Anonymity Using Hotmail and Yahoo Mail (email, server, work, click)

[mossomo]

I just realized that if you include your first and last name when setting up a hotmail or yahoo mail account, you will not be anonymous when sending an email. The two services will prefix your first and lastname in front of your user name/email address.

I have a junk email account and a professional account. I have a junk email account becuase I do not always like advertising my first and last name when signing up to a service, product registration, website or etc, which I feel there is no need for it or which will eventually be sold to some advertiser.

On a different tip. Ladies more than men, if you are doing the whole online dating thing, make sure you're not using an email account were you list you real first and last name in your profile. You do not want strangers having that information.

To prevent your name from being advertised, simply modify your profile and change your first and last name to something fictitious. Send yourself a test email to double check that you have changed the correct fields.

[Lindsey_Mcfarren]

I completely agree with you, I have a yahoo email account and it has a fake name on it. Its pretty easy to hack these accounts. Also be aware that if you put the correct information when they ask what city you were born in, what is your birthday, then whoever knows that about you, can hack your account.

I know because I have done it, to my husband when he was having an affair. I have also done it for others in the same place I was in. There is nothing like seeing the words and sometimes pictures for yourself.

I have seen people use their real name as part of their email address itself which is SO bad.

[thecoalman]

Originally Posted by Lindsey_Mcfarren

I know because I have done it, to my husband when he was having an affair. I have also done it for others in the same place I was in. There is nothing like seeing the words and sometimes pictures for yourself.

You've just admitted to a felony.

[MikeJaquish]

Originally Posted by thecoalman

You've just admitted to a felony.

Yeah, but Lindsey_McFarren is not her real name, so she is anonymous. Or not?..

[Dd714]

Originally Posted by thecoalman

You've just admitted to a felony.

Or, at least, it gives us some insight on why the husband may have been cheating. "I know because I have done it...for others. There is nothing like seeing the words and sometimes pictures for yourself." Yeah, I wouldn't stay married to that either...hope he got to bring that up in divorce court.


Really, back on topic, even used an anon name in Yahoo, you leave other tags. No email is totaly anon unless you have some complex way to bounce it around servers. For yahoo or hotmail you still leave your IP address, which may have your name, your company name (if used their server), or at least the city location of your internet providers local server. And, if really needed, that IP address can lead a person directly to yourself.

[dpgtfc]

If you are on the internet you have no privacy, bending over backwards will not change that.

johnsmith@yahoo.com. Oh no, I know his first and last name... I could look him up in the phone book. Oh ya, wait...

Privacy paranoia loons are, to me, as funny as those that wear tinfoil hats. I have a friend that was so paranoid of his "information" that he wouldn't sign up for netflix until about 6 months ago (I joined when it was about 2-3 months old). These days he has a facebook and myspace profile. (we are in our 30's though that doesn't mean much these days as my grandmother has a facebook account)

Here is what you need to know; nobody cares about you, you aren't important and if you are, your first and last name in your email address isn't going to stop the FBI or CIA from finding you. It isn't going to stop anybody from anything really. A good PI could find you based on your IP address, which I could get by sending you a link to a picture. You click on the picture I can get all sorts of good info about you.

Want privacy? Don't get on the internet. Don't sign up for an ISP. Don't have email at all.

(also, you lose out on privacy if you have similar names across multiple places on the internet. I'll not post direct links, but a simple search of your name or mine shows up multiple places)

[Lindsey_Mcfarren]

Originally Posted by thecoalman

You've just admitted to a felony.

The police didn't see it that way, it was MY computer and my husbands email account that he had told me I could use. They didn't care at all. They were FAR more interested in his activities on the computer. I gave them copies.

Yahoo and Hotmail will tell you because you don't have to put down the real information when you register unlike the email account registered with your ISP, there is no way to prove the REAL owner of the account.

[Lindsey_Mcfarren]

Originally Posted by Dd714

Or, at least, it gives us some insight on why the husband may have been cheating. "I know because I have done it...for others. There is nothing like seeing the words and sometimes pictures for yourself." Yeah, I wouldn't stay married to that either...hope he got to bring that up in divorce court.


Really, back on topic, even used an anon name in Yahoo, you leave other tags. No email is totaly anon unless you have some complex way to bounce it around servers. For yahoo or hotmail you still leave your IP address, which may have your name, your company name (if used their server), or at least the city location of your internet providers local server. And, if really needed, that IP address can lead a person directly to yourself.

He sure didn't. His emails showed that he had married me in order to get an American citizenship. They also showed he had been gathering information to steal someones identity so he could work until he got his citizenship. HE was the one breaking the law.

By the time I hacked his account, he had been in a relationship with a married woman for months. I had always trusted him and treated him better then he deserved.

[Lindsey_Mcfarren]

Originally Posted by MikeJaquish

Yeah, but Lindsey_McFarren is not her real name, so she is anonymous. Or not?..

LOL, exactly, I have always been open about the reality that Lindsey Mcfarren is not my real name. So if you want to find me, you will have to print out that picture on my account and run about the town I live in looking for me, taking into account I look nothing like that anymore.

[NightBazaar]

Originally Posted by Lindsey_Mcfarren

The police didn't see it that way, it was MY computer and my husbands email account that he had told me I could use. They didn't care at all. They were FAR more interested in his activities on the computer. I gave them copies.

Yahoo and Hotmail will tell you because you don't have to put down the real information when you register unlike the email account registered with your ISP, there is no way to prove the REAL owner of the account.

You talk about hacking and that you know because you've done it to your husband, and you say you've done it for others. If the computer was yours, and your husband said you could use his email account, then I presume he also gave you the username and password. You'd need those to access his email account. Maybe I'm missing something, but how do you figure that amounts to "hacking" his email account?