Slashdot Mirror
Gmail Reveals the Names of All Users
ihatespam writes "Have you ever wanted to know the name of admin@gmail.com? Now you can. Through a bug in Google calendars the names of all registered Gmail accounts are now readily available. All you need to find out the names of any gmail address is a Google calendar account yourself. Depending on your view this ranges from a harmless "feature" to a rather serious privacy violation. According to some reports, spammers are already exploiting this "feature"/bug to send personalized spam messages."
I mean really... Does anyone with a lick of sense actually give their real name to a free web-based service?
The person(s) responsible for this bug is going to have a nice and very uncomfy meeting with their supervisor very soon...
Mine is registered under IP Freely. Hope that's not a real dude somewhere.
If I was worried about privacy with my gmail account, google wouldn't have my actual name to have the ability to give it out.
chunkylover53 is going to be most displeased.
IBM doesn't play chess with the Universe.
Really, now everyone will know my name is John Smith? I am outraged and will see my lawyer immediately!
-- john.smith@gmail.com
With their track record of leaking information and giving it to whatever business asks them for it; why would anyone trust them with actual true information anymore?
But, does this constitute evil? So far so good. My gmail account is my real name anyway. I'll be looking out for the evil...
Everything I've ever learned the hard way was based on a statistically invalid sample.
Rule number 1 of shock site linking, don't tell people what the link is until after they click it.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
This is exactly why I remain leery of applications in the cloud. I've got a google account for work, and that's the only use it ever sees. And it's under real.name.company anyway, and has no other useful information associated with it.
I try really, really hard not to leave to broad a trail online. Those databases just never die (except when they do, of course - but the timing is subject to Murphy's Law, so it's never in my favor).
I'm gonna go hide in my cave now.
cogito ergo dubito
Does this mean they're only sending spam to people who really need Cialis?
Perhaps GP is just rick-rolling goatse fans? I sure ain't clicking to find out.
Now everyone will know my name is Bob Lablaw!
Seriously, anyone that puts in their real name on a remotely accessible non-business account has some neurons not firing properly...
It doesn't give names for emails that I put in unless I've received one already. Maybe it's already been fixed or has a limited scope?
My gmail email address is about as cryptic as my slashdot username.
I think the reason for this is that most of the small business internet services, i.e. Verizon, Comcast, only provide POP email accounts. Gmail supports IMAP and a lot of people want to be able to use their email from multiple locations and have it sync up.
This is horrible. This is an outrage! I'm writing Google a letter telling them how awful this is an how they need to work on the Q/A. I mean my GMail address *IS* my full name, but I'm not going to let that fact stop me from acting like an emotionally charged idiot!
No sig for you!!
Google's practice of leaving software in beta for years gives them an excuse if you lose your data, etc when the software fails. However, revealing the names millions of (GMail) users who weren't even using the application (Calendar) with the security flaw sounds like a nightmare for Google.
Good thing GMail is still in beta too after, what, 4 years?
I mean really... Does anyone with a lick of sense actually give their real name to a free web-based service?
I have difficulty believing the title of my reply will become true. I'd like to believe no one will ever let this happen, but here's a recent Slashdot post that raises some alarm:
"The access to MySpace was unauthorized because using a fake name violated the terms of service. The information from a "protected computer" was the profiles of other MySpace users. If this is found to be a valid interpretation of the law, it's really quite frightening. If you violate the Terms of Service of a website, you can be charged with hacking. That's an astounding concept. Does this mean that everyone who uses Bugmenot could be prosecuted? Also, this isn't a minor crime, it's a felony punishable by up to 5 years imprisonment per count. In Drew's case she was charged with three counts for accessing MySpace on three different occasions."
Fact: Everything I say is fiction.
Hmmm... That could be true. I didn't click it of course....
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
..is already in the email address.
I went to eat some animal crackers and the box said, "Do not eat if seal is broken." I opened the box and sure enough..
Now everyone knows that my first name is Anonymous and my last name is Coward. I'm screwed. The Church of Scientology will finally find me.
I was called a heretic for suggesting that "Google does not know all..."
Guess I owe some folks an apology...
Really, did anyone not see this coming? The company advertised that they read your email.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
This seems to be rather a moron bug than anything else. They can have my fake alias name. What I worry about is rather how they treat the content of what's being sent and received.
Postglobalism: Reclaiming civilization
I started getting these spams today with my actual name. Very annoying since it made me give a second look. I dunno why I even gave my real name for a spam/junk e-mail account. I won't do it again.
