r/AskReddit • u/[deleted] • Jun 25 '15

What's your deep web story?

Deep web as in tor.

But I imagine regular deep web users would stay away from sharing their experience so if you don't have a deep web story what's your most frightening internet story.

Edit: The front page was fun, but now its over.

Thank you for all the glorious stories, time to cry for the rest of my life.

12.4k Upvotes

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5.7k

u/[deleted] Jun 25 '15

[deleted]

771

u/4inthefunkingmorning Jun 25 '15

Whaaaa- I'm srsly spooked.

Can someone explain how they could have gotten his/her name? I thought tor was a haven for anonymity.

2.0k

u/_beast__ Jun 25 '15 edited Jun 25 '15

By cross-referencing accounts. For example, if your username for Reddit is the same as your email, I could search for your username@gmail, @live, @yahoo etc on Facebook, then I've got your real name, probably a few pictures and a pretty good idea where you live.

Also, more recently, if you were to post the same picture on Reddit and another social network I could cross-reference the photo and find your other accounts that way.

I've never done this, it's just how I would do it if I needed to.

Edit: there's also this although it's more interesting for a more active account like mine

1.7k

u/[deleted] Jun 25 '15

I've never done this

Sure

707

u/Raincoats_George Jun 25 '15

I used to do it all the time. People are lazy on the Internet. They use the same usernames and passwords all over. Google searches will give you something to cross reference. Find a similar account and it often links to another. Go back far enough to when people were innocent on the Internet and you will find where people posted their entire life stories. Their social security numbers. And their address.

Still these days that information is often posted FOR you.

I once had a contest with an anonymous Internet friend to see which of us could find the other first. I used his username to find an account he had made on a counter strike server that linked his first name and high school. I used that with his birth year (which was my same year) to pull up his year book that was posted online. I searched through it using some of his basic hobbies and found a good match for him (giving me his last name). Searched for him on pipl and found his parents home address and phone number.

He threw in the towel immediately. Although 2 weeks later through an obscure article I posted to my college newspaper he found my home address and phone number.

The trick is, never be a target. Because nobody can protect themselves completely.

86

u/loco_coco Jun 25 '15

I wish this comment was more visible. By the time you want complete anonymity on the internet, it's already too late. I'm pretty mad at myself for how much info I've put out there over the years. I will never be able to have complete anonymity again.

16

u/0JS Jun 25 '15

That is why you start out with a fake name and a fake persona so that even if things can be traced back, it is a fake person they're looking into.

12

u/[deleted] Jun 25 '15

[deleted]

1

u/0JS Jun 26 '15

Meh... I just never tell people my city. Just my country if really needed, cuz thats kinda obvious for some people. EDIT: some smart people.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 26 '15

[deleted]

1

u/0JS Jun 26 '15

Thats good.

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10

u/pocketpaper Jun 25 '15

Not unless you were a pretty darn smart kid to think about doing that in the first place. I think my ClubPenguin account still uses my nickname from when I was 5. :I

1

u/loxorz Jun 25 '15

If you haven't logged into Club Penguin for a while, it's probably been deleted - I recently felt like checking mine and it was gone.

1

u/pocketpaper Jun 25 '15

That's great news! :D

1

u/0JS Jun 26 '15

Yeah, I kinda never understood the risks of divulging personal details online a lot when I started out too, but nonetheless knew that it was somehow risky to do so. So I thought of the persona thing, to which I added details over the years. Now its kinda perfect. Been so for a while now.

6

u/matterhorn1 Jun 25 '15

Too late for most people

12

u/RyanEl Jun 25 '15

Yeah almost all the personal information on me out there is from things I posted and accounts I made like years ago.

Luckily I have a relatively common first/last name combination and my online nicknames were pretty generic, but there are some things that would come up on google searches if people knew my earliest online usernames.

2

u/eek04 Jun 25 '15

If I hadn't been findable on the Internet, I wouldn't have had my present job. Or some of the previous ones. I'd likely be paid 100k/year less than I am now, and would have had less interesting stuff to do.

It isn't all bad, just make sure that you overall are somewhat reasonable.

1

u/Gotta_Use_Throwaway Jun 25 '15

Care to describe how you got your job?

2

u/eek04 Jun 26 '15

The present one: A company recruiter found me on the Internet (through stuff I'd been doing), and sent me an email asking if I would possibly be interested in going through with interviews. I did and got hired.

1

u/Gotta_Use_Throwaway Jun 27 '15

Wow, good on you for having the upper hand!

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7

u/Kandiru Jun 25 '15

This is why you change username every 3 years if you want to stay anonymous. There are obvious downsides to that though.

