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New Sites Make It Easier To Spy on Your Friends

online.wsj.com — If you are still relying on Google to snoop on your friends, you are behind the curve.

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  • DefaultGen, on 05/14/2008, -5/+223I do my stalking through Facebook personally.
    • lamiaconfitor, on 05/14/2008, -8/+5Yeah, but does it tell you people campaign contributions/home value? compared to these things, even facebook is for noobs. The dod has nothing on the huffington post.
      • DefaultGen, on 05/14/2008, -1/+47Why would I want to know that? I just need to know if my ex is in a relationship, the name of the new lover, and a picture and I can send my hitman.
    • MikiMac, on 05/14/2008, -0/+38I do my stalking in a dark stairway.
      you want information on your friends? just hit them with a wooden club on the head, and take their wallet, now you have their credit card #, social security, drivers license, photo of their girlfriend, and condom preference.
    • kooky, on 05/14/2008, -0/+13I find it amazing how many people write about EVERYTHING in their personal life on Facebook or Myspace. Outside of my close friends, I know more about my other distant friends than I've ever known before.
    • DooHiky, on 05/14/2008, -1/+0Remember that there's a stalker application on Facebook. But I guess that won't matter to you since it's... personal.
  • chkdg8, on 05/14/2008, -18/+3"No but AOL says the internet is safe!"
  • ColorBlind, on 05/14/2008, -30/+10Do people really care about this?
    • revjustin2, on 05/14/2008, -2/+15Yes.
    • tedhead2k, on 05/14/2008, -3/+40Well you see, there is this cool feature on Digg where if people like an article or care about what it says, they click "digg it", and that little counter automatically increases by 1. So, if you want to see if people care about this, just look at that counter to get an estimation of how many people liked it. Cool huh?
    • justice7, on 05/14/2008, -1/+63do you care if i post your info? (in your digg profile)
      http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=500311979
      aim:goim?screenname=KevanRay

      Checking your facebook you're from Knoxville, TN

      Using the sites in this article, we find... easily your address, your phone number, a picture of your home, how much its worth and any posts you've made on various other websites.

      I think you might care, just a little.
      • CynicSight, on 05/14/2008, -2/+29Wow. ***** owned.
        • justice7, on 05/14/2008, -1/+18i could have kept going but i wanted to make a point, not ruin the guy's life :) Everyone should care about privacy online -- anyone who says they dont, just do that to them.. dig up all their info; shock and awe.
      • lamiaconfitor, on 05/14/2008, -0/+9wow... I cant believe he put his real name on his digg profile... poor, stupid kid.
      • rezonq3, on 05/14/2008, -0/+7I don't know if I just suck at using these engines or if I have just been very diligent about my personal information online.

        justice7, you seem like you are good at this, can you see if you can dig anything up about me? Truly, I am curious.
        • justice7, on 05/14/2008, -0/+5not a lot to go on with your username... but i'm at work and cant dig even deeper on you
          but here goes

          rezonq3@livejournal.com
          AIM: rezonq3
          Yahoo ID: rezonq3
          MSN Username: rezonq3@hotmail.com
          Google Talk: rezonq3