It's a good thing they caught this in beta, before it affects a large number of people!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/44460
http://notanumber.net/
...is that this will allow Phishing scams aimed at GMail users to *seem* so much more plausible.
What? You expected humour?
Given that my Gmail email address is my real first and last name, separated by a period, I don't think it's a big deal that my real name will be revealed through the calendar. I don't care. There are a million of me out there anyway. I've Googled my own name before and found that I'm several professors, an artist, a few musicians, a business owner or two, and a bunch of other things. I didn't find myself in there even after wading through about 300 results. So this ain't an issue. But if your name is Rumpelstiltskin DiScrewdio, then you're screwed because there's only one of you out there.
McCain/Palin '08. Now THAT's hope and change!
I don't get the big deal about contact information privacy. Most of the time I'm trying publicize that information, both for business and social purposes. I figure if I ever get famous enough to not handle the attention, I'll be able to afford a personal secretary.
I want businesses to try and sell me things I want, when I want it. When I'm looking for work, it should come to me. Legislators should just read my mind and enact the laws I support. I'm happy for the world to track my movements and hustle to give me what I want before I know I want it.
"The ability to delude yourself may be an important survival tool" - Jane Wagner -
The Families Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974 allows a student at a university to require the university to not release their name to anyone. For example, if you check for my name at my school's phonebook, you'll find I'm not listed. If you call my registrar's office and ask for information on me, they'll tell you that they don't have a student by my name. You see, it's against the law for them to even confirm that I'm a student.
Since many schools have outsourced their email systems to Gmail, anyone can generate a full roster of student names through this trick. This could obviously result in many violations of FERPA.
So how do I go about testing this on myself? (as 100 posts reply with my real name.... Scrooge McDuck)
Ok...so I only see this as an issue for people trying to hide their identity for something nefarious. I mean christ, I give out my full name a dozen times a day to people I don't know. "Hello, we have a circuit down and need to open a ticket." "Hello, I have a few questions about your product." and damned near every other statement you might make when calling another company is almost IMMEDIATELY followed by "Can I have your name please?" Of course this is after they answer the phone "Hello, my name is..."? Now granted they don't always use their last name if they are just phone jockeys, but almost anyone worth anything in terms of sales/technical/etc reps will give you their full name, email address, phone number, etc.
In other news, purchasing cigarettes and alcohol require you to disclose your first and last name when you show your ID! Even worse, there are rumors that every time you make a purchase using anything other than cash you have to disclose your first and last name. This isn't a privacy issue, maybe a privacy irritation, but certainly not anything to get in a ruffle about. It isn't like names are even really unique identifiers. Now if it revealed birthdays or SSNs or credit card numbers or something then I would understand.
Course, maybe there is something here I am ignoring. Do the people getting in a ruffle about this freak out when someone of the opposite sex asks their name? "Oh my god they are trying to invade my privacy!" Generally it is considered "normal" to give them your name so they have something to call you other than "freak" or "uberhax4234".
The only change I can believe in is what I find in my couch cushions.
Honestly - your name isn't a secret...
and if you're trying to hide your identity and you put your real first / last name into a free service, you're a moron.
I bet we'd see a totally different reaction if it was hotmail. you suck.
And I've little tolerance for those who cannot own their actions.
"The ability to delude yourself may be an important survival tool" - Jane Wagner -
This goes well beyond the scope of SPAM. Once they match your real name with your e-mail, they can start finding out what you do online, what sites/forums you visit, etc (Google knows everything).
I'm much more worried about ID thieves finding out about my life than about getting personalized spam.
Don't tell me that I'm the first person on ./ to know that the REAL NAME of admin@gmail.com is "smart ass"!
And to think I'm only posting as A.C.! Oh the shame!
Now we can learn who took our favourite login names! http://www.horribleville.com/d/20060121.html
Perhaps Google should give top billing to the word "Beta" in the Gmail logo. It may deter people who will expect too much. It's free. It's in a testing phase (4 years so far). Quit bitching.
Really, I wonder how many times people have used bugs like this to steal an identity, only to find that it's all fake info anyhow.
Personally, every few years, I Re-invent someone... Use a fake(completely fake, not false) identity for everything from Cellphones to gmail.
I google my real name, nothing, google my 'fake' like 20 pages. My 'fake' identity is WAY more famous than I am... I'm kinda jealous.
THE WORLD IS GOING TO END!!!! eventually.
