How to Fight Name Scraping Scammers?

CurtMonash writes "I was ego-surfing the other day, and was surprised to discover that I was listed as a member of an on-line dating service. It turns out these scamsters generate web pages for lots of (FirstName, LastName) combos, each claiming that the named individual is a member of their service. I posted about this, and discovered other people were upset, at least one had lost interest in a guy because he appeared to be a member, and so on. I've since followed up with lessons learned, a big one being that everybody should have a visible web presence. But frankly, the ideas I've come up with for fighting this kind of reputation scam seem fairly weak. Do Slashdotters have any better ideas?"

Comments

Web presence?

[DogDude]

It would be nice if the author explained why he thinks that everybody should have a web presence. I don't buy it. I don't have a web presence at all (none of that Myspace/Facebook crap-ola), and I've been pretty successful in staying off the radar that way.

Re:Web presence?

[gnick]

How does the author know it was about him and not some other schmuck with his name?

I just searched Google for "gnick" - A moniker that, I thought, would be rather obscure. Of the first 100 hits, 1 related to me - A long expired digg post. What was strange, though, was that I had to click through a few others because they sure sounded like me, but turned out to be somebody else.

I've also "ego-surfed" (a new term to me) using my given name. I found a lot related to me, some immigration stuff about my great-grandfather (with whom I share a first and last name) who brought my grandfather with him when he moved to the US, some of my publications, some publications that I had to peruse to be sure that I hadn't been cited without permission (somebody else with my fairly unusual name apparently works in a very similar, obscure field in California), and one publication where I had in fact been cited without my permission.

Long story short - Even with first hand knowledge I don't know whether my web presence relates to me or not without some in-depth investigation.

Libel

[John Hasler]

> Do Slashdotters have any better ideas?

File libel lawsuits.

Problem will solve itself.

[Vellmont]

the ideas I've come up with for fighting this kind of reputation scam seem fairly weak.

How about people not believing everything they hear from a source they know nothing about? There's no general solution to the problem of people spreading unfounded rumors other than people being more skeptical of new untested information sources. This will take time as people come to realize that "the internet" isn't a single source of information.

Names are not unique

[Bogtha]

What makes you think this is some type of scam, and not merely somebody with the same name as you?

No, just because you have an unusual name, it doesn't mean you are the only one with it. I have a very unusual name too. I've never even met anybody with the same surname that wasn't a member of my immediate family. I've googled my own name; I'm the only person with my name that has a web presence. But when a website was launched to check how unique your name is, I discovered that there are at least two other people with my name in my country alone. If I registered on a dating site, those two people would probably feel the same about me.

Unless there's something actually linking you personally to this site, like a photo or bio, I don't see any basis for calling this a scam. Your name is not unique enough to be your property.

Re:Names are not unique

[querist]

I hate to say it, but I am not so sure about that site you listed.

I just checked my name and it says I don't exist.

Well, that's OK, except that the site you listed is in the UK.
My family came from the UK.
My surname has 6 pages in the Cardiff phone book.
My given name is a VERY common man's given name in Wales.

In other words, I find it VERY difficult to believe that there is no one else with my given name / surname combination in the UK.

The "You do not exist" message is rather amusing, though, and good for a laugh.

Common Names are like that too...

[Penguinisto]

My name is fairly common (last name is Miller) - there's roughly 4 of us in the company I work for (out of 95k employees), and there's about forty of me w/ the same first/last name combo (with various differences in middle names and etc.) in the metro area phone book.

It's not just online, either - I remember awhile when some idiot collection agency kept bugging me over some other guy's debt, because we happened to share the same first/last name combo. I tried to tell them this repeatedly, then finally out of frustration told 'em: "see you in court, idiot!" It never came to fruition, and my credit record never reflected it *shrug*

I guess that's why I never really worried if I see my name online - chances are it's not me anyway.

/P

From the Linked Blog

[sabre86]

In case you didn't actually read her linked blog, the girl who supposedly decided not to pursue someone because she was on JLove apparently did so because she thought he was Jewish. In fact, she makes the rather ironic statement:

Hmmm. Hot Jewish single guy on one hand or accepting the Jesus as my Lord and Savior? Sigh.

I have to say, I don't understand how this situation is a dilemma, never mind the whole idea that actually talking to people about who they are -- rather than attempting to search them out on the internet* -- is fundamental to building relationships

So, while JLove probably is being pretty underhanded in making up members, I don't think it can really be blamed for this potential couple's failure to actualize.

--sabre86

*The Internet, TM. Where everything is true!

Turn the tables!