          these arent guessed, found on your livejournal.com account
        • cyberwiz01, on 05/14/2008, -1/+5Justice7, you are badass!
          • justice7, on 05/14/2008, -0/+5it really isn't that difficult to do -- if you know how to use a search engine; and keep digging for more info. There are further things you can do once you know someone's email address to gain access to it; but that is another topic which involves some action on my part rather than just viewing publicly available sites. (Forgot password features are a hacker's best friend)
        • justice7, on 05/14/2008, -0/+6you are 23 years old
          your name is Samuel
          • justice7, on 05/14/2008, -0/+3loose info... (not directly connected) but this MIGHT be your ebay account
            http://myworld.ebay.com/rezonq3/
          • justice7, on 05/14/2008, -0/+3some other details i know...
            you also go by the name "Resonance", you used to play Halo2 quite a bit; you're into (or once were) blogging, and live in the United States.
          • mazza558, on 05/14/2008, -0/+3....holy *****.
      • billizm, on 05/14/2008, -3/+4You mean if you put your name and location on the Internet, people can find info about you? No *****. If he really cared about people looking him up, he would of not put his real name/location. You would think anyway.
        • justice7, on 05/14/2008, -0/+8just stating why he SHOULD care.
        • schroeder, on 05/14/2008, -0/+3But the info is there. If he ever wanted to not be found by someone there is already a lot of info out there to correlate. Steve Rombom is a private investigator who did a talk for the last and the coming HOPE conference. He had one person volunteer (Rick Dakan) to let him find out everything there was to know about them using only free resources. The game went on and several times he was able to locate this person who was actively working to hide from him. He even found a Caman island bank account he created and a fake business it was connected to and called him in florida with the information he had attained. It will all be in a book they're writing.
          http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Rombom
          A video of his belated HOPE conferecne talk :
          http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-163431629 ...
      • Hoogs, on 05/14/2008, -0/+2This is why I love the internet.
  • peznex, on 05/14/2008, -42/+13Did they really have to use a gay guy for an example.
    "Doug Orlyk, a 42-year-old librarian in Bensenville, Ill., recently turned to ZabaSearch to find his new boyfriend's address so that he could send him a card."
    • widgetmaker, on 05/14/2008, -5/+28So Homosexuality has reached a point where it is considered normal enough to use as an example in an old conservative publication then good it means equality is moving forward :)
      • gllopc, on 05/14/2008, -2/+15I thought the exact same thing. I actually read "his boyfriend" twice to make sure I was reading it correctly.
        • akatherder, on 05/14/2008, -4/+3I actually glossed over the fact that it said "his new boyfriend" but when the article referred to him as "the boyfriend" (instead of his/her) I went back and re-read it since the wording was peculiar.
    • beargrylls, on 05/14/2008, -1/+5How dare they?!
    • SteveIsTheDude, on 05/14/2008, -10/+4Its good to use examples to make a point. For example: "You can sometimes tell a Digg user is a latent homosexual by the way they dislike homosexual content or if they have a very gay screen name, such as "Peznex". You see how using real world examples helps to make a point?
      • dlllb, on 05/14/2008, -1/+10Yup, your username is the gayest thing i've ever seen.
    • xstarsprinklesx, on 05/14/2008, -0/+4Who cares? Get over it.
    • gnixon70, on 05/14/2008, -0/+3The velvet mafia moves ever foward
    • Mononuclear, on 05/15/2008, -0/+1If he is your boyfriend why don't you already know his address? Or why don't you just ask him? Anyone else find it strange to be looking up address of a significant other like that? Sounds more like stalking...
  • KaiSe7eN, on 05/14/2008, -26/+5Old useless *****, don't even think anyone cares. Buried.
    • CynicSight, on 05/14/2008, -0/+12Useless? Well, Nelson, I just found out you're significant other is expecting another child... And your myspace:

      http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=us ...

      GG kids. Good ***** game.
      • chiefbttlwshr, on 05/14/2008, -1/+3According to Myspace he's 22, but his Digg profile says 19.