I can see this being a problem when someone doesn't know any better and "We use your real name in our emails" is commonly used as an indicator of a valid email vs a phishing attempt on several widely used and spammed websites. (Citibank, Ebay, Paypal...)
It might be easy for a human to google your real name from your email address, but not worth the effort if you're talking about huge lists of email addresses (unless they make it easy for your bot to retrieve that data for you).
I got one of those emails, it got filtered by the spam filter.
Now everyone will know that I have nothing going on every Friday and Saturday night for the foreseeable future...
Frankly, Google seems to be gathering excessive power and not doing so well on the responsibility part. In general, they have become far too helpful to spammers, so I suggested a way that Google could be much less helpful to the spammers--but there is no evidence they are interested in it. Does their understanding of evil somehow exempt the spammers?
On the general privacy thing, Too many companies are collecting too much of our personal data--and then treating it like their corporate property. I deeply resent it, but at least it isn't anything special about Google. Or maybe it is, insofar as Google is especially skilled at using information, and therefore poses the greater threat for potential abuse... What I want it a privacy option to store my personal information on *MY* computer, and they can ask when they want to look at it--and they had better ask nicely, too. (Actually, I want an automated system of user-controlled privacy preferences to handle most of this...)
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
Amusingly, I slashdotted that MySpace logs you in via http://secure.myspace.com/ and Slashdot doesn't care to point out that MySpace likes waving around plaintext copies of the same log-in name (i.e. e-mail address) and password you use for Paypal and gMail. (You think MySpace users use a bunch of different e-mail addy's or passwords?)
Support my political activism on Patreon.
...the #1 rule about creating an anonymous email account is don't use your real name. That's why I sign up for all of my anonymous email accounts using the name Edward Kramer.
paintball
Enter your name as the following:
'); DROP TABLE addresses --
What's the big deal. Evite has the exact same feature / bug. It is very convenient if you can see someone's name for the people you invited. If you didn't want your name seen, why did you provide it to google in the first place? Why didn't you sign up with fake name when creating gmail account?
Try setting up an account with a fake name you use only there. See what happens to your spam box.
Or perhaps does it mean I'll finally get "P3n1s Shr1nk1ng" pill advertisements? I'm tired of girls only loving me for my 4 lb. penis. :(
I am the richest astronaut ever to win the superbowl.
.. for us to stop hiding behind a fake names and reveal our true identity. What we have to hide, after all?
To give the example, i will do that myself: my real name is George W. Bush, and my main Slashdot account is CmdrTaco.
My gf came across this issue months ago and had her friend who works for google file a bug report. Looks like they haven't acted on it yet.
Nice, slashdot.
Publish it here so people can exploit it.
-_-
Besides, so what if someone knows your real name. My real name is in my effing gmail address anyway. Your real name is not "private" information, like a social security number or a telephone number. If you don't ever want anyone to know your real name, that I'd suggest a better strategy -- STAY OFF THE INTERNET! You'll make life better for you, and me.
The summary states, "Depending on your view this ranges from a harmless 'feature' to a rather serious privacy violation."
There is no view, this is absolutely an outright product of incompetence, oversight, and cluelessness. This is definitely a bug, even if Google touts it as a feature. We've seen this before, with Google calendar appointments/conference call numbers made publicy accessible via incompetence.
Inexcusable.
I was like, really concerned for a minute. I thought spammers had managed to access something *important* or something.
So, this is about someone that already knows my email address accessing the "name" that I show on every email I send out?
To quote "The Whole Nine Yards" -
*Oh* *My* *Gawd*!
Pug
An Invisible Entity of Vast Power whose existence must be taken on faith alone: Liberal Media
is just my Social Security number.
I've never been all that impressed with shared calendars or those that are stored online, having always believed that these were inherently less than secure, especially when the word 'free' precedes the description. At least use a service you pay for if you're all that interested in online email collaboration and shared calendar management.
I expected them to be at least as competent at Microsoft at NOT giving out my details to anybody who asked.
This would explain why my personal and small business Gmail accounts (the second is technically Google apps, and paid for) have suddenly started to see a bunch of spam including my name, which is not guessable from the email address. And, bugger me further, I have emails with my name in them whitelisted.
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
A little late don't you think?
Fail!
Anonymous accounts are for anonymous business. Named accounts are for real business. Somewhere in between are marginal personal accounts where you keep a persistent persona and leave a trail of cookies for the inquisitive to follow. As grandpa used to say, "in a strange town never give your right name".
