Thursday, June 23, 2005
Online Truth Part Two: Personal Information
There has been a lot of buzz lately about personal information being acquired from online resources without the knowledge or permission of the target. The stealing of credit card information is one thing. Many people are surprised to find out how easy it is to acquire specific information online like home address, phone number, social security number, and more. For years there have been free or very cheap resources available online that assist in gathering information on just about anyone. These resources are just online versions of the same resources that have been around for decades via other avenues like the local court house or the local library.
I will to demonstrate to you a few exercises in acquiring some basic information about a person or business without spending a dime. These resources are legitimate, free, and pretty accurate. I spent a short time working as a licensed private investigator (PI) back in the early 90s. Oh, and if you are cheating or thinking about it, don't do it! It is not that hard to catch someone even when they are trying very hard to hide it. While I did do some of this dirty work, most of my work consisted of serving summons and subpoenas for the courts in my area. Most of the resources I used to track people for serving court papers are now available online. I can not imagine how much easier that job would be today. I was serving an average of 200 court papers per month back then.
The first thing that alarms people is how easy it is to find an address from a phone number. Here is an example. I will use a pizza restaurant phone number in my home town of Clinton, SC. First I will enter the phone number into Google and click search. I entered 864-833-4373 and clicked search. The first result gave me the name of the restaurant and three choices for mapping the location of that address using Google Maps, Yahoo! Maps, or MapQuest. The results were accurate and two of the three map options displayed an accurate map of the location of the restaurant. This feature can be used for any listed phone number. There are ways to get your address and phone number removed from this list, but your effort will be futile. Why? Because there are a few dozen other ways to accomplish the same thing on the Internet without using Google. Just type the words "reverse lookup" into your favorite search engine. One of the first few things to pop up is AnyWho.com. I have been using AnyWho for at least five years to do what Google is offering in their search engine. Services like AnyWho that offer reverse lookup of phone numbers have become much more accurate in recent years. Back in the mid 90s you would get information that was at least a year old. Today the information is much more current.
The feature of finding an address using a phone number is not new and is not limited to only Google. The feature of locating a person has been available on the Internet for almost as long as the World Wide Web has been around and may go back into the old Gopher days for all I know. Keep in mind that the Internet as you know it has been around just over a decade. The features that you get from the Internet today were unheard of in the even as recent as the early 90s. Google through multiple acquisitions has just tied up the loose ends so you don't have to use multiple sites to find the address for a person anymore. The old school way was to use a reverse lookup tool like AnyWho.com to find the address associated with a phone number. You could then open up you favorite map web site or software to locate the address. This still works quite well. The new features of Google Maps like the satellite images of the local area of an address make Google my new first stop when doing a reverse lookup these days. Keep in mind that many of the satellite images of rural areas will give a picture much like you see from a commercial jet at 30,000 feet. The Satellite image of my local area is more like flying at 10,000 feet.
There are a number of services that allow you to do things like gathering credit history, criminal background, and other information for a fee. Most of this stuff if not all of it can be gathered for a single person for under $100. This is a small price to pay considering the amount of information you get. So ladies, when your dad or you brother says that they are going to check out this new boyfriend, they are probably not kidding if they are willing to spend a little time on the Internet or part with a few bucks.
My wife was absolutely shocked at the amount of information that could be gathered about a person on the Internet without that person ever knowing. Most of the detailed financial things like credit card and bank account numbers are harder to come by legally but not impossible as you have seen in recent headlines. Things like a phone number, address, and family history are a difference story. The more you want to know the more likely you are to end up spending money. If you want to get down in the weeds of a persons past without hiring a PI then you will need to spend a little money and have a lot of patience. I have been able to gather a ton of information on my own family history by using Ancestry.com. They have a paid service that will allow you to gather more information over a longer period of time, but I just used their 14-day trial. I got full names, addresses, social security numbers, birth dates, and more for everyone from my dad plus everyone in the family for several generations before him.
Here is another big surprise for most people. Many counties now list property cards on the Internet. For instance, the county that I live in will allow for anyone with Internet access to see what I paid for my house, how much I paid in property taxes each year, and the names on the deed. All of this can be seen by just knowing the street address and the county that I live in. Similar options are available on the web sites for surrounding counties. This is all information that could be gathered with a trip to the local courthouse, but the Internet has brought this information to your finger tips in your living room.
