I originally posted this message in the New England board, because I thought it was funny. Amusement on my part inspired anger and horror in others. Apparently, a LOT of people didn't know that Facebook has the feature that you can search for people by phone number, if they've put their phone number on their profile. Even with all your profile settings put on maximum, you can still be found by name, phone number, or email. It was requested I repost this to the general board to spread the word. The moral of the story: providers and hobbyists, have a DISPOSABLE, untraceable phone or phone number (Net10, Tracfone, Google Voice - any of it works and is anonymous, bench-issued warrants, which are much harder to get than just a subpeona, would be required to track you down if you have any of those). Hobbyists: many providers, when verifying you, require a work phone number, so DON'T put your work phone number on your Facebook profile unless it's a requirement of your job.
Here is the original post in its entirety: "There is a lot of things in this hobby that amuse me. Last time, I wrote at length about providers who clearly steal pictures. So here's a new one.Did you know that if you put your phone number into your Facebook profile, you can be found through Facebook's search engine by the phone number? Oh yes, yes you can. Helpful for friends to find you. However, if you are a "provider" (and I am seriously using the term loosely here because these girls I found have got to be fly by night) who doesn't have a disposable phone, or different phone number for hobbying, and use your normal phone . . . you are findable. This week alone, while browsing through Backpage (I'm telling you, it's a sport for me at this point - the funniest sport ever), I found the real names and identities of FOUR "providers". I am 99 percent sure it was them as the body parts, skin tone, etc visible in the pictures on Facebook and Backpage were a good match.
I know I'm preaching to the choir here, that no reputable provider would do such a thing - I just have to share when I find something REALLY funny that happens involving the hobby. The moral of the story? Privacy is hard in the digital age - protect yourself!"
-- Modified on 8/2/2014 9:02:04 AM
that if you look at someone's profile via your own civilian FB, you'll come up on their feed under "People you may know". Never, ever look at client/provider profiles through your own civilian FB page.
I used to carry around two phones but this became quite a hassle. Luckily I was turned onto an app by a friend called the "Burner Phone" app. Its easy to use, and gives me the ability to have essentially a 2nd phone number on my personal phone. I can "burn" the number anytime I need to without worry of it being traced.
Since my business model requires more email based communication and is less heavy on phone communication this app works well for me.
SITARA
...and you don't want to have any of your hobby emails or personal emails logged into the same phone or same computer because they will get linked up & you'll end up in the 'people you may know' and so may the people in your contacts... a bad thing if you've got real-world contacts saved in your contacts list.
A zero-knowledge, encrypted cloud service like spideroak is a happy thing for any data that you *have* to keep. The rest? Secure delete, always.
Never mix real world & hobby accounts on your devices if you can help it; I have my "real world" browser, and my "work" browser for my laptop, and I don't log into or visit the opposite accounts on opposite browsers. For my work phone, I never log into personal accounts unless it's in a private window in the browser, which is extremely rare.
And I'd also suggest using a no-log VPN. Plenty of free ones available out there, and subscriptions are as little as $5/mo.
I had never thought about this. As a hobbyist, I user a burn number.
There is a new FBSM provider I started seeing last month, and we clicked right out of the gate. We recently spent most of session talking about how we both came to be in that room - It was a cool experience. Last night we had an amazing session, where she thanked me for being "So awesome." (I am polite, I don't push boundaries, and I appreciate her.) It's nice to feel appreciated, but I have no delusions that this relationship might exist beyond the 4 walls where we see each other.
When I read this thread, I looked up her number on FB. To my surprise, there was her face with a name I didn't know her by. I clicked on it (I wish I wouldn't have.) Her FB account isn't locked down. I could see her pictures, her posts, etc.
For her own safety/security, I need to tell her. Aside from the obvious (Lock down FB, get a "hobby" number), I want to make sure she can try to clean up some of the trail. Once she has a new number established, can she contact TER and have her current phone number removed from her review?
I am also going to tell her because of what I saw, we probably shouldn't continue our "relationship." I really don't want her to be uncomfortable with me, and seriously, I would much rather see her identity safe from the rest of the world. This will be hard to do, but it may have been getting a bit "too real" for me anyways