        The searches are interesting but inaccurate.
        I ran all of them on myself and nothing came back.
        But that may not mean anything.
    • inajeep, on 05/14/2008, -0/+4Anyone with a hat like that doesn't get to have an opinion.
  • coffeebot, on 05/14/2008, -1/+102I probably would still have friends if I hadn't spied on them.
    • wtfpwned98, on 05/14/2008, -0/+9There's no cool or classy way to say: "oh, I was looking around online the other day and noticed that you..."
    • GuacamoleSan, on 05/14/2008, -0/+6And then used chloroform to knock them out, and tie them to chairs with three dimly lit lights hanging above them and interrogate them for no apparent reason and terrify them and then unleash wolves on them in a pit you so aptly named "the pit of despair"
    • Ascendancy5, on 05/14/2008, -2/+1No you wouldn't
  • taradisiac, on 05/14/2008, -3/+27I use rapleaf mainly.
    • pheedback, on 05/14/2008, -1/+7I don't know why people are digging you down...Rapleaf is another site that should have been included in the article.
    • TheAtomicMoose, on 05/14/2008, -0/+4I use Rapeleaf... it's easier for raping.
      • LadyA, on 05/15/2008, -0/+2Obvious, but I still laughed. Dugg up sir.
  • chanop, on 05/14/2008, -0/+27Can't find anyone with it
    • stiankarlsen, on 05/14/2008, -0/+11That's because all your friends are imaginary. :)
    • andretii, on 05/14/2008, -0/+4did you make a myspace for ur right hand?
  • BeforeSputnik, on 05/14/2008, -0/+26We "don't want to stalk people." Instead, he says, "we're just trying to make something that's fun to use." What's not fun about stalking? :)
    Spokeo, more like Spooky Yo. i know i know, should've quit while i was ahead.
  • X9001, on 05/14/2008, -1/+201She only thought she left me
    • h4mx0r, on 05/14/2008, -1/+37that sounds like the tagline for some ***** romance/horror movie, or perhaps even book.
    • ecrunner, on 05/14/2008, -1/+2hahaha....
  • Shrooms27, on 05/14/2008, -1/+16whatever happened to running into people in dark alleys?
  • briguymaine, on 05/14/2008, -2/+75finally, a streamlined way to follow the bitch... did I say that out loud?
  • lasermission, on 05/14/2008, -1/+29The first website suggested by the article is just a link-through to intellius.com. So much for integrity, Wall Street Journal.
    • manstein01, on 05/14/2008, -2/+10Yeah, most of these sites are well known and/or worthless. I could not even find myself on zabasearch.com. Buried for a stupid article which overstates the obvious.
    • leszek, on 05/14/2008, -1/+1yep, buried as spam
  • gwaggy12, on 05/14/2008, -0/+35"I found your number on the web" is the pick up line of the 21st century
    • widgetmaker, on 05/14/2008, -6/+2"I found your number on the web" is the worst pick up line of the 21st century

      Corrected
    • JonTheGoose, on 05/14/2008, -0/+16"I found your nudes on the web" is a close second.
      • grimward, on 05/14/2008, -2/+8And for extra credit you go "I've got a bigger dick than your ex did"
  • roosterjack, on 05/14/2008, -8/+4It's creepy how online stalkers can easily increase in numbers and gain access from such sites.
  • fuzed, on 05/14/2008, -3/+152This is crap. You run a search through their engine and it takes you to a site where you have to spend $50 bucks to get any real data. Dugg down as spam.
    • akilleen, on 05/14/2008, -0/+21You think that is crap, it is $20 to get your data removed from Zabasearch!
      • norcalscan, on 05/14/2008, -0/+16Please fill out this form with all the data you wished to be removed from zabasearch. Then enter your credit card number here.
  • DirtPile, on 05/14/2008, -1/+10I've been convicted of crimes against humanity AND they have my phone number? Sweet.
  • widgetmaker, on 05/14/2008, -0/+21Goes to show how easy it is to now find information about people it now is, 20years time something a politician or CEO posted on the web years ago is going to come back and destroy their career. All those Facebook pictures, forum posts (even under a pseudonym, since people often use the same one that can simply be searched for) will haunt people.
    • kuwan, on 05/14/2008, -0/+3Yes but it sure will make for entertaining political coverage in the future. I can wait to see our future presidential candidates' old myspace pages, or their spring break videos on youtube. You think it's a media circus for Reverend Wright or last election with the Swift Boat Veterans? Just wait 20 years until everything the candidates ever did can be found on the Internet - now that's going to be a circus!

