Are We Providing Too Much Personal Information?

[Cypress Sun]

Over the years, I've noticed that many folks provide a lot of personal information about themselves here in the Saloon. I've seen information provided about makes/vintages of vehicles owned (some with tag numbers), manufactures of gun safes (along with locations), types of guns carried complete with pictures/locations of carry, plenty of pictures of guns owned (along with their locations/where stored), types of house alarms (along with keypad locations), personal photos, types/makes of cell phones owned, personal home locations (some with actual street names), real names instead of aliases, and a myriad of other personal information.

 

At times, I've done the same thing although I try to be vague and/or general with the info. Maybe I'm just over concerned about bad people (identity thieves, burglars, etc) being able to piece together my location. In these days with AI becoming more prevalent, it's probably only a matter of time before a computer can put all of the info, innocently provided on the internet over the years, into a probable location and name of an individual regardless of the fact that we use aliases.

 

Some might think that I'm paranoid. Maybe so, but I really believe that day is coming faster than many folks think.

 

Something to think about, I guess, before posting.

[bgavin]

This should be more directed to Facebook users.
Those endless little quizzes, games, favorite color, ad nauseam, are all data mining tools.

[Pat Riot]

45 minutes ago, Cypress Sun said:

Something to think about, I guess, before posting.

I have actually cooled it on certain personal information over the past couple of years. 
A good example would be the EDC thread. It’s all in fun, but I could see that info being used against someone by an overzealous asst DA or an insurance company lawyer. 
I do not play games online. 
I always use my Duck.com email address with vendors including Amazon and eBay. It’s amazing how many trackers come in our email. Gun friendly pro gun vendors are as bad as all the others regarding tracking and data. Screw ‘em. They all don’t need my info and that includes the NRA et.al.

I have completely washed my hands of Google and YouTube. I still watch and copy and paste some videos but I do it through DDG. I have NO Google apps on my phone. 
We have a laptop at home. I do not use it. It’s an HP along with an HP printer. Both are aggravating as hell to me because one or the other rarely works seamlessly. Probably because I don’t use them often. Maybe 3 times a year. HP used to mean “Quality”. That shipped sailed years ago. Best Buy and HP loaded the laptop with all kinds of tracking software in association with their Apps.

My wife likes to leave the laptop on. I turn it off. If my wife didn’t use it I would trash it. 
 

Sorry, went off on a tangent. I’ll stop now. 
 

BUT! You’re right @Cypress Sun often we do post too much info on ourselves and family because we look at the Saloon as “our family” as well. 

 

[Cypress Sun]

51 minutes ago, bgavin said:

This should be more directed to Facebook users.
Those endless little quizzes, games, favorite color, ad nauseam, are all data mining tools.

 

I don't use Facebook, never have. I've seen some snippets of videos that have been posted here though.

[Chickasaw Bill SASS #70001]

YES 

[Sgt. C.J. Sabre, SASS #46770]

A lot of things posted here, (vehicle License Plate, carry guns) are seen by hundreds if not thousands every day when you're out in public. 

I don't worry about an "overzealous D.A." viewing anything I post here, because if I do something to attract their attention, they'll most likely be going through my life with a fine tooth sledgehammer anyway. If they present me with a Search Warrant, they'll be looking at my guns whether I post pictures of them here or not. 

Anybody local that might be watching already knows that I carry a gun, because I do so openly. They know when I'm home or not because they can see when my Jeep is here or not. 

Don't forget, we are all being surveilled every day whether we want to be or not. There are traffic cameras in a lot of places, maybe not to the extent that T.V. would have us believe, but they're there. Walk into any brick and mortar store, and they're watching you. Order anything online, they know where you're at, what you ordered, and what ELSE you've ordered. 

I don't Fake Book, Tic Tac, Twit, or any thing like that. What you see here is pretty much my social media presence. If I thought I was giving out too much info, I wouldn't. THEY'VE got it all anyway.  

[Texas Joker]

[Pat Riot]

2 hours ago, Sgt. C.J. Sabre, SASS #46770 said:

I don't worry about an "overzealous D.A."

I used to not care about that until I served on a Grand Jury in Oregon. This young lady ADA was hellbent on sending a guy to jail for 6 months for chasing a lowlife out of his home with a legally owned pistol all because he went out into the street with it to make sure the d’bag was gone. 
We, the jury, stopped her in her tracks. 
This ADA was trained at Berkeley. She brought several cases where she was using CA law as a backup as to what she thought the accused should get. 
I happened to bump into the DA getting morning coffee and I rolled on her. He was very interested in what I was saying. I am not sure what happened, but we didn’t see her again for the last 3 weeks we served. 
 

That’s why I brought up ADA’s. 

[Sgt. C.J. Sabre, SASS #46770]

1 minute ago, Pat Riot said:

That’s why I brought up ADA’s. 

I understand what you mean. I just figure it I'm going up against someone like that they're already going to have everything that they think they need. I doubt that anything I post here will enter into it. And like I said, this place is pretty much my entire social media presence.

[Pat Riot]

Just now, Sgt. C.J. Sabre, SASS #46770 said:

I understand what you mean. I just figure it I'm going up against someone like that they're already going to have everything that they think they need. I doubt that anything I post here will enter into it. And like I said, this place is pretty much my entire social media presence.

Well then, that means you’re in trouble. 

“Your Honor, this man hangs out with lunatics online. To be exact they’re called ‘Saloonatics’. We think it’s a cult!” 

[Pat Riot]

Jees…I forgot to mention that singalong ADA also wanted a warrant to search that guy’s home and electronic devices for terror related affiliations. Since we shut her down there was no way she could get the warrant. 

