Internet Stalkers
 

Ever meet someone in real life, or online that knows more about you, than you do about them, because they read your website or 'researched' you on the internet?

I've had a lot of people IM me off of different websites, and sometimes that seems a little weird, just because I'm not expecting it. But something happened the other day that made me kind of confused.

First of all, I'm Skettios on this board, I also go by Skettios in real life, it's a nickname I got my freshman year of college, I also own Skettios.com and have an IM name that's similar. I don't ever hide this information, especailly not to people on TFP, it's all in the toolbar below my sig.

Anyway, I'm at a party at Michigan State the other day, talking to a girl that has my roommate for a T.A. She's a nice girl, and interested in politics, so I started talking, and she started agreeing with me. She brought up the fact, that I don't like Condi Rice very much, and I said, "Yeah, her 9/11 testimony made me want to throw the t.v. out the fucking window'. The weird part is that as soon as I said 'her 9/11 testimony' this girl starts to say the exact thing I said, at the same time as I do. Like we're thinking with the same brain. When I get a chance I leave the conversation, and start to think about what happened.

The throwing the t.v. out the window stuff was a direct quote off my website, in fact, it's still on there somewhere. Which meant that this girl, that I was just meeting that day, had read enough of my site that she could quote me directly.

I asked my roommate how she would have gotten to my website. He said that she looked him up as a T.A., must have found his school website, got his IM address somehow, and gotten to my website via his away message, he often quotes my page and vice versa.

Anyway, I think it's really cool that someone was smart enough to pull all of that together, although it is just a little creepy.

Does anyone else have a story like this, or have you been tracked down over the internet somehow? Please share them here.

I"ve never stalked someone, but i've scoped out their personal website (if they make it available publicly), and only if i've already officially been 'introduced', and i just want to know a bit more about a person's background. *shrugs* kinda creepy though lol

i think about that kind of shit all the time. it wouldn't take that much detective work to unravel the mystery of my life.

I don't like sharing my personal information online. I prefer keeping it safe by just downloading porn.

Sounds like she's a winner. Smart, AND she could act as a PI in the event you need one.

i had an internet stalker. he was a big creep. my husband read everything that he sent & also said he was weirdo. ignoring him just made this freak get more agressive.

fortunately he seems to have given up the chase & nothing more than online harrassment occurred, thankfully.

Skettios is my hero..

I wouldn't find it flattering-I'd find it creepy. The first thing I was told when planning on building a site (and told by more than one) was, unless you want your site seen by the world, keep the name of it unusual and don't divulge your personal information anywhere on it. Unfortunately, I did not consider the application of domain ownership and anyone who looks up my domain info can get more than I planned on. That being said, the local police are currently working on a child stalker who contacted my child in AIM on several occasions with several nicknames. He got her nickname by logging into another's profile and taking note of the viewers.
Bottom line, think about what you want strangers to know about you and act accordingly.

if you have a website your information is public, but you can modify the information exposed...

http://www.whois.net/

I've had random people message me online and compliment me on my site. I've also recently had a random person tell me i'm hot cause she saw me on "some webcam site"....

oh well.

yea, it's in there-now to do some faking....er...changes

I think it's great when people mention something about my website =) I don't know why that would be creepy.. I mean, if there's something that I don't want people to know about, I just wouldn't post it on the Internet.

Thanks!

On second thought, I don't feel creeped out, just maybe a little suprised that someone actually took the time to read it.

how do you modify the info?

Sorry bout that :o

I don't think anyone has i-stalked me. Wouldn't find much of interest I wouldn't think.

As for me... I've Googled some folks with no result. A friend of mine told me that he's on Lavalife so I looked for his profile last night. Hey, I was bored and wondered what his profile was like. He's got some pretty cheesy stuff on there and not the best picture either... I'll have to remember to tease him about that later :D

You can modify the information through your registrar. Alot of registrars are also opening the option of hiding the information for you, or putting up thier information as a relay to you.

I've done research on people when I'm bored, but I'm not stalker material because all I use is google, and well, if you put someone's name in, you're going to get alot of people from the 1900s archives.. I've googled myself, but all I come up with is an Internet security hero who is alot more successfull then me so I stopped ;)

:eek: mixed with a bit of :hmm: and add a dash of :o

I hate when I think theres a certain smiley icon and theres not. Grr.

So, she went to her TA's website, and then clicked on links to his friends?

That's stalking? Damn. =p The funny part is, she might not have recognized you until you started the line from your website. =) It's a pretty good line!

Place things on the web because you don't mind anyone (I mean anyone) knowing it. Email and PM's IM's have some expectation of privacy... Not total (less than phone), but some. But, websites are the same as having an instruction manual for anyone to read.

Vanity searching is fun! (Vanity searching: searching for your own name online)

My personal favourite is when I find a website listing books, including a book published by someone whose last name matches mine... on pedeophilia, eek!

Favourate might have been the wrong word.

However, realize that it isn't all that much work to get random information about someone. When you do stuff on the internet, you leak. In my case, you could probably find where I lived, my hobbies when I grew up, my philosophical positions and political positions when I was in university, where I grew up, my age, possibly my job, my personal activities, a half dozen or so pictures of me, the names of a few dozen of my friends... and probably more information that I don't know about. (that's a list of every fact about me that I know has been placed anywhere on the web)

It would require alot of work and luck to get all of that, but you could probably get a good chunk of it with very little effort. However, people on the internet are no more likely to be dangerous than people I walk past on the street. I'm so much more likely to be killed in a robbery (living in a city where 0.002% of the population is convicted of murder / year (2 in 100,000)) than I am to run into trouble because some psycho stalks me. =)

And, I'm even more likely to die in a car accident. So, I don't worry about it.

I forgot to add my other case earlier.

I don't know how this person got my e-mail address, but I've been getting really odd letters from someone claiming to be Johan Schmit. The odd part is that this person loves turnips, and for some reason chose to email me about it.

Example:

Date: Thu, 11 Mar 2004 13:45:01 -0800 (PST)
From: "Johan Schmit" <turniplover2002@yahoo.com> Add to Address Book
Subject: 29 Turnips
To: skettios13@yahoo.com




Dear Dan,
This is Johan Schmit. I have not heard from you in awhile, my friend! I have been keeping track of how many turnips I eat every day. Since the last time you e-mailed me, I have eaten 29 turnips! I know you are thinking that does not seem like a lot of turnips for someone who loves them as much as Johan, but I cannot live on turnips alone! I have been receiving fewer and fewer responses from people about turnips. Why do you suppose this is? I do not understand why anyone would not want to talk about turnips.

Sincerely,
Johan Schmit


None of my friends will admit to doing this, and I have been hesitant to ask Johan for fear of 'ruining' the joke, as I think it's really funny. However I have no clue who this dude is, why he chose to contact me, and what the deal is. In general I just write him back and agree with everything he said in his email, just to be funny.

Anyone heard of this? Or having something similar happen to you?

I don't think you mentioned the most important fact: Is this girl hot?

Seriously though, as a 22-year old male I'm not worried about Internet stalkers. Who the hell would want to stalk a 22-y.o. male anyways? It'd be more interesting to stalk a tree or something. I have published my photo, real name, address and such online, so if someone really wanted to though they could.

I was in PC World one time, and the guy selling me some new computer part said to me, "Hey you're that guy with that website!...(my URL). I love it!".

Was a very surreal experience for me!

Turns out he was a friend of a friend of a friend (or something like that :crazy: ). He wasn't a "stalker" though, just happened to be like my website!

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