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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Please read if you use Facebook

298 replies

RoloAddict · 20/02/2018 23:56

So this week we had a new IT manager start in our department at work. Met him for the first time yesterday.. Today was called into a meeting with him along with other staff. He then proceeded to reveal that he'd taken a look at each of our Facebook profiles the previous evening. What he revealed about mine was shocking Shock. By using my Facebook profile and nothing else but good old Google (he proved this by showing us how he did it) he had managed to find out..

My full address including house number!
My DHs full name
My maiden name
Our wedding date
My Dd's names, dates of birth and the sports club they attend.
My stepdaughters name and the school she attended
That I have a stepson.

Needless to say I was horrified. This man was a virtual stranger. We had no mutual friends and I'd never met him until yesterday. I've obviously changed my privacy settings entirely since then. Before I just assumed they were set so that only friends could view them. Can I PLEASE remind and encourage all of you (plus family and friends) to check your settings throughly. We were lucky this time that the person in question didn't mean us harm but it's been a huge wake up call.

OP posts:
Original poster
RoloAddict · 21/02/2018 18:32

We sat down with dsd earlier and went through her Social media pages together with fresh eyes. Explaining why it wasn't appropriate to have certain information and photos on FB/Twitter and how a potential employer (she's currently looking for work) might not be impressed by drunken pics/status's moaning about college etc.

I told her exactly what the IT manager had found from my own profile and I think it shocked her.. Certainly made her think twice about what she'll post from now on anyway (so she says)

OP posts:
Openup41 · 21/02/2018 18:48

This reply has been deleted

Withdrawn at poster's request.

C8H10N4O2 · 21/02/2018 20:36

is Twitter particularly easy to hack then?

You don't need to hack it.

They kind of tools Lemony is referring to take public posted info from your twitter account and match it with other sources based on the content of those posts. You can also do this with syntax, phrasing etc, not just by combining postings to build a picture.

Similarly with FB - public elements (and that includes closed groups unless you know every member of the group personally and have checked their security settings) are enough to pull together far more information than people realise they have given, including biometric data in the form of full face photos.

Look at posts here - you don't need to read many posts by one poster to build a picture of who they are, where they are and many aspects of their lives. NC? well yes but when people NC their syntax and phrasing doesn't change. Throw in a few random threads on your favourite holiday/food/car/interests or your house, decor, children - its not difficult to track most people if you really want to.

Very few people realise just how exposed they are because most people think of the individual elements they have given rather than see the picture which is exposed by combining all their data together from different places

Dungeondragon15 · 21/02/2018 20:50

I think that most of that information is easy to find even if you don't use facebook. e.g. marriage details with a maiden name are on the internet (I found mine). Someone could work out who my children are and what school they go to because they have unusual names and the school publishes names on their website. Address are easy to find too especially if you have lived in the same house for a number of years. Not sure how easy mother's maiden name would be as this isn't on marriage certificates.

specialsubject · 21/02/2018 20:57

Facebook knows my name and date of birth, and had I been smarter I would have faked the latter. It also knows email and phone number so I can log in.

y birthday is not public, my friends list is hidden, I'm not searchable. No apps are allowed. I don't accept friend suggestions, just people I know.

BTW make sure you tick the box to opt out of the edited electoral register or your full address is available to findmypast and many others.

Dungeondragon15 · 21/02/2018 21:04

BTW make sure you tick the box to opt out of the edited electoral register or your full address is available to findmypast and many others.

It's too late if you haven't opted out in the past or if have lived in the same place before having the option of opting out.

Dungeondragon15 · 21/02/2018 21:09

I don't even use facebook or any other social media and I found all that information when I looked (I was testing to see what was there).

UnimaginativeUsername · 21/02/2018 21:17

I’d imagine that using mother’s maiden name for security questions will fall out of fashion reasonably soon, because so many people do not marry or do not change their name when they marry. My ‘maiden name’ is just my name. I’d never change it.

ivykaty44 · 21/02/2018 21:25

Not sure how easy mother's maiden name would be as this isn't on marriage certificates

It’s on the GRO index for your birth - so you don’t even have to purchase a certificate

Look your own up on freebmd if you were born before 1984 and see how easy or not it is to find

HaudYerWheeshtBawbag · 21/02/2018 21:30

Tbh, all of what you have said is easy accessible from elsewhere, by checking public records and so forth.

My Facebook profile is locked down, if I haven’t accepted you as a friend then you can only see my profile pic, and you cannot click on it to enlarge it. Also only my friend have access to my page, as I’ve set my settings this way.

No one can also post on my page without my approval, as again I’ve set it up this way.

Anyone can find any info if the have the knowledge and skills to do so! I have, so that’s why my account is locked down.

specialsubject · 21/02/2018 22:10

I think you can get removed from findmypast - 192 will take you off although they make you work.

lljkk · 21/02/2018 22:15

There's loads of info about my dad online. Correct info = Full home address, phone no., sometimes his birthday.