The unfortunate thing is that most people have no idea of the amount of information that is available to the general public about just about anyone. You really don't have to hire a PI to gather detailed information these days. You can actually be a PI from the comfort of your couch.
Don't forget to read: Online Truth Part One: Junk Email
This story is also posted on The Tech Land of Ozz
I will to demonstrate to you a few exercises in acquiring some basic information about a person or business without spending a dime. These resources are legitimate, free, and pretty accurate. I spent a short time working as a licensed private investigator (PI) back in the early 90s. Oh, and if you are cheating or thinking about it, don't do it! It is not that hard to catch someone even when they are trying very hard to hide it. While I did do some of this dirty work, most of my work consisted of serving summons and subpoenas for the courts in my area. Most of the resources I used to track people for serving court papers are now available online. I can not imagine how much easier that job would be today. I was serving an average of 200 court papers per month back then.
The first thing that alarms people is how easy it is to find an address from a phone number. Here is an example. I will use a pizza restaurant phone number in my home town of Clinton, SC. First I will enter the phone number into Google and click search. I entered 864-833-4373 and clicked search. The first result gave me the name of the restaurant and three choices for mapping the location of that address using Google Maps, Yahoo! Maps, or MapQuest. The results were accurate and two of the three map options displayed an accurate map of the location of the restaurant. This feature can be used for any listed phone number. There are ways to get your address and phone number removed from this list, but your effort will be futile. Why? Because there are a few dozen other ways to accomplish the same thing on the Internet without using Google. Just type the words "reverse lookup" into your favorite search engine. One of the first few things to pop up is AnyWho.com. I have been using AnyWho for at least five years to do what Google is offering in their search engine. Services like AnyWho that offer reverse lookup of phone numbers have become much more accurate in recent years. Back in the mid 90s you would get information that was at least a year old. Today the information is much more current.
The feature of finding an address using a phone number is not new and is not limited to only Google. The feature of locating a person has been available on the Internet for almost as long as the World Wide Web has been around and may go back into the old Gopher days for all I know. Keep in mind that the Internet as you know it has been around just over a decade. The features that you get from the Internet today were unheard of in the even as recent as the early 90s. Google through multiple acquisitions has just tied up the loose ends so you don't have to use multiple sites to find the address for a person anymore. The old school way was to use a reverse lookup tool like AnyWho.com to find the address associated with a phone number. You could then open up you favorite map web site or software to locate the address. This still works quite well. The new features of Google Maps like the satellite images of the local area of an address make Google my new first stop when doing a reverse lookup these days. Keep in mind that many of the satellite images of rural areas will give a picture much like you see from a commercial jet at 30,000 feet. The Satellite image of my local area is more like flying at 10,000 feet.
There are a number of services that allow you to do things like gathering credit history, criminal background, and other information for a fee. Most of this stuff if not all of it can be gathered for a single person for under $100. This is a small price to pay considering the amount of information you get. So ladies, when your dad or you brother says that they are going to check out this new boyfriend, they are probably not kidding if they are willing to spend a little time on the Internet or part with a few bucks.
My wife was absolutely shocked at the amount of information that could be gathered about a person on the Internet without that person ever knowing. Most of the detailed financial things like credit card and bank account numbers are harder to come by legally but not impossible as you have seen in recent headlines. Things like a phone number, address, and family history are a difference story. The more you want to know the more likely you are to end up spending money. If you want to get down in the weeds of a persons past without hiring a PI then you will need to spend a little money and have a lot of patience. I have been able to gather a ton of information on my own family history by using Ancestry.com. They have a paid service that will allow you to gather more information over a longer period of time, but I just used their 14-day trial. I got full names, addresses, social security numbers, birth dates, and more for everyone from my dad plus everyone in the family for several generations before him.
Here is another big surprise for most people. Many counties now list property cards on the Internet. For instance, the county that I live in will allow for anyone with Internet access to see what I paid for my house, how much I paid in property taxes each year, and the names on the deed. All of this can be seen by just knowing the street address and the county that I live in. Similar options are available on the web sites for surrounding counties. This is all information that could be gathered with a trip to the local courthouse, but the Internet has brought this information to your finger tips in your living room.
The unfortunate thing is that most people have no idea of the amount of information that is available to the general public about just about anyone. You really don't have to hire a PI to gather detailed information these days. You can actually be a PI from the comfort of your couch.
Don't forget to read: Online Truth Part One: Junk Email
This story is also posted on The Tech Land of Ozz