      And I can't wait!
  • goonerzilla, on 05/14/2008, -0/+6Stalking using dummy accounts is still my thing.
  • bastardprince, on 05/14/2008, -1/+21needed to find his boyfriends address? sure.....
  • gllopc, on 05/14/2008, -2/+3I could divine all of this information for you for half the price. Just give me a number between 1 and 4, and your favorite color....

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cootie_catcher
  • Dralite, on 05/14/2008, -1/+33Some of these are the equivalent of a phonebook... all that dangerous personal information, waiting for me to steal, delivered on my door step every 6 months...
    • DrummerAndrew, on 05/14/2008, -1/+1I can't get them to stop delivering phone books. I wish we got them every 6 months. I swear, when I get home tonight, there'll be a new one on the porch. They deliver two at a time, too, because we once had two lines. Stop already.
  • uziko, on 05/14/2008, -1/+14these are worthless i can't find myself on any of them
  • tibetsong, on 05/14/2008, -7/+3That's why some people have to be very careful to use the web2.0, cause it's terrible if the Government use it to spy on people
    • Joeyrev, on 05/14/2008, -0/+12Yeah, because I'm sure the Pentagon is going to Zabasearch to find out your information...
      • gwaggy12, on 05/14/2008, -4/+1If it's good enough for Jack Bauer, it's good enough for me!
      • Rally603, on 05/14/2008, -1/+4I hope my tin foil hat protects against that, too.
  • HonestAbe, on 05/14/2008, -8/+2vauhini.vara@wsj.com belongs to multiple networks:
    Add vauhini.vara@wsj.com to your friends
  • caltheos, on 05/14/2008, -0/+6On the ZabbaSearch site, they charge you $15 to get address and phone number information, but if you click Block This, it shows you the both pieces of information. Granted I searched for myself and found several old addresses/phone numbers, but no current ones. The other f'ed up thing is they charge you $20 to Opt-Out of their service. Thats worse than the phone company charging you to delist from the phone book.
    • GeeForce, on 05/14/2008, -0/+1Didn't work for me.. just redirected to some other site that didn't show anything?
  • DeFex, on 05/14/2008, -2/+3I could not find myself on any of them. that is good.
  • Qays, on 05/14/2008, -6/+4Not available outside the US though : (
  • jimek, on 05/14/2008, -0/+13Stop using spokeo so I can sign up for it.
  • sheebz, on 05/14/2008, -1/+10Its interesting, but not anything new. I used to work for a background check firm and one thing that was really being asked for by clients (employers) were social networking type check products. For example, logging on to myspace and looking for comprimising pictures, drug use, radical views, criminal behaviour etc... A problem is that there is no way to actually verify that this is the person in question, and the legality for using this type of stuff for employment use.
  • justice7, on 05/14/2008, -1/+9everyone should care about their privacy online. It is huge, and is becoming a larger issue every day.
    • matschig, on 05/14/2008, -3/+7Thanks McGruff. Will keep that in mind.
  • pathouston22, on 05/14/2008, -1/+2Theres a lot more information available online than just this too. Your tax information for example.
  • mikeblur, on 05/14/2008, -0/+3I looked myself up on those sites, and the info is 10 years old. I don't mind being listed one bit.
  • reynolds3g, on 05/14/2008, -0/+3this isn't anything new. most people who rely on google to actually snoop aren't that serious about it. everyone knows that if you want to find out real dirt there are pay service/sites, so this isn't news to me. besides, the info on me is so outdated anyway.
  • crapmatic, on 05/14/2008, -1/+2What, no info on how to restrict details about you on Zabasearch?
  • McDeath, on 05/14/2008, -0/+4All that I want to know is where my high school sweetheart lives at now?
    • mciampa1214, on 05/14/2008, -1/+9...probably buried in your basement "McDeath"
  • eighties, on 05/14/2008, -0/+3http://www.facebook.com and http://www.rapleaf.com. All you need is an email address, and Rapleaf will find most online profiles associated with that email address. Kinda cool, actually.
  • SpoonMachine, on 05/14/2008, -3/+8digg this down :(
  • thebloodvayne, on 05/14/2008, -0/+1These sites aren't as good as they make it out to be, and also the fact that most seem to be scams...
  • SpoonMachine, on 05/14/2008, -2/+3this guy has my name:
    b6.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/01102/66/12/1102682166_l.jpg
    is everyone with our name cursed with such awesomeness?
  • spritom, on 05/14/2008, -0/+1Digg effect is in effect on these sites right now.
    Zaba and Wink have been around for a bit
  • LordMonboddo, on 05/14/2008, -0/+10Rule #1: Don't use your real name on the web, dumbass. Anyone stupid enough to register blogs, Myspace, etc., using their real name deserves all of the snooping backlash that will come of it.
    • edmcguirk, on 05/14/2008, -0/+3Or maybe you shouldn't put out anything that you wouldn't be willing to hang your reputation on.
    • Anteros, on 05/14/2008, -0/+3A lot of people on digg don't used their real name but the email they used to register may be tied to a place where they do use their real name e.g. facebook. If you talk to someone on facebook and hand out your email they could then read all your digg comments, find your flickr page or profiles on more embarrassing sites.
    • Ymeg, on 05/14/2008, -0/+1Fake names are so fun.
    • MegRitz, on 05/15/2008, -0/+0You mean that Lord Monboddo ISN'T your real name?!
  • smergs, on 05/14/2008, -0/+1sooo.... yeah.. It has me living at my parents house. My parents have moved to a new address since I last lived with them 8 years ago. So I never lived at the address that it says I live at.

