Anonymity

POGS I shouldn't worry. Google yourself and see what you find. Imo someone would need to know a lot more than your user name and be very, very determined to flush you out. Perhaps if your name indicated more about you it would be easier to find you. If you are really concerned change your name.

Because of a very bad experience on an expat Forum, where someone 'stalked' me and found me, I was hoping for total anonymity here - but sadly my location was outed after I'd given the town where I lived previously in the UK- so no chance. Which is why I'd always be VERY careful as to what info I'd give here.

Once bitten... and all that!

I agree with Movedalot - I don't think it is that easy to find out about people unless you are on a lot of sites and give out information on them.

At church today someone told me a member of our sister church knew me and wanted my address to get in touch. They told me the name of the person but I can only vaguely remember the name, tried looking it up on google with no luck, even tried the BT phone book - again no luck, after that I don't know where else to look. Will just have to wait until she gets in touch when no doubt the penny will drop!

Apparently I share mine with a running partner of Mo Farrer?

Pogs Nosy people can only read what you put onto the net. You post here as Pogs so no-one knows your real name (except for GNHQ who also have your main email address. They won't let anyone else get the info)

When you post on here, whatever you say is visible to whoever can be bothered looking. So they might find out the town you live in, where you work, how many grandchildren you have, how old they are, even their names and their interests, and many people post photographs of their children.

You might post that it is peaceful tonight because the GC go to Scouts every Tuesday, that DGS is teased a bit because he is a redhead, that tomorrow you will take them to XXX park, which is just across the road. You might say that your car has just been serviced and you think that you might change it - the bill was too much for a ten-year-old Fiat. In another post you might discuss what colour of car is best and mention that yours is yellow.

All that from public posts, but nothing to exactly identify you.

But if you also had a Facebook account, your name would be on that, and a photograph or even lots of photos if you put them on there for family and friends to see - and you might mention your Facebook account on GN and join up with other Gners.

You might mention on FB that you think Gransnet is great for people on their own. Your photos might show a streetname in the background.

All tiny details but if anyone wanted to they could add them up. Once they had your real name and a town or area, a search on 192.com could give them free a phone number and a full address, and if they paid a subscription, they could see who else lived there from the latest electoral roll.

The bottom line is If they wanted to. Most of us are not that interesting to stalkers. The occasional person might have made an enemy who has an axe to grind, but in general, DONT WORRY.

Sorry, that was longer than I meant it to be.

Sunseeker - perhaps your name is not totally unique? I can honestly say that there is not a single person in the world with my name.

I've googled mine. All I get is an old song from the 60s and how to exterminate myself with traps!

Facebook, twitter and Gransnet are all social networking sites basically. If people don't want to be identified then they shouldn't join them.

Mine only comes up in the AD sense.

POGS

Thanks All.

I have been traced through Gransnet by someone I do not want anything to do with. I admit I am fairly open about what I say about myself – what I do for a living, where I live, who my daughter is, the (bizarre) names of my cats and so on. It just resulted in some nasty, even vicious e-mails that I have ignored and deleted – or is there someone lurking outside the house right now, waiting for the lights to go off?

It cannot be emphasised enough that EVERYTHING YOU PUT ON THE INTERNET IS THERE FOREVER AND ALMOST ALL OF IT IS ACCESSIBLE TO THE WHOLE WORLD – whether legally or illegally.

There is no such thing as privacy in the virtual world.

POGS I wouldn't dream of doing it, but I would bet a lot of money that within days my investigative friend would have access to a big chunk of your life history. Give him a month…

That's how it is.

Ruddy hell absent. Now I am back to square one.

Here is a possibility. Someone (call them A) comments on GN that they have posted a strong message on a certain company's Facebook page about an issue. Another member (B) goes to take a look at that page. There are only a dozen posts on the FB page on that subject, 11 of which do not soundat all like the kind of comment that A would have made, but the 12th does sound rather familiar.

B looks at the Facebook pages of all 12 (very easy, FB links posts to the pages of the people who made them) They each have a photo, and a full name, not a pseudonym. The FB profile of the person who posts like A says how many grandchildren, and what sex they are - it matches the Gransnet profle of A. The photo is taken from a long way away and is a bit blurred, but is similar.

B goes to 192.com, enters the name and town from the facebook page, and up comes an address and phone number, and an electoral roll from 6 or 7 years ago, with the name of someone else living in the same house. Their given name matches the name that A once mentioned for their partner.

I'm so glad I'm not on FB....

Anybody looking for me on 192.com would be disappointed as I don't have a UK address.
However, I once made the mistake of mentioning my daughter's real name in an expat forum and she googled her own name and was annoyed with me when my post came up. Fortunately, it was just factual about her move - there is nothing derogatory I could say about her.
For myself, I am not concerned about privacy, but it is different if you are talking about your family.
All my FB posts are limited to Friends Only and I don't think any of my smallish number of friends would use anything against me. However, I was once shocked to find that somebody purporting to be a friend had passed on the contents of a pm I sent to her. I felt very betrayed and began to wonder if she had been deliberately 'planted' to infiltrate my messages. Paranoid? Moi?

I know there is a certain secretive organisation which operates throughout the world (no names, some of you might be members/partners of members) and the members pass on information amongst themselves.

Ana

So am I.

Interesting Googling ones username. I am told I am easy to grow, so why am I only 5' 1" tall. Its Google page 5 before any reference to GN, most are about flowers.

One of my daughters (not the obvious one) was once the subject of a quirky news item. She was known by her married name and living in Cheshire. As her father and I were divorced and I had remarried I had also changed my name - and was living at the opposite end of the country. My mother; also divorced and a different name from me was living in Manchester. Within 24 hours the Daily Mail had reporters on mine AND my mother's doorsteps; they had no problem at all in tracking down the relationships between us and coming up with the addresses.

I'm an Italian water pump . Nothing pretty, though - a WASTE water pump!

If you've ever been a company director, or a board member of any organisation, even in a voluntary unpaid role - your name will be out there in the public domain, with your detail, date of birth, etc.

Same if you are a local councillor, etc.

If you reveal details about yourself in your profile or in a post someone out there can work out who you are. Mrs. Grumppa (not her Gransnet ID) spotted a detail about someone, and we worked out who she was very quickly. We were subsequently introduced to her, for the first time, at a function but did not make any reference to Gransnet, respecting her use of a nom de plume.

Moral: most of us know how to "play the game", but if you really want to conceal your identity you do have to be very discreet.

Marelli
I'm a fully rigged ship, someone who frightens or a French bulldog - whichever way you look at it, I think the cap fits!

I think the ship should have an e on it?

...'as stately as a galleon, we sailed across the floor,
Doing the military two-step, as in the days of yore'

Oh here I go again.....