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Maigret: Collect a dossier on a person by username from thousands of sites

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Re: Maigret: Collect a dossier on a person by username from thousands of sites

#31

Post by romeoblade »

bee_rider wrote: post #19
AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #15

Seems incredibly prone to false positives. For example, I can guarantee that I'm not the AdmiralAsshat on Reddit, Gmail, or Twitter, because that username was already taken by the time I tried to sign up for them.

Some annoying people seem to have used my gmail to sign up for things like Twitch. I have all the three factor authentication stuff set up, so I don't think they can get in to click the "verify" links, but I wonder if this sort of tool would be able to verified that the account was... verified. Probably not.

My Gmail is first.last name. I get very sensitive documents for a lawyer with my same name who resides in Texas. We've actually had some decent conversations over the years.

Re: Maigret: Collect a dossier on a person by username from thousands of sites

#32

Post by drusepth »

romeoblade wrote: post #31
bee_rider wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some annoying people seem to have used my gmail to sign up for things like Twitch. I have all the three factor authentication stuff set up, so I don't think they can get in to click the "verify" links, but I wonder if this sort of tool would be able to verified that the account was... verified. Probably not.

My Gmail is first.last name. I get very sensitive documents for a lawyer with my same name who resides in Texas. We've actually had some decent conversations over the years.

I used to have a similar-enough email to a dentist office in Texas and would get a lot of patient scans / files as well. Reached out a dozen times before it finally stopped.

Re: Maigret: Collect a dossier on a person by username from thousands of sites

#33

Post by P5fRxh5kUvp2th »

romeoblade wrote: post #31
bee_rider wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some annoying people seem to have used my gmail to sign up for things like Twitch. I have all the three factor authentication stuff set up, so I don't think they can get in to click the "verify" links, but I wonder if this sort of tool would be able to verified that the account was... verified. Probably not.

My Gmail is first.last name. I get very sensitive documents for a lawyer with my same name who resides in Texas. We've actually had some decent conversations over the years.

I had that happen once.

It was a recipt for a medical purchase, at first I thought I was getting scammed. What tipped me off was the email was sent to firstnamelastname@gmail.com and NOT firstname.lastname@gmail.com. That was the day I realized google would even do that.

I ended up using the phone number in the email to contact the person and forwarded the email. And yes, they had my first and last name :)

Re: Maigret: Collect a dossier on a person by username from thousands of sites

#36

Post by romeoblade »

P5fRxh5kUvp2th wrote: post #33
romeoblade wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My Gmail is first.last name. I get very sensitive documents for a lawyer with my same name who resides in Texas. We've actually had some decent conversations over the years.

I had that happen once. It was a recipt for a medical purchase, at first I thought I was getting scammed. What tipped me off was the email was sent to firstnamelastname@gmail.com and NOT firstname.lastname@gmail.com. That was the day I realized google would even do that. I ended up using the phone number in the email to contact the person and forwarded the email. And yes, they had my first and last name :)

Yup! I ended up having to look him up via the states bar association's website. Was able to get his bar association email which was different then the gmail. It's the only contact I have in google contacts because it happens about 3 times a year.

He got a congratulations email on a bmw purchase one time. Had a good discussion about cars, we are both gear heads.

Re: Maigret: Collect a dossier on a person by username from thousands of sites

#37

Post by mod »

motoxpro wrote: post #20
lol768 wrote: post #9

This is technologically impressive, but I was disappointed (but not particularly surprised) to see no mention of the ethics involved in using this sort of project - in either the GitHub issues or the README/docs. This seems like a great tool for stalking people; particularly the recursive functionality (for tying identifiers together). I'm not saying the world is worse-off due to the release of software like this - i…

As a commentary on the conundrum, not so much your post. I always think it’s strange when people make the argument that it’s good for harmful tools to be out in the open because people can/will change their behavior because of them. 99.999999% of people will never see this repo, never know things like this exist, and don’t visit sites like HN but can, and probably will be, affected by it in some way.

I agree. I think this publication is a net-loss for the world, for sure. People will find and use this code--people who could/would never create it themselves.

It will be used for many reasons, but the stalking is the most obvious.

Not all of my usernames are as resistant as this one, unfortunately.

Re: Maigret: Collect a dossier on a person by username from thousands of sites

#38

Post by TheAdamist »

AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #15

Seems incredibly prone to false positives. For example, I can guarantee that I'm not the AdmiralAsshat on Reddit, Gmail, or Twitter, because that username was already taken by the time I tried to sign up for them.

As a commissioned officer, you may be responsible for everything done in your name.

More rations of rum, i think thats how the british managed it. I wouldnt complain, much.

Re: Maigret: Collect a dossier on a person by username from thousands of sites

#39

Post by swyx »

bee_rider wrote: post #10

Well, that is creepy as hell, but I guess it is obvious that such a tool could exist, and it is better not to have it exclusively in the hands of data-brokers, etc. I wonder how hard it would be to add the functionality: go back to the email address that has registered these accounts, find any other names they've registered, and search off those. (EDIT: err, wait, I bet that's the "recursive" functionality they menti…

i think clearbit is making $100m/yr doing this as a service for businesses already

Re: Maigret: Collect a dossier on a person by username from thousands of sites

#40

Post by bee_rider »

romeoblade wrote: post #31
bee_rider wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some annoying people seem to have used my gmail to sign up for things like Twitch. I have all the three factor authentication stuff set up, so I don't think they can get in to click the "verify" links, but I wonder if this sort of tool would be able to verified that the account was... verified. Probably not.

My Gmail is first.last name. I get very sensitive documents for a lawyer with my same name who resides in Texas. We've actually had some decent conversations over the years.

So far I haven't gotten anything that would give me moral compunctions to ignore, thankfully!
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