Good morning everyone!  

This was an incredibly popular post on my regional board, so it was thought that it would bear posting on the general board for everyone's information.
 
I've said this before, but it has popped up again as an issue, so I felt it fair to give everyone a fair warning.  If you, as a provider or hobbyist, are NOT using a burner phone number, and you have entered you phone number in Facebook, and not set the ability for people to search for you through Friends Only, then you can be found!  Your real identity, if you will.  For hobbyists, perhaps not as big a deal as providers.  Steps to take to protect your privacy -  
 
1.  In Facebook, go to Settings - Privacy.  There are two questions for "Who can look me up"?  You can be searched for in the top bar by either email address or phone number.  For each of these questions you have three choices - "Friends", "Friends of Friends", and "Everyone".  Obviously, if you use your personal email or phone for hobbying on either side, set these to friends.  
2.  Remove your phone number from your Facebook profile.  I don't have any phone, personal or hobby, on mine, because everyone I would want to call me or text me already has my number.  
3.  Create a hobbying profile under your ailas that include your hobby email and / or hobby number  
4.  The above step requires a burner phone of some kind.  And by the way, Google Voice makes for an EXCELLENT burner if you have an iPhone, or even an Android (though it's a bit more difficult on an Android to keep multiple Google accounts totally seperate in apps since they're all baked into the OS) - it's just an app that can make free phone calls and texts through a toss-away number and an app, no charge per call or text.  You can associate a cell phone with it at first and then delete the cell phone, and then if you need to "disappear" so to speak, you need simply delete the Voice account, then the Google account as a whole.  What PD will go through the trouble and expense of subpoenaing both Google and ISP to try and track you down (which is the only way it could be done)?  The expense and time would outweigh the potential fines.  
 
Please people - in 2015, privacy is rapidly disappearing.  Know how it all works, and know how to protect yourself.  America doesn't have Europe's "right to be forgotten", so keep whatever privacy you can scramble together.

Don't have a Facebook page.

I did at one time, pressure from family, and got sick of seeing updates such as my Aunt's "got up this morning and had raisin bran for breakfast". Yeah, I really don't give a fuck, love my Aunt but could care less what she had for breakfast

Lol! But if you still want to have facebook, just take your number off of it.

and I agree completely. I am probably one of the very few who has NEVER had a Myspace, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram or Twitter account. NONE of them, and I have no plans of every doing so.

Of course a couple of friends of mine who are not TER members, but know all about it, call TER my "Adult Facebook" and I guess it's tough for me to argue otherwise.

I agree it is best not to have FB especially with all of these privacy issues many don't know about.
Some people on social media love to share absolutely everything they are doing for the whole day.
Your aunt's update...lmao

-- Modified on 9/4/2015 9:16:37 AM

Which is much like the thoery of perpetual motion.

That is all jibberish to describe that this evening I'll be on my way to not being sober, and then tomorrow morning sober etc.

It's an interesting and fun experiment. I've come to know that you too are participating in a similar experiment.

I am decades into that particular experiment.  

My only concession to PUI  is that when spell check starts kicking in anywhere close to 50% of the time, it's time to walk away from the keyboard for the rest of the evening lest I start making as little sense as fatgirl or SenorGrumpy..

but speaking of SPOTY frontrunners, has anyone heard from our former odds on favorite Fat Vern?

END OF MESSAGE

It HAS been discussed previously, many times.

"Settings" and "filters" will NOT PROTECT YOU from the digital reach of Facebook, Google+ and all of the other behemoths who are there to connect your digital dots whether you want or intend them to or not.  

Buy a teddy bear for your 10-yo niece on Amazon and the next you know she is friended on some Provider's Twitter feed that you thought was separate because you used a fake name when you logged in.  

These companies have tentacles that will touch you everywhere, and not in a good way.  They are NEFARIOUS.  They can expose you and ruin your life in pursuit of their self-stated interest of connecting everyone in the world -- EVEN IF IT'S AGAINST THAT PERSON'S WILL.

Stay OFF of FB, Twitter, and all other social media.  That's the only real protection.

I've never looked a client up on Facebook And I probably never will. It's just a mutual privacy respect. They can't look me up. I have cross checked Linkdin a few times just to check a work verification . Just make sure I logged out of my account since it sometimes will say who has viewed your profile.  
I think it's interesting that you think providers care, have the time, as if we don't have friends, family and other endeavors of our day to day.  I don't want to be bothered with your life outside of our agreed upon time together.  You must think providers really have absolutely nothing to do, nor are you probably that interesting .  Probably one of my favs from clients is "well did you google me? You know I'm well known and kind of famous."  

Have a great weekend!
 

Please keep in mind that I am well aware of the dangers of Facebook, Linkedin, et all - just as a smoker is well aware of the health implications of smoking.  Yet people still smoke.  There are 750 million ACTIVE (log in at least once a week) Facebook accounts in the world, so it's obviously being used.  This post was meant for those who may have not known.  While I appreciate that there may be a belief that calling me "naive" or saying stay off all the networks is the solution, or that I actually think people care, will invalidate my point - it does not.  People, both providers and hobbyists, are on Facebook, and they do not always follow the same rules - and so I am simply trying to be helpful.  So while I thank those that responded, repsonding with bile or sarcasm isn't exactly the most constructive thing when I am simply trying to informative and helpful.  I apologize for anyone's time I wasted, and I hope you have gained some satisfaction by posting your views in your need to be "right".

I didn't read a post that called you naive or flamed you.  

My response was just a matter of fact, I have no use for Facebook, it in itself is a complete waste of my time and energy. I could care less what my Aunt had for breakfast, even though I care for her as a person, dearly.

I think for those folks who do use Facebook your post may have been very useful. I've simply stopped wasting my time and energy using something which I find useless. That isn't at all a flame on you or what you said.

It's NOT that Providers might look someone up ... and that the guy wanted her to look him up.  

It is the digital spoor that unknowingly connects activities and searches between accounts and sometimes even different computers so that a completely uninvolved, unknowing person (a friend, a relative, a boss, a spouse, a child) is suddenly connected to your clandestine activities.  

Provider?  You already know I'm hobbying!  Aunt Maude in Chicago wondering why she is getting pop ups or other weird stuff from my emails about my searching for ball gags and dildos on Amazon?  Not so good

Same here. People do give me a strange look when I say I'm not on FB.