[sassnetguy50]

4 hours ago, Sgt. C.J. Sabre, SASS #46770 said:

A lot of things posted here, (vehicle License Plate, carry guns) are seen by hundreds if not thousands every day when you're out in public. 

I don't worry about an "overzealous D.A." viewing anything I post here, because if I do something to attract their attention, they'll most likely be going through my life with a fine tooth sledgehammer anyway. If they present me with a Search Warrant, they'll be looking at my guns whether I post pictures of them here or not. 

Anybody local that might be watching already knows that I carry a gun, because I do so openly. They know when I'm home or not because they can see when my Jeep is here or not. 

Don't forget, we are all being surveilled every day whether we want to be or not. There are traffic cameras in a lot of places, maybe not to the extent that T.V. would have us believe, but they're there. Walk into any brick and mortar store, and they're watching you. Order anything online, they know where you're at, what you ordered, and what ELSE you've ordered. 

I don't Fake Book, Tic Tac, Twit, or any thing like that. What you see here is pretty much my social media presence. If I thought I was giving out too much info, I wouldn't. THEY'VE got it all anyway.  

A step further, a couple years ago I read an article about ai marketing in big box stores.  The in store cameras would watch you in the store.  See where you pause to look at, pick up and put back items.  It would analyze your face and voice, then follow you to checkout where it identifies you by credit card.  It matches that credit card to purchases online and then shows you targeted ads to match the items you thought about buying in store.

[Sgt. C.J. Sabre, SASS #46770]

5 minutes ago, sassnetguy50 said:

A step further, a couple years ago I read an article about ai marketing in big box stores.  The in store cameras would watch you in the store.  See where you pause to look at, pick up and put back items.  It would analyze your face and voice, then follow you to checkout where it identifies you by credit card.  It matches that credit card to purchases online and then shows you targeted ads to match the items you thought about buying in store.

Sounds like the failed Amazon store. You were to go in, pick out your items, and when you exited, it would automatically charge your card. They tried it and it didn't work. 

And I don't get ads. I have AdBlock on my confuser, and I don't look at anything on my flip phone.

[Tex Wilson]

I don't do Facebook or any of the social media sites, and I lost all my guns in a flood a few years ago.

[Sedalia Dave]

 

14 hours ago, bgavin said:

This should be more directed to Facebook users.
Those endless little quizzes, games, favorite color, ad nauseam, are all data mining tools.

 

 

[bgavin]

12 years, not 40.

 

Last June 27, was my 50th year in the computer business.
Enormous strides in both computing power and storage have given us the AI and Big Brother tracking we have today.
Both are entirely based on huge amounts of each.

 

I worked several years at HP, and share the sentiment.
One of my good friends at work was a principal in writing device drivers (such as printers).

 

He gave me some gentle crap about owning a Dell laptop.
I told him those who live in glass houses should not throw stones.
I asked "why" HP made changes in printer drivers, but left the version number the same.
Very bad form.  He said those decisions came "from above".... living proof that merde rolls down hill.

 

I asked why HP programmers could not comprehend the word "uninstall".
When removing any of their drivers, it left droppings in various directories and the Windows registry.
It got SO bad, I had to write a "scrubber" program to give the system an enema after an HP uninstall.
This proved very complicated, because only the HP coders knew ALL the registry and file droppings, and where they were located.

 

Then there are the 230w HP power supplies... sourced from China with cheap-ass capacitors.
These failed and took the system board with it.

All so a bean counter could save $0.25 per unit by using cheap parts.

HP is most definitely not alone in this... Dell was right there with them.
I re-capped MANY system and video cards during that bad time.

 

I don't buy commercial computers.  I roll my own.

I buy reliable system boards, memory, video cards and disks as separates.
A new laptop lasts long enough to record the Windows license, then gets wiped clean and installed from scratch without bundled crapware.

 

[Cholla]

We have found that if my wife looks something up on her phone, I get ads or emails for the same item. We also find it odd that we both suddenly start seeing ads for items we mention in conversation, so I wouldn't be surprised if the microphone on our phones is always active. It has to be. Otherwise, it wouldn't be able to respond when we say, Hey Siri, to start a question.

[Sgt. C.J. Sabre, SASS #46770]

11 minutes ago, Cholla said:

We have found that if my wife looks something up on her phone, I get ads or emails for the same item. We also find it odd that we both suddenly start seeing ads for items we mention in conversation, so I wouldn't be surprised if the microphone on our phones is always active. It has to be. Otherwise, it wouldn't be able to respond when we say, Hey Siri, to start a question.

Some of the reasons that Siri and Alexa will never be in my house. Try installing AdBlock or AdBlock Plus to your confuser. I have both and DON'T get ads. 

[Father Kit Cool Gun Garth]

[Calamity Kris]

Yes to all of the above.  Years ago, I had a stalker find me because I had a vanity license plate FRAME.  It didn't even have my name on it.  It was a joke but it was the only one out there.  I got rid of it really quickly.  The only thing this car has is the dealership plate frame, which thousands of cars around here have.  I purchased a very popular model in a popular color so I will blend in almost anywhere.  As Uno always told me,  it's always best to fly under the radar.

[sassnetguy50]

1 hour ago, Father Kit Cool Gun Garth said:

Maybe put 5 of these on the back with 5 different names.

[Blackwater 53393]

I’m starting to think like a friend of mine who served in Afghanistan and was rewarded with a price on his head.

 

He basically told ‘em that he wasn’t hiding and that they could come and get ‘em some anytime they felt froggy!!

 

I ain’t lookin’ for trouble. I don’t want any problems. But it’s gotten to where ya’ can’t hide anymore and I ain’t all that interested in going out of my way just to avoid being seen.