[Nichotin]

I know this might be a long shot, but if people really believe all they see when they google your name on google, how about taking advantage of that? After I had googled my own name, I realised how lucky I am because what you find is basically tech reviews done by me and some old karate scoreboards with me even winning some medals. Putting some effort in it, I could probably make it look like I am also doing third wold humanitarian work, help the poor, fight cancer etc. That would probably fly well with all nosy employers and possible future employers that like to google people. And if someoene asks, you could either stick with the story or dismiss it as a coincidence because someone shares your name. For the record, I do have a name that is most likely unique.

I don't get it...

[Chysn]

* Bots are scraping names off the web
* Scammers use those names to do bad things
* Therefore, you should put your name on the web

That seems like a bad syllogism. I'm not saying the conclusion (that you need a strong web presence) is wrong. I'm just saying that if you're going to make a counter-intuitive conclusion, you need to connect the dots. You know, for us dumb guys.

I run a dating site...this isn't "scamming"

[ehrichweiss]

I run a dating site and profile generation is a necessity. You see, in order to get people to join a dating site, you have to have people who already joined the dating site to attract them; it's a catch-22 that we cannot avoid. Usually the fake profiles have an expiration date of 1 year so after that the accounts just die off but regardless, your name isn't protected by any laws and can be used in works of fiction without your approval. Just get over it cause I've got some guy using my real name in a gospel band and as sickening as I find that, I don't care as I have better things to worry about.

Re:I've been caught...

[sm62704]

This was going to b ethe topic of my journal today, but now it won't be. There's a writer for the St Louis Post Dispatch that encourages looking up prospective dates on various sites. This is what was actually finished (it was going to be a long journal)

I was noodling around the various newspapers, and since I'm originally from the St. Louis arew I checked out the Post Dispatch. In it I ran across an item called The Data Diva says: Check your date out before you go out.

This nerdy looking (but not bad looking) lady, Jaimi Dowdell, seems to think that you should google your dates. I think her tinfoil hat is on too tight.

Speaking of tinfoil hats, soon you might need one for real, at least if you're going to demonstrate in front of the capitol.

But I digress. Ms. "Diva" may google, but she obviously doesn't wiki, as a diva is a singer. Anyway, she writes

That's right, friends. I background my dates
I may not have figured out how to find Mr. Right, but I can assure you that information about Mr. Wrong is everywhere. You just have to know where to look.

And I'm not just talking to the ladies. Guys, we've got closets, too. With a little work, you can get past her shoes and wardrobe to see if any skeletons are rattling around.

Right about now, some of you are probably thinking I'm just a little creepy.

Not just creepy, but seriously delusional.

Each time you buy a house, register to vote, list your phone number, etc. you leave a trail containing bits and pieces of your life. The Web site ZabaSearch crawls the online world picking up this trail from sites containing public records and other personal information.

So I looked up this zabasearch to see if I could find myself. I plugged in "steve mcgrew", my meatspace name.

No, I'm not the comedian from Colorado. There were hits; lots and lots of hits. So I narrowed it down to Illinois.

Lots of hits. Lots and lots of hits. Stephanie McGrew. Serena McGrew. Sharon McGrew. So I narrowed it down further and did an in-browser search for "Springfield". Finally it found me - from eight fucking years ago! It listed my age correctly, but had my address on reservoir. I moved out of that rented house in 2000 when I bought the house on 7th street. The house on 7th street I diaried about extensively on K5 after my marriage came apart.

There is some SERIOUSLY bad data on this site! I clicked "images" and there were a lot of images. Images of people I never met, not one of them me. This despite the fact that I've uplodaed several pics of myself to various places, including my old now-defunct domain mcgrew.info.

The comedian from Colorado was prominent in the photos. There's one of him with Dolly parton.

It says it has a home address and phone number, which it will gladly cough up for a price.

Nope. The only phone I have is a Net 10 prepaid phone. You're not going to find its number on the internet. The search site is a scam; I should sue them for slander, since it thinks I'm the comedian from Colorado, who had the web site "Steve McGrew's White Trash World".

It says it knows my income and home value. Not likely! Not if it thinks I still live on Reservoir Street.

Personally, I'd have to be a LOT harder up to go out with the sort of freak who would investigate someone before dating them, and someone dumb enough to think that you could actually learn anything about a person from the internet.

Solution in Vernor Vinge's Rainbows End

[justrob]

In Vernor Vinge's near-future novel Rainbows End, an anarchist group gets fed up with trying to sort out what information about people is correct or not.

Their solution is to flood the net with false information about everyone, making the net a useless resource for gossip.

Available free and legal online:
http://vrinimi.org/rainbowsend.html