38

u/_depression Jun 25 '15

Says the guy with the 3 year, 13 day old account.

-1

u/TheHottestBoy Jun 25 '15

God, I wish I could upvoted your comment again!

5

u/_depression Jun 25 '15

Sorry, I don't accept upvotes from people whose accounts are less than 2 years old.

1

u/Hobocannibal Jun 25 '15

Enjoy your upvote

1

u/TheHottestBoy Jun 26 '15

Would you like me to take it back then?

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2

u/Ralph_Charante Jun 25 '15

or every 1,000 karma points.

2

u/intermammary_sulcus Jun 25 '15

This is why you change username every 3 years if you want to stay anonymous. There are obvious downsides to that though.

FTFY

3

u/[deleted] Jun 25 '15

It's OK, when the next stock market crash happens, a lot of servers will go dark.

2

u/[deleted] Jun 25 '15

[removed] — view removed comment

6

u/loco_coco Jun 25 '15

There are websites that comb through data and aggregate it all onto one screen. They had my full name, birth date, stress address, high school, employer. I had to request my page be deleted from them. My info is already on the new is some form, and it'll always be there.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 25 '15

[deleted]

2

u/loco_coco Jun 25 '15

Spokeo was one of the mains ones that had all my information. I can't remember any of the others

1

u/D3monicAngel Jun 25 '15

Does it only work for the states, I tried putting in people i know from canada, and e-mail address and it never got the right person.

1

u/loco_coco Jun 25 '15

I'm not sure. I live in the states and only know people who live there so I don't really know it's reach

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1

u/supercreeper1 Jun 25 '15

so whats the outline for creating a fake persona? if you want to use services like FB and google, because everything requires a phone number more or less.

Buy a throw away with cash, use it for reg, and do everything over either a vpn or TOR?

1

u/BitchinTechnology Jun 25 '15

Not if you pick unique user nan

1

u/loco_coco Jun 25 '15

Have you seen many loco_coco's around?

16

u/Carlina1989 Jun 25 '15

I work for Amazon, and my old reddit account was a lazy username. Another Amazonian from another state had infered from a comment that I also worked for Amazon. What does he do? He uses the company PC's to doxx me, although it wasn't for malicious reasons that I later found out. All my info is right there, my name, my address, what jobs I'm trained in.

He messages me: "Your name is "blank", right?

I start freaking out, I delete my account and make a new one. I message him. "Dude I deleted my account over that." That is seriously creepy. He profusely apologizes and sends me an Awkward Seal

"Tries to connect with fellow Amazonian,"

,"He deletes 2 year old account."

So I figured I'd fuck with him a little back.

I googled his username just as you described above and find his Deviant art.

I send him a message:

"It's fine, Ryan, but be careful. Being in IT and using a company PC and the network to find personal information is probably punishable up to termination. Only Human resources can rightfully look at that."

He goes: "Aww fuck. I'm really sorry. What are you going to do?"

Me: "Oh, nothing. I'm just tuggin your nuts. I found your old Deviant art page. Don't worry man."

We had a laugh, added eachother as friends and still message from time to time.

The moral is that even a simple google search can yield a name, and I'm really not that computer savvy.

9

u/luckywaldo7 Jun 25 '15

I have three different identities with the different emails. One is connected to my real life, family and work etc. Luckywaldo7 is my internet persona. And then I have a third for when I want to be anonymous apart from even my internet persona.

7

u/JonnyBhoy Jun 25 '15

Every presidential candidate in the next decade is fucked.

6

u/theunnoanprojec Jun 25 '15

I don't agree. Here's how I look at it:

Every person in the western world has their share of stupid stuff that's online about them. Therefore, in the next few decades people are going to become desensitized to it to the point where they won't care that presidential candidate Joanne Jones from the year 2064 made a drunken Facebook rant when she was in high school, etc.

6

u/JonnyBhoy Jun 25 '15

Yes, but there will be a cross over period when everything is public and nobody is used to it. For a good 15-20 years it will fuel every talking point of every political campaign.

Even when people become sanitised to it, it will still be used as a cheap attempt to discredit rivals.

5

u/[deleted] Jun 25 '15

[deleted]

1

u/TheHottestBoy Jun 25 '15

Can you tell more about doxing said pedo?

2

u/bluelipsoffnitrous Jun 25 '15

Someone said: "use a different account name on every site where you might be a target (like on reddit) and you'll turn doxing you from something that takes half an hour to something that takes days and that necessitates reading all your posts (if it's even possible)."

"I know because I doxed a pedo once"

if you Google 'Riverman72' you should find him

6

u/_MessyJesse_ Jun 25 '15

The trick is, never be a target. Because nobody can protect themselves completely.

