Peeping Toms

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watchers II

Nowadays what’s on the internet doesn’t seem to amaze me. There are a lot of things out there that creep into your private life. I recently came across a web site that claims to provide detailed information on anyone. The site is www.truthfinder.com. Now this site claims to be able to provide the goods on someone. Now being True_George this got me curious, so I decided to put in my name to see how accurate they are, and if the information they claim to be able to get is legit. After a couple of minutes the site produced the names of two of my brothers and mother. It even revealed the name of my ex-wife from my brief secretive marriage. Opps, I guess it isn’t so secret anymore. Then the site search pauses and a warning message is produced.

watchers

Warning

This Report May Contain Graphic Content

Caution: When you access that report, the results may be surprising. We have

Millions of records that may shed the light on the truth about your subject

Please confirm once again that you’re ready to learn personal details regarding

The individual

Then if you want the search to continue you click on the words “I understand.”  More waiting until while the search is compiling the information, then finally the search is complete. Then the following messages appear.

I WILL NOT use this information to stalk anyone. If I see someone I know,

I WILL NOT publicize their information or spread gossip.

I WILL NOT harass people whose criminal records appear on this site.

If I learn someone close to me is a dangerous criminal,

I WILL NOT confront them.

I understand this website includes arrest records and it does not necessarily mean the person was convicted.

You actually have to electronically sign that you would not do any of those things. But we all know in the real world some people would do everything they signed their name and pledge that they won’t do. Then before you get access to the report; the site prompts you to put in your payment information. I should have known. Did I think that they were going to allow access to the complied information and give it away for free? Well, my curiosity was nagging me to go ahead and put in my payment info, which I did. Then bang, the information was revealed. All I saw was my basic demographics, and my address  along with my E-mail addresses, social media links. They even reveal the names and address of registered sex offenders that live near me. Then a massage appears and states if I want to see arrest records, court judgements, bankruptcies, home and car ownership. I have to pay an additional $15.99 and if I want a more detailed report and get information such as ownership of home, car or boat; tax liens; professional licenses; weapons permits; voter registration and even who are my neighbors; I would have to get the premium services for an additional cost.

In a sense if one does not have any motive to research a person’s background with the exception of checking out the people they are dating. So much for trust, you might as well drop them.  Perhaps checking out the neighbor or the maid it is a good tool. But you have those who have an agenda perhaps looking for a victim to scam and suck away their hard earned fruits of their labor; it is a criminal’s treasure trove. But on the flip side law enforcement don’t have to do much to find information on you and your assets either. It makes it hard to create a false identity, but easy to steal other people’s Identity.

watchers III

 Hey, be careful out there big brother, little brother, significant others, the boss, Lawyers, scam artists and Police are watching….

Solitude

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25 Comments »

  1. Hello True George,

    I have some more bad news that I wanted to share, this time about a browser extension that I mentioned in a previous comment on this post.

    Recently my on-demand back up anti-malware scanner (Zemana AntiMalware Free) started detecting the Web Of Trust (WOT) browser extension as a PUA (potentially unwanted application), I thought that it was a false positive at first because I have been using this helpful and recommended browser extension for years now but Zemana AntiMalware Free was still detecting it, and so I looked online to see what was going on and now I found out why it is being detected:

    http://www.pcworld.com/article/3139814/software/web-of-trust-browser-extensions-yanked-after-proving-untrustworthy.html

    This is very unfortunate, I have now allowed Zemana AntiMalware Free to remove it, and I am no longer recommending Web Of Trust (WOT) at this time.

    Fortunately the free Adguard browser extension that I use does a pretty good job blocking ads and some malicious websites (if you enable this option) so at least I still have that security layer still, but it is unfortunate that I just lost one helpful security layer that I have used for years.

    -John Jr

    Liked by 1 person

      • Some are over-rated and ineffective, browser based protection (I recommend Google Chrome over Firefox now since it has better security and you do not have to manually updated plugins and things like that like you do in Firefox which improves your security because most people I know do not manually update those things in Firefox so switching them to Google Chrome reduced them having their browser exploited by malware/exploits/hackers through outdated plugins) and a good ad blocker with malicious website blocking (like Adguard or Ublock Origin) is a great idea that I recommend as well, but I still recommend that people use a real-time anti-malware/anti-virus (a free no hassle one like Windows Defender et cetera) when possible.

