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Don't Give Away Historic Details About Yourself (krebsonsecurity.com)
Brian Krebs: Social media sites are littered with seemingly innocuous little quizzes, games and surveys urging people to reminisce about specific topics, such as "What was your first job," or "What was your first car?" The problem with participating in these informal surveys is that in doing so you may be inadvertently giving away the answers to "secret questions" that can be used to unlock access to a host of your online identities and accounts. I'm willing to bet that a good percentage of regular readers here would never respond -- honestly or otherwise -- to such questionnaires (except perhaps to chide others for responding). But I thought it was worth mentioning because certain social networks -- particularly Facebook -- seem positively overrun with these data-harvesting schemes. What's more, I'm constantly asking friends and family members to stop participating in these quizzes and to stop urging their contacts to do the same.
On the surface, these simple questions may be little more than an attempt at online engagement by otherwise well-meaning companies and individuals. Nevertheless, your answers to these questions may live in perpetuity online, giving identity thieves and scammers ample ammunition to start gaining backdoor access to your various online accounts.
On the surface, these simple questions may be little more than an attempt at online engagement by otherwise well-meaning companies and individuals. Nevertheless, your answers to these questions may live in perpetuity online, giving identity thieves and scammers ample ammunition to start gaining backdoor access to your various online accounts.
In one fell swoop, people give away birth hospital (city), weight, height, and name. Just add mother's maiden name (usually already there in FB) and hunt around for dog on their profile, and you've everything you need to file a social security number request before the kid is even 15 minutes old.
And yes, it has been done (though not using facebook-originated data).
"But remember, most lynch mobs aren't this nice." (H.Simpson)
-- Joe
I was pissed when my mother in law came home with a book for my baby son, all customized with his birthdate, full name mom and dads name... They print them in China.
Nullius in verba
I always use the information for a certain fictional character-- it's easy enough to remember that character's info, and it's not yours. So, for example, Mister Spock's mother's maiden name is Grayson.