Lessons worth learning - How NOT to remain anonymous on the Internet

Posted on September 19, 2007 at 4:28 pm

Make sure to read other posts from the Online Security series!

How to detect computer & email monitoring or spying software
How to protect your computer from hackers, spyware and viruses
Lessons worth learning - How NOT to remain anonymous on the Internet

I’ve been blogging for about 5 months now and I’ve definitely been enjoying the whole process: talking with other bloggers, writing about stuff I like, creating my own unique mark on the world, having people contact me asking questions, etc. It’s the last part that I just mentioned about people contacting me that I’m going to focus on for this post.

If you were to have searched my name about a year ago, Aseem Kishore, you would have found a bunch of entries about Indian baby names, some Aseem Kishore from India doing something in computers (how shocking!), and mostly a bunch of sites with either “Aseem” or “Kishore” in there separately, but not together.

WELL THINGS HAVE CHANGED!!! I just did a search for my name a little while ago and boy was I shocked out of my mind! I’m ALL OVER THE PLACE! I’m not only the first result in Google, but also the second, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th…AND IT JUST KEPT GOING! It was like I was reading a book about myself. I always remember thinking a couple of years ago that it would be so cool to show up #1 in a Google search (hence the reason why I try my name every once in a while), but I never thought I would end up being in 71 of the top 100 results!

Even after 100, I was in there more times than I could keep track of! This is certainly not being anonymous! Actually, it’s nowhere near it! You can not only find my phone number, email address, home address easily, but you can also find out which books and movies I like via my Amazon profile, which news interests me via my Newsvine account, what kinds of things I write about via my blog and article directory profiles, and what I’m currently doing via my Twitter account!!! Scary!

Now your results will probably be slightly different based on where you’re searching from, but you should see the same more or less in the top 100. Here’s the top set of results for me in Google:

1. Blogger profile - This was my first blog when I first started.

2. Newsvine Account

Positions 3 and 4. Aseem Kishore from MIT (NOT ME)

After that, it’s ALL ME till number 17! So out of the first 17 results, there are only TWO that have nothing to do with me!

Lesson to be learned from this post is that if you want to remain an anonymous soul on the Internet, you better make sure you don’t start a blog or create a user profile on any social networking site. Personally, I don’t mind it very much, but I’m sure there are many people who create online profiles or post opinions thinking that no one will ever see it or find it.

As an experiment, type your name into Google and see if you show up or not! Come back here and post a comment with the number of times you showed up in the Top 100 search results. We’ll make it into a competition! Actually, now that I’m in 71 out of 100 results, I think it’ll be fun to see if I can get all 100!

Technorati Tags: anonymous, anonymity, remaining anonymous, anonymous web

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6 Responses to “Lessons worth learning - How NOT to remain anonymous on the Internet”

Kurt Harzke said on : September 20th, 2007 at 8:41 am

What is even more frightening is the tendency for outdated or sometimes completely inaccurate information to proliferate. 7 years ago I bought a domain for a personal web site. The web host was is in Canada, I am in the US. A search of my name revealed that my web site (which was a personal site and had not been updated in years) was being listed as a Canadian on-line business in a some emerging business directory site.

As information becomes more public on the net, there will be a growing burden on the individual to not only manage what is out there, but also maintain it’s accuracy.

For this reason, I’ve set up a Google alert of my own name. It has helped me find at least half a dozen inaccurate records on web site that I did not consent to be a part of.

Thanks for the article. Keep up the good work!

Siddharth said on : September 20th, 2007 at 9:24 am

I didnt counted abt 100 but 50
I got 15 myself in first 50
and 6/10 on 1st page.
There are many many Siddharth Maheshwari but I believe I am unique.
Most of the others were of some meeting or some instituions.
try searching
http://www.google.com/search?q.....Maheshwari

Richard Fdisk said on : September 20th, 2007 at 3:22 pm

(I’ll try this again, it didn’t take the first time)

I’ve “googled” my own “Real name” before and got hit’s in the top 10 list from a website of a company that I just do contract work for.
It would appear that it’s next to “Impossible” to be “hidden” from the peering eyes of the net. If your employer has a web site, chances are you could be on it somewhere and google will find it.
but if you wish to remain a bit “more” anonymous just don’t use your full name for things like forums, blogs, newsgroup discussions, and the like,

which is why I use Fdisk as surname.

Cheers
◄RfD►

DWiner said on : September 21st, 2007 at 6:46 am

My blog turned up at no.2 in top ten when I searched for ‘dwiner’. Except that I could not see any traces of me

How to remove your name from search engines Says:

[...] in the first page for everyone to see!? I had written a post several months back on the results of Googling my own name, which turned out to be quite an eye opener as I ended up being in 71 of the top 100 results in [...]
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[...] in the first page for everyone to see!? I had written a post several months back on the results of Googling my own name, which turned out to be quite an eye opener as I ended up being in 71 of the top 100 results in [...]
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