        Keeping your software updated, common sense about computer based threats, an ad blocker with malicious website blocking enabled (like Adguard or Ublock Origin), a real-time antivirus (like Windows Defender which comes with newer versions of Windows), a firewall (like Windows Firewall which comes with newer versions of Windows), and optionally one free backup on-demand anti-malware scanner to catch anything missed by your main protection is good enough for most people in my opinion which basically means that someone using a newer operating system like Windows 10 or various Linux distributions can get by with only adding another browser like Google Chrome and an ad blocker and this can be done for free and easily and keeps things simple.

        -John Jr

        Liked by 1 person

  2. Hello True George,

    I just noticed that truthfinder.com has a low rating on WOT (Web Of Trust, which is a browser extension and website and app that I have used for years to help warn me of possibly untrustworthy and malicious and unsafe websites, and it is mostly crowdsourced/community-powered (they also use some blacklists to help with the rating of websites) so users can rate websites using this extension/website/app) (https://www.mywot.com/en/scorecard/truthfinder.com), and Quttera shows 4 suspicious files (they could be false positives, who knows) on that website (https://quttera.com/detailed_report/truthfinder.com).

    -John Jr

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      • You are welcome True George.

        The ratings on WOT (Web Of Trust) are not always accurate, almost anyone can rate a website there (they have a system in place to help deal with incorrect ratings, but it is not perfect), but I find them to be pretty accurate usually and when not I try to give my rating to help (especially on websites that have not been rated yet); and so the ratings could be wrong, but I think that the ratings so far and your initial impression of that website are probably correct so it is better to be safe than sorry in my opinion. 😉

        -John Jr

        Liked by 1 person

  4. If you’re determined, you don’t even have to pay for that information. A quick Google search can reveal a lot of details about a person without having to sign up or pay for a membership. Then we open ourselves up so much on social media and other online platforms that it is very easy to get info on almost anybody. This was a good article!

    Liked by 1 person

  6. You definitely have to be careful out there, thank you for sharing this True George, more people need to know how much information about them is possibly out there.

    I would also like to recommend that people avoid filling out forms and buying things from websites without researching and/or knowing and trusting the website(s) because there is a lot of spam, scams, phishing, malware, exploits, et cetera being used in pop-up ads and emails and websites and software and web forms et cetera to trick people into sharing their personal information and into buying things.

    That is becoming one of the common ways to hack, exploit, infect, steal from, scam, get information, et cetera people online and through software that sends information back online.

    https://www.google.com/safetycenter/everyone/cybercrime/

    -John Jr

    Liked by 1 person

      • I think that the number is probably surprisingly smaller than some may think, but it is their tactics and malware and bots and ads and programs et cetera that make the number seem higher. 😉

        -John Jr

        Like

          • Yep, enough is not done to help inform the public on things that they can do to protect themselves and others, and sadly even less is being done to stop those doing this even if you report them to the government; yet the government is doing so much and wasting so much money, usually doing things that make the situation(s) (things) worse, against rarer (rare) things like terrorism which they usually make worse which increases terrorism instead of decreasing it.

            -John Jr

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            • The gov’t is having a hard time protecting their own systems from cyber attack. There have been instances of gov’t database being hacked and the SSN, names and address of employees and clients compromised. North Korea doing more damage with a keyboard then what their Army could do with a bomb

              Liked by 1 person

              • They usually do not seem to be trying very hard to protect their systems, often using outdated paid closed sourced software instead of using free open source software that they could keep updated and save millions of dollars instead of holding off updating because they do not want to have to pay each time to update their closed source paid software, and some are not even using encryption on their systems or websites out of ignorance or laziness even though you can do this for free; and often there is a lack of people who know what they are doing, and this is a problem with many businesses as well not follow basic common sense strategies that would better protect them and others and save money and allow them to keep their systems updated and encrypted and hardened for free.

                It is unacceptable and embarrassing, and they (many governments, schools, colleges, businesses, militaries, et cetera) are wasting millions of dollars in the process when they could be using free open source software that they could even help develop and contribute to and even form their own custom versions of those programs (which is done by some parts of the government and military, but not enough).

                -John Jr

                Liked by 1 person

                  • I have heard of a growing number of examples where that is not the case, which makes things even worse and wastes even more money, and so sometimes they are paying more for the same poor outcome unfortunately.

                    There is clearly a contractor problem among many other problems, too many private contractors are being used for too many things and they are taking advantage of the government (the people’s) money, too much privatization and poor over-sight and poor priorities and corruption and many other things going on especially in the current biggest empire on Earth; probably every known human empire has fallen at some point, hopefully this pattern continues, and hopefully this cycle stops permanently soon but I would not get my hopes up.

                    -John Jr

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