    I've been married, and my wife and I purchased a house in the last year. Doesn't have any of that.
    • newsreader123, on 05/14/2008, -0/+0With that new house purchase its only a matter of time.
  • SevenTwo, on 05/14/2008, -0/+2Stop turning me into a stalker digg.
  • Ablerank, on 05/14/2008, -1/+6*FAIL!!!* Crap article. As soon as the first "reviewed" site lead to Intellus, I stopped reading. Give us a site that provides that type of info without having anything to do with a pay service and I'll be impressed.
  • Morac, on 05/14/2008, -1/+13Some of these sites, peoplefinders.com and intelius.com for example, are scary.

    These sites search through public (and not so public) records to pool information about you. I searched for myself on a few sites and managed to find my current and previous addresses, my age, my phone number, email address, aliases and the names and ages of my relatives. All of that was provided free of charge.

    If I paid, I could have gotten my birth date, criminal records, property transactions, property values, social security number and a bunch of other data which makes stealing someone's identity trivial.

    Unless you go through your entire life using an alias and never put your real name on any public document, there's nothing you can do to prevent people from getting that information.

    There should be laws against making this information publicly available.
    • mkayatta, on 05/14/2008, -0/+2so you're saying that public records shouldn't be public?
    • breezytrees, on 05/14/2008, -0/+7social security number? ummm you can't be serious.
  • MrZaiko, on 05/14/2008, -0/+3Im everywheree in those ***** sites. now i know where my girlfriend's dad got my criminal record!
  • kurosen, on 05/14/2008, -3/+2very interesting... peoplefinders.com and intelius.com are heavy....
    • cyberwiz01, on 05/14/2008, -0/+5Why is everything so heavy in 2008? Is there some sort of problem with the Earth's gravitational pull?
  • sodade, on 05/14/2008, -1/+1This Fundrace thing is pretty scary. Here is the direct link: http://fundrace.huffingtonpost.com/neighbors.php?t ...
  • grimward, on 05/14/2008, -0/+2I tried searching with all my handles and various nicks, nothing came up. I then resorted to derivations of my name, didn't turn up anything either, even though I'm fairly active online :) Google however, gives off quite a treasure trove of information when searched with a derivation of my name :)
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