Invading Privacy Using Information Scraps

I’ve just stumbled across this post on the Attack Vector blog where the author, Matt, gets back at a spammer by digging up a whole bunch of personal info about him and his family, and posting it online. The post itself is from May 2010, but I felt it reflected the importance of being aware of one’s privacy on the internet.

Using only the spammer’s email address and IP address, he  describes the process of gradually digging up information in WHOIS records, Google, Facebook, and other information mining sites, in order to obtain a fairly descriptive profile. I highly recommend reading it for anyone who’s interesting in online privacy or information gathering.

I also recommend using the following Venn diagram when considering the effects of the internet on your privacy:

There is no overlap. Diagram by Dave Hoffman.