I've had my real name open on one gmail account for years, and you can find it all over the web. Gmail is not Hotmail or Windows Live Mail or whatever they call it this year. To send me this "spam" you have to get through Google's email filter, and it's very good. I don't get any spam directed or not in my gmail inbox that I didn't sign up for. On my domains where I use a catchall box I get several thousand spam a day but I don't care -- the RFC says you have to have an account, not that you read the mail.
As for googling your own name, that's why you buy yourfirstlast.com if you can. That way when people are looking for you the first couple hits point to your personal site and you can direct them to your more insightful contributions to the contemporary dialog. If you're in IT the absence of a web footprint is as damning as mugshot on The Smoking Gun or linking your FaceBook to your MySpace to your HotOrNot to your drunken Fark.com ramblings.
Some people care. I suppose it's ok for them to care. They think they've been compromised in some way, but I don't care really. I think they're doing it wrong, I think Google did this wrong, but it takes both of them to fail for anything bad to happen so it's not Evil, just sad.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
However, there exists one and only one of me.
I wouldn't be so sure of that. I've run into many people in my time who were "Motherfucking Shit"s.
I've used about every service that they have had, and this is pretty much how everything they do works. You don't opt in for anything, you have to figure out how to eventually opt out.
You fumble through the options screen and finally find the right combination of checkboxes that doesn't throw your name out there, and let everyone see everything by default.
"Hey guess what users, we added this nice option that lets everyone see your real name, address, and link to a picture of your house on google maps. Don't worry, it's been already enabled for your convenience!"
Al Gore isn't dead, he's just resting!
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
Just tried it and it still works.
What is interesting is that the recipent of the invite gets to see YOUR real name in the invite email! So if you are silly enough to "investigate" the real name of someone using your normal gmail account, they get to see your real name.
Karma? :-)
I'm a perfectionist but I'm trying to cut back.
Crap, so this means that my email made from my social security number is in danger.
Who cares! With no private info associated with email addresses there's nothing to worry about.
So unless you requested it, you can still delete that email about Viagra.
We've all tried getting an email address only to be told its already taken.
Knowing that, any spammer could just as easily pick names at random and still end up correct at least a quarter of the time.
The thought is, if the info is important to you don't put it on the internet, even if its google.
However this thought is based on logic and common sense, concepts not used by most people now days.
Now every time I see a "Hi Xcalkjgalkjagkhgh Bakxtz!" spam message I'm going to have to read it. Afterall, they addressed ME about their viagra. It would be rude to ignore them.
just create any calender entry (single click on an empty field) with just the gmail address in the main 'What:' field, select 'don't send' and open it up (double click)... there you see the full user name of the gmail account.
;)
Not sure why the article makes it so complicated...
So the admin@gmail.com guy is named 'smart ass'... poor fellow
Andy
You may have been given a book that does name->phone-number lookups for those who have not chosen to opt out but I believe that it is very much harder to get access to the inverse function that does phone-number->name lookups. I suspect that it varies by jurisdiction but I believe that in some places at least, people can be in serious trouble for giving access to the database that performs that function to those who do not have the proper authorization.
Those who are familiar with security will know the concept of work-factor. You can reverse lookup with a phone book but if all you have is a printed copy it is a lot of work. The cost of doing that work is the deterrent. Modern technology has made it easier, but it is still costly. The idea is to adjust the cost/benefit ratio so that an attack is not worthwhile.
The concern for the revealing of names from addresses is that it makes it cheaper for confidence tricksters to deliver some plausible message that will trick people into giving them some of their money. If the average cost of creating the plausible message becomes less than the expected return then the level of scamming will increase. Those of us not taken in by the tricksters will still suffer from increased level of junk so it is in all our interests to take this kind of thing seriously.
I wondered why I started getting a few emails in my Gmail inbox that were spam. This hasn't really happened before in the 3-4 years I've had the account. It usually picks up on it and just puts it straight in the "Spam" catagory.
I've got Google Apps managing the Email part of my domain name. Nice to know my information is secure.
God damn it.
[citation needed]
Hey, If i wanted all of that out there i would have given it to them. Thanks for the heads up.
I'm here for the experience, not the Hyperbole.
If this happened to hotmail, it would be tagged haha and everybody would be Microsoft-bashing.
Just saying.
i don't even care if they use my name in spam messages, gmail spam filter rocks, it's gonna end in spam box anyway :)
I don't get that people are afraid of what people will find now that their REAL name is out.
