posted on November 5, 2000 06:01:50 AM
While you are cruising through a bidder's history, you see they have a liking for bazaar items. Their email address has a .edu extension, so you click on over to that university's website. You look them up in the faculty directory and there they are. Wow, look, there's even more. This particular university has little bio pages on all their professors and even a picture. So now you know that:
A: His Name is xxxxx
B: He like to buy lady's xxxxx
C: He is a professor at xxxxx University.
D: He is 52 years old.
E: He has a wife and two children. (i wonder if she has seen his collection)
F: His class schedule is posted so you know when you can find him. And what time he leaves for home, just in case you ever wanted to follow him there.
G: His picture is there, so you know what he looks like.
This is a pretty scary situation and it doesn't just apply to universities. How many people use work email addresses. How many of those companies have websites. How many of those websites have employee directories. How much info is contained in the email address itself. "[email protected]" pretty much tells you that the person's last name is Smith, their first name starts with B, and they work for ABC Company. ABC Company has a website with their phone number and address posted. You pick up the phone and call. "Hi, I have a message from someone that works there, but I can't read the first name. All I can make out is B. Smith" The operater graciously replies with: "Oh, that's Brenda. She works in Personel" So now, you know that Brenda Smith works for ABC Company which is located at 123 Main Street. She works in personel, so she will most likely get off at 5pm when the office closes. If you apply for a job there, you might even get to meet here face to face. So it is not just the bidding info you have to be concerned about.
posted on November 5, 2000 07:27:15 AM
Geez, Jim! You sure seem to be circling the wagons.
IMHO, anyone that bothers to take even the simplist precautionary measures will be safe from 99.9% of the populace.
You probably have a better chance of meeting a random act of violence, or your house robbed than having to worry about cyber stalkers/thieves.
But hey, it'a a free country (somewhat), feel free to take whatever paranoid trip you want.
Don't forget to write!
posted on November 5, 2000 07:38:15 AM
Personally I don't really see a need for it, but...Noone said life is fair, if you don't like it, don't bid on ebay. There are a lot of companies that I don't like the practices of, and I just don't shop there!
posted on November 5, 2000 08:59:44 AM
MrJim -
While possible, your scenario is unlikely. All the cross-dressing professors around here use HOTMAIL addresses for their bidding IDs.
posted on November 5, 2000 09:53:14 AM
ebaY openness is a major resource for collection of email addresses for targeted spam mailings. Reducing it would harm many businesses.
