Recently I've received half a dozen "friend" requests, all from young attractive women often showing a LOT of cleavage or a sexy pose. Hell, I'm 78 years old and been married to the same fantastic woman for almost 54 years. I always delete such requests.

Once, I received a leading email from - supposedly - three teenage girls. I immediately told them that I was 74, married and had no interest in them. I've always thought it was an attempt by the FBI or another LE agency to entrap me. You can't be too careful when dealing with unknown sources.

iF YOU RUN YOUR NAME AND CITY, EVERYTHING COMES UP!!

Oh, wow! No way I could resist this! :D

[Edit: deleted in the interest of friendship]

...Seems like only bad things come up... :(

Huh! I ran my name & city, pretty much everything came up. Phone, address, age, possible relatives...Some stuff incorrect, but enough to doppelgang me... :mad:

Google is NOT your friend.

Evidently not. :( This means that more than a few old flames know where to find me... :eek:

True. There's a saying with data security folks: if you don't know what the product is, you're the product. Google being the most perfect and ubiquitous example.

IMO for all practical purposes there is nothing free on the internet. You pay for it via disclosing information when you visit those sites.

I love maps, navigation, stuff like that. Years ago when I heard the Govt. was going to make GPS available to all, my first reaction was not "oh goody" but "why?" It didn't smell right.

Now I know. They know where you live, work, everywhere you go and everything you do (inferred, when you have your cell phone with you).

Unless you are using encryption and/or other security measures, you should assume that everything you do online is observed by commercial interests/the Govt. And cross-matched and correlated to you personally. And then compared to other data sets to take many very good guesses at what you like, don't like, believe, etc.

I have seen your picture,,,,I don't think it is going to be any girls....:D

What??? You think that 28 year old pic wouldn't attract girls??? :grr:

http://forum.lugerforum.com/image.ph...2&type=profile

I Need Unknown Girls Like A Third Armpit!

What?!?! :eek: You mean the cable TV people are keeping track of what I watch??? The phone people are recording my phone calls??? The Google people are listing my pr0n sites??? Mt car is telling Big Brother every time I visit the supermarket??? The supermarket is listing what I like to eat??? The pharmacy is tallying my prescriptions???

That's crazy!!! You're describing a police state!!! Next you'll be telling me there's a tele-screen behind my bedroom mirror!!! That television news is being manipulated!!! That history is being rewritten!!! That my very existence is being altered!!! :grr:

Thank the Lord that we have a benevolent government to guard against such fantasies!!! :thumbup:

/sarcasm

(An interesting read -
https://smleo.com/2017/10/10/the-pow...4-big-brother/ )

We don't, they do, but it all produces so much data there is no way anyone can read or see it.

So unless you become "a person of interest" no one will ever see it.
But put one innocuous seeming word in a post or e-mail that triggers their 'key words" and they will pull up every trip to the bathroom,

A good movie to watch is "Enemy of the State" - I like Gene Hackman movies anyway.

Have you seen "The Package" [1989]?. Hackman, Tommy Lee Jones, some other B-characters. Pretty good. :)

I've watched it several times over the years. It is a good movie and worth watching.

Some newer TV sets have a camera and can 'listen' too. But, that can be undone, I think. My son-in-law noticed those features on their new TV and disconnected them. Also, your 'smart phone' can do that too. My wife was talking to a person and they asked who I was when I entered the room! So yes, there is a "tele-screen" in your house!

I first saw this about 6 years ago and its only gotten worse.

Do yourself a favor and watch this ... it will change your view on this world of ours. :(
'They' know EVERYTHING about you - and do you know how ??
SELF CONTRIBUTED DATA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XdsaCVZ1ck

Greg, A fascinating look into our exposure to privacy theft..no not theft. WE actually voluntarily give it away. But like gravity..what can you DO about it? From what I can tell this vid is say 10 years old? It HAS to be 10-100 times worse now. I think back and remember the first time you needed a "card" at the grocery store to get a discount. They forced you to let them spy on your buying habits.

They did not "Force" you

You voluntarily agreed to the spying to save $0.15

That must not work too well. The brands/products I liked best were replaced by inferior/poorer tasting ones. All the supermarket did was 'force' me to seek out local food vendors ['restaurants'] selling tasty food. I 'eat out' more now than I ever did. :rolleyes:

And why do the supermarket food products insist on putting cheese in/on everything??? I like cheese, but not on everything!!! :mad:

Every document you filed with a government agency is a public record. It starts with your birth certificate, your driver's license, your marriage certificate, your mortgage deed, college records, military records, business records, FFL, and especially obituaries (sorry, I've been writing more of those than I want to).

Most government agencies and even colleges sell your information or provide it on-line for free. While the IRS, SS and medical records aren't allowed to release personal information, it's out there already via other vendors who do require it. That information is sold and published, even without Google. You can track me just by my driver's license.

I still get junk mail addressed to my name, exactly how my college alumni association mis-spelled it 50 years ago !! I never even joined the alumni association. The great state of Georgia used to use our SSN for our driver's license number, as if that was a good idea. Then they sold all their driver's license data on the open market. Same thing the university and my credit union, who thought an SSN made a great and unique account number, until it got printed on all my checks !?

Before the internet was so available, there were Criss-Cross references that realtors and door to door sales people would use. The phone book provided phone number, but there were other publications that published un-listed phone numbers. Cell phone numbers are supposed to be un-listed, but you can subscribe to a cell phone directory service, if you want to.

The military regularly posts Wikipedia pages for military officers.

I never give out my SSN or date of birth, but then my well meaning stock broker, dentist and doctor's office all send me an unsolicited birthday cards.

I recommend using a VPN connection service (Norton), particularly with your cell phone. It's a smart step and now it's very affordable encryption.

Big brother is watching everything we do and so are our favorite vendors. Ever notice when you buy something on-line, you start getting targeted ads on-line for similar products or even the same thing? That's not any accident. Don't blame Amazon, Ring or WalMart - blame Apple, Dell, HP and Microsoft - they invented it and sold it to those vendors. Cookies were just the beginning. Ad tracking is just coming of age and it will be much more invasive in the coming months.

And you don't even have to go to the "dark Web" to find this stuff. Most of it is in public records.

I blame Congress for not addressing the problem head-on.

Jerry rather than reply to you with a long/boring post, I would just say you must do research. There are tools out there.

The basic tools of the Constitution to protect us remain, and while the trend is concerning it is not fair to call the USA a police state. This mess has grown organically and haphazardly, and govt. and commercial interests are simply exploiting the landscape that has grown around them. It is sort of like air pollution used to be. I remember as a kid in Los Angeles during the 60s how bad the smog could get. People became aware, demanded action and it's gotten better.

There is a growing awareness of the magnitude of the problem and many firms, Apple in particular, are moving to improve protections. Use Apple products, use the available security features, use a better browser like Duck Duck Go, and overall do research on ways to protect your privacy and implement them.

https://duckduckgo.com