Using a fake name on gmail is just stupid.
I use my real name on stuff like gmail and a fake name on porn sites. Why the fuck would you ever do the reverse???
My first reaction: This is a very serious bug - how could they have missed this in QA? Seriously, making all names available, it's just so incredibly stupid that one must fight oneself not to imbue malice because the amount of incompetence required simply boggles the mind.
My second reaction: Okay, they have just broken the law. I hope the state will take them to court, even though I don't expect that to actually happen.
My third reaction: They already pass everyone's info around to pretty much all dubious authorities who ask nicely. This time it's incompetence rather than malice, whatever.
My fourth reaction: The amount of Google apologists on Slashdot is absolutely incomprehensible. If any other company had done this, not a good word would be spoken.
OT, but good as time as any to mention, in my history I see individual email threads from gmail with the subject listed. If someone sits at my computer, I don't necessarily want others to see the topics of my email. This happens even using https throughout the session. Is there a way to prevent this?
I reported this to Google back in March, and then again in April. Neither times did I get a reply, so I tried posting it to bugtrap, that got no reply, so I posted it on my blog and on Slashdot. My comment on slashdot was voted down out of existence.... now the news is on the front page of Slashdot... grrr!
Well, grow up. Even if this particular one doesn't affect you, it does show the kind of privacy problems that google has _again_. And it seems to be perfect illustration of what a few Google deffecters were ranting about recently.
Depending on what of their services you use, Google usually has a lot more data about you than your name. E.g., your searches, the news/mailing-lists you're subscribed to, your credit card number if you use their payment processor, possibly your medical history, etc. Heck, it even has the contents of your emails. Now that's something to worry about.
Now also bear in mind that a lot of that information has the potential to be worse than it really is, if taken out of context. E.g., if you're a Muslim and searched for "AK-47 tactics", I can assure you that the nice guys from the government won't think of Counter-Strike first. And I hope you don't mind waterboarding if you search for a map that involves placing a bomb at a refinery, and used the wrong wording. It's the same guys who tried to data-mine grocery purchases to find terrorists, i.e., anyone who orders arab kinda food.
So, yes, stop acting like an emotionally charged idiot. I know that some people get a boner out of defending Google, but grow up. They do have a recurring QA problem, and they do store all data about everyone they can get their hands on. (See their fighting the EU to keep everyone's search data for ever.) Yes, maybe this time it doesn't affect you, but it illustrates a broader problem they have. Unless they start taking QA and privacy seriously, it's only a matter of time before they leak something a lot more sensitive.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
But many websites don't accept + as a valid character for names in email addresses.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
I could not give a rat ass about an email address as a means to judge how professional somebody is.
People judging based on that will deserve any pains as consequence of their misjudgements.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
That's a laugh...
Loading...
My gmail username is just my first and middle initial followed by my full last name. As to exploiting it for spam, which fills up quickly. I am smart enough to know legit emails from spam and most of it ends up filtered to Spam. I just use the link that deletes all spam messages. Sure it can be annoying, but at least they have it delete all spam in Spam that has been there for more than 30 days. I particularly like the ads for the various meals that you can make with spam.
"Without curiosity and knowledge, the mind is a vast void. Without the mind, curiosity and knowledge are nonexistent."
Of someone knowing my name.. horrible. terrible. That's why I have a very highly-obfuscated email address: eric.hidle@gmail.com, which is a combination of my first and last names, separated by a period!
Nobody will ever figure that one out without exploiting some "bug"
So... use a fake name... then.. set a filter that filters anything with that name in it. Hopefully ALL the spammers start using this!
You don't *really* have to use your real name when signing up with gmail.
That's why people should pick a Nom de Querty. If it's ever traced to your iRL name, pick a new name and delete all the old accounts. Or better yet, use a different name on every site. Harder to remember, but more secure.
Utilizing the synergization of benchmark e-solutions to pre-workaround action items!
This is slashdot. Google can do no wrong. They do no evil. They have so much brain power and are so hip and cutting-edge.
For example: If you were to post this article and replace Gmail with Microsoft's Hotmail it would be the end of the world and slashdoters would be rising up in the cafeteria to stab them with their plastic forks.
As it is, they make witty comments about how they don't care anyways.. because Google is good. Google is great. Google is benevolent and all knowing.
Don't worry Im sure the noob will learn.
An SQL query goes to a bar, walks up to a table and asks, "Mind if I join you?"
Well it is still in beta, after all. These sort of things are bound to turn up in beta software.
