RL identity. There are tools for removing EXIF metadata and you can disable recording of location data in the camera itself.

Perrie Juran wasn't aware of this on that fateful day he posted a picture of himself in a tutu with an alley broom on his head. He thought that hiding in plain sight, boasting to be a Martian, was the best way to avoid detection. But vanity and an iPhone revealed him to be a resident of Cydonia.

[Melita Magic]

One sly way might be, if they got you to listen to music on their land, and then, post a you tube video that they own and ask you to click on it. then they ask if you did. then they can match up the two URLs.* Things like that.

Which works a lot better if they are either a super haxxor or if you live in a teeny town somewhere - as opposed to NYC or L.A. or something like that. Then if others from NYC or L.A. visited on those days...lots harder.

In general being smart about revealing any personal clues is a good way. I think a lot of hacking is more social engineering. People tend to like to talk, and a lot of people like to talk about their lives.

I remember once in a chat room a person was harassing a member of our little 'group' and someone 'very talented' in that group somehow pulled up that person's web page and a lot else within a very short amount of time. Never saw that person in that chat room again...

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* ETA: This is a variation of something Desmond Shang said in the old forums. In his example, a person could ask another person to visit their website. Knowing when that happened, and then some social engineering ("I live in a small Oklahoma town" for instance) one then can narrow down the location, and with some other clues, find out more.

In my (unrelated to SL) chat room example, all the person knew about the bully was their user name.  

[Perrie Juran]

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OoJesusoO wrote:

 So, my question is are there some ways creepers may try to access this information or mistakes others make leading to having their information out in public such as where the live?

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"or mistakes others make"

I knew two girls in SL who were housemates in SL and told me that they were a couple in RL.

One tells me she is a media major.  Later on in our friendship she tells me she will be interning and broadcasting (on the air) at a local radio station. 

In the meanwhile the other one tells me what city and state they live in.

If I had wanted to I could have easily put two and two together.

 

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OoJesusoO wrote:

 If so, what are they and how can you prevent it?

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The two girls above had lose lips and I was forever telling them they were too open with their information.  I knew a lot more than just the above.  End result was they got contacted in RL by someone they had met in SL.

Bottom line, if you don't want to be found in RL, don't share any personally identifiable information in SL.

 

[Dillon Levenque]

If it really matters—I mean, if having your real life identity become known to anyone would be a crushing blow—then you should probably not be here at all.

As has already been pointed out, if someone really really really wants to know who you are, they'll probably learn that. Your only defense from that is to put yourself into a mode of total distrust and live SL like a secret agent dropped into hostile territory: every friendship a lie, every comment dissected, every motive questioned. That's not a happy life.

I would certainly not be happy if my SL identity was linked to my RL identity and my RL friends/family/associates were made aware of it, but it would hardly be the end of the world. It would be a pain, but it wouldn't be a show-stopper (and I have more reason than many to not want my SL persona to be linked to my RL person). I'm somewhat careful about what I say (and where I say it) and about places I visit/links I click, but not to the point of sealing myself off.