Lots & lots of incorrect info, though. My dad has no social media profile & barely uses email. So it's all drawn from public records.

Same for me except I do have social media profile.

I can't get prabook to load on my laptop; that looks like the most thorough & correct biography I can find of me online!

Dungeondragon15 · 22/02/2018 09:05

Look your own up on freebmd if you were born before 1984 and see how easy or not it is to find

I don't seem to be on there but it's probably on a database somewhere. It just goes to show that even if you don't use social media it is pretty easy to find most or all of the information in the OP, especially if you have an unusual name, are over 30 and have lived in the same place for many years.

Dungeondragon15 · 22/02/2018 09:06

I think you can get removed from findmypast - 192 will take you off although they make you work

It will be somewhere else though. They are using public records.

specialsubject · 22/02/2018 09:28

Yes, but the point is to remove easy internet searches.

Dungeondragon15 · 22/02/2018 10:16

Yes, but the point is to remove easy internet searches.

I don't think that they have to remove public records though and even if they do, someone else will publish them. It's not as if you are asked before they put them on.

lljkk · 22/02/2018 10:57

My prabook entry has LOADS of errors. It's the most thorough & correct summary, yet full of incorrect info. I'm impressed that no one has my home address.

Someone could cross check & get most of it right if they were diligent and discriminating. A bot would screw up badly. I don't care. It can't be that easy to steal identity or I'd have been shafted a decade ago.

Maybe 2-4 yrs ago some of my contacts had imposter FB account problems (so I'd get a message to be friended by Jo Smith who was pretending to be the same as the Jo Smith I already know). Did anyone see the story about how the Russian bots were setting up imposter fake FB accounts precisely to try to disseminate discordant info? I wonder why they targeted some FB users & not others.

I found my dad's speeding tickets! As well as incorrect info about his possible criminal record (because he works in the CJS and the AI can't tell difference between people at work in the court & those being penalised).

MissSingerbrains · 22/02/2018 11:50

People share way too much on Facebook. The MN Fb page today has a link to the thread about wearing knickers to bed, and there are dozens of women discussing it in a public post Confused Granted, some might be fake names, but the vast majority won’t be.

So now the whole world and their dog knows that Sally Brown from Grimsby* doesn’t wear pants in bed, and what her husband thinks about it, and the fact that her mother doesn’t wear them either Shock

*Name and location are not real

Oliversmumsarmy · 22/02/2018 12:20

Someone I know runs a charity for youngsters. She posts where she is, what she is doing umpteen times per day. She posts pictures of the children.

She thinks it is good publicity.

She has been broken into 4 times she advertises when she is out and how long she is going to be.

She posts her address and telephone number over her public facebook page

Hillarious · 22/02/2018 12:43

The IT manager was doing his job well. It's important to show people how they are making themselves vulnerable on-line, often in ways that can and should be avoided.

Tabloid journalists will not shy away from misrepresenting any of your on-line presence, should you be unlucky enough to come to their attention. No doubt many of them are reading Mumsnet right now.

Riverside2 · 22/02/2018 13:22

@ivykaty44

thank you for flagging this up - I didn't know my mother's maiden name was attached to my birth record.

I'm now wondering why the record is online at all though? What is the point of that? If anything, in the interests of security and privacy it shouldn't be there?!

ConciseandNice · 22/02/2018 13:28

I can’t belive people are so naive. It is a wake-up call and a good one if you were really labouring under the impression that anything you post online is pretty much available to anyone. Plus you can set FB to private and in no way is it ‘locked down’. I’ll say no more other than just don’t put anything on the internet you wouldn’t be happy sharing with the police or your mother!

ivykaty44 · 22/02/2018 14:09

Riverside2 it’s a public record and has been freely available to view the indexes if the GRO since 1837 in England and Wales

It used to be at Somerset house then in public libraries...large ones and now it’s available online

Riverside2 · 22/02/2018 14:12

Ivy, yes, I know that's it's be been available to look at

but what I'm puzzled by is why the maiden name is attached to it? I only looked because of what posters said about bank security.

to be honest I don't really know why any of these records need to be online but that's a whole separate conversation.

Originalfoogirl · 22/02/2018 14:27

wrong. Plenty of people have lost their jobs because of their social media.
They lost their job because they were shitty about their company or were racist or homophobic or trolling.

They do not lose their jobs because they have poor security which can lead to them being attacked by fraudsters. That is where it is absolutely none of the company's business. This IT dick wasn't saying "I looked at your profile and you publicly slagged off your old company" he was saying "I'm a creepy fucker who gets his kicks from stalking people FBI style on the internet and I found your own personal security was shit"

If they had a security guard on the door who, in his spare time, came round to your house and took a photo of himself in your car in the middle of the night because you left it unlocked, and then called the staff into a meeting to share that with everyone, he'd be quite rightly called a creepy stalker. Doing it online when that has absolutely nothing to do with your job is him being a dick. He could easily have made the same point having asked for permission to do so.