Doh! How silly of me to think that a free e-mail account where my missives are data-mined for targeted advertisings might not be in every way private!
I wondered why all the spam was suddenly titled, "Hey Satanic!" and "Dear Mr. Puppy"
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
I reported this to Google more than two months ago while working on a Shared Google Document. I noticed as soon as I put a (gmail) e-mail in to share the document, I was able to see the other parties name. Google knew about it two months ago and they didn't seem to care. Let's see how they change once it's "public knowledge"....
If you were to post this article and replace Gmail with Microsoft's Hotmail it would be the end of the world and slashdoters would be rising up in the cafeteria to stab them with their plastic forks.
That should read 'plastic spork' -- or better yet Spork of the Gods!
Lodragan Draoidh
The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain
Who cares if it's hard to do a reverse phone number look-up in a physical book? That doesn't matter because there are dozens of websites that do this for you in seconds! Everybody can access the internet now. Physical phone books are meaningless now.
Go to www.google.com and type your home phone number into the search box. Google will list your name, your address, and show a map on google maps satellite view of your house.
[1] http://slashdot.org/tags/google
I just tried it for several variations of my home and work phone numbers - when quoted as a phrase with any of the usual variants of spaces, national or international prefix - no results found. With the parts of the numbers separately, lots of irrelevant stuff.
I tried looking for a site that does reverse phone lookup - one I found identified the city and the map it showed had an arrow pointing to a major road in the city centre. The location is about 15 minutes drive from where I live and that radius covers a lot of houses. Other sites that claimed to find anybody's details from a phone number either came up with nothing or in one case, something on the wrong continent!
I also tried a Google search for my name and the phrase "phone number" - several results (but not the majority) were pages that correctly found some of my online presence, but there was no telephone number to be found there. Searches for my name (just surname) and last part of the phone number also came up either empty or with a few irrelevant random pages.
There is a lot of data out there on the web and Google does a good job of finding things but it seems that my phone number is not out there and certainly not associated with my name.
I do not have a Google or gMail account; no plans to get one either.
anyone who registered for their account prior to fixing the . bug can receive both their mail and the mail of the non-period named one. E.g. I'm first.last@gmail.com but firstlast@gmail.com already existed when I signed up. Ignorant to the . rule, I signed up as first.last and it let me. Of course, now I get a fair amt of his email and vice versa. I'm never gonna give it up. He has hot friends who send him photographs.
You better watch out, there may be dogs about . .
This only works if you know someone's email. You have to have that to send the invite. As long as there isn't a large list of gmail addresses, you won't be able to get a large list of the associated names. I don't see what the big deal is.
Also, if you don't want someone to find the name associated with your address, don't give it to Google to be associated with the gmail address.
Quit whining.
Our phone company here gives out both books, and has for years. Number -> Name and Name -> Number. This is would be rural Alberta, FYI.
Not all databases are indexed by google. Have you gone through any effort to mark your phone number as unlisted? I'ld say post it here...but that would probably be a bad idea; unless you want to find out if a phone number can get /.'ed
USA? Try: http://www.anywho.com/rl.html
Let me clarify:
If you live in the US and have a listed phone number, google will find it.
I have shown this to over 24 people and it worked for all of them. I don't know why it doesn't for you. Are you unlisted?
Google and whitepages.com has been 100% successful for any number I type in (and these numbers are listed in the phone book).
Of course, the smart idea is to make your number unlisted.
I've used emails with my slashdot username in them in resumes. Some people made fun of me, but I figure if they can't accept my wacky email address, they definitely don't want me working with them, and I definitely don't want to work there. I got my current job with such an email address, and the HR manager even made fun of my email address at the interview, but it's worked out okay so far.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Well that may explain it. I am not in the USA, the phone at my home is what you call unlisted and the phone account is in my wife's name.
The impression I get is that people outside the USA, especially in the EU, have a higher expectation of privacy and the protection of personal data by companies to which it has been given. Companies such as Google that operate internationally need to take that into account.
You get what you pay for.
You can find directories to look-up names and addresses from phone numbers in most public libraries and online directories as well, so it's harder in that they don't leave the info at your doorstep but the tools to easily perform such a lookup are widely available except in the cases of cell phones and unlisted numbers.
The person(s) responsible for this bug is going to have a nice and very uncomfy meeting with their supervisor very soon...
I thought Google had an engineering culture. The correct meeting consists of, "how soon can we get this fixed?"
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)