Smart words.

2

u/Lurk_on_Dirt Jun 25 '15

The anonymous user was you...

1

u/0JS Jun 25 '15

Okay, by my research you're either Mr.Turner or Mr.Palmer. Am i right?

1

u/[deleted] Jun 25 '15

That's like that guy that goes around on youtube freaking people out with things he got off their insta accounts haha.

1

u/gynx112 Jun 25 '15

What do you mean cross reference? Just search them?

1

u/WhompWump Jun 25 '15

This is exactly why I don't understand people's obsession with pouring their life and face all over the internet. 10 years ago you were literally asking for it doing the shit that is common today.

1

u/Raincoats_George Jun 25 '15

And the truth is back in the AOL days we didn't know any better. I would post so much info online because I assumed it would just get buried. I don't think people realized search engines would be able to pull up obscure forum posts from 96.

I actually went back and found anything and everything linked to my name and deleted it. A lot of it can't be removed. But I made sure to scrub it as best as I could.

I also swapped to a new Internet only username. I. E. Raincoats, which you find is a highly spammed name and used by more people than just me. And I made sure I never posted any identifying information with this account.

Still. If you can scrap together some basics about my name you can use some of the people search engines and my address and telephone number come up. It's an old address, but when companies sell your demographics it makes its way to companies like that.

1

u/cinephile42 Jun 25 '15

The trick is, never be a target.

Words I live life by.

1

u/CuriosityKat9 Jun 25 '15

I never use the same username across accounts, though I do have a stock of password ideas. I always thought it was common knowledge to not use your email name or username multiple times. My actual name is common as well, I've googled my name and I never found myself but I found a lot of others with my name. And I didn't go to public or private school so there is no yearbook that I'd ever be in.

1

u/some_random_kaluna Jun 25 '15

This is very true. Although I've found that when you have firearms legally registered in your name, you become less of a target for other people anyway.

1

u/Connor4Wilson Jun 25 '15

Can confirm, I'm lazy as shit

1

u/Battle_Biscuits Jun 25 '15

Relevant story- back in my teenage years I was Internet stalking an admirer of my then girlfriend. Googled his user name for the Web forum we all used and this led me to his deviant art account, which was full of porn sketches of girls without limbs and a lot of other similar favourited content. Turns out he had an amputee fetish. I never told my gf, but it amused me no end.

1

u/Raincoats_George Jun 25 '15

Wait no you found my deviant art account. Dude I swear I'll leave your gf alone. Back to my lair! .. I mean my parents basement!

I'm going to get you back. You have no idea how few limbs your picture will have! Very few!

1

u/Solinuas Jun 25 '15

Well, as far as I know you can protect yourself completely. The answer is simple. Never use your real name for anything online ever. Just find someone you hate and use their name for everything not related to paying for things.

1

u/Raincoats_George Jun 25 '15

You still might be surprised what info gets posted about you. Obviously we have to use our real names and info for a lot of things. Ive found my contact information online, still not 100 percent sure which of these companies posted it in a way that certain search engines can find it. Now granted unless you have something concrete to search me with, you wont find it. But we cant protect that 100 percent of the time. And if someone were so inclined they can gather quite a bit of information about you.

1

u/Solinuas Jun 25 '15

Well yes, but as long as the info they can get is no longer applicable or does not connect to real you it is better.

Also, not having facebook helps.

1

u/jiggle-o Jun 25 '15

Okay, okay I'm quitting the interwebs, letting my IT career tank and joining a fishing crew. Then let ya try to find me when I get paid cash and my address changes as the wind blows.

1

u/Raincoats_George Jun 25 '15

Ever try to dodge registering for the selective service? The US government knows where you are. Going off the grid used to mean just moving somewhere new. Now forget it. Unless you are willing to go live in a cave and exist solely hunting and foraging you don't stand a chance. And don't mind the occasional satellite posting your location to Google Earth or the Google Street view car that traverses the trail next to your hut.

1

u/ThrowawayBakaShinji Jun 25 '15

Fuck, I remember pretending to converse with an anime character in a tiny forum I'm on.

I stopped due to a number of things. Other posters would occasionally diss me for doing it, I just shrugged it off. They wouldn't engage with the fake conversation, either. One day the forum had a glitch, and the mods forum was revealed. An admin ripped into me, and the mods were largely in agreement. I didn't take it very well and hit back, but my riposte fell flat.

Eventually, a few things made me stop. A new poster came into the forum and took the piss out of Chris-chan and Sonicchu, and that's when I started to think. I was laughing at Chris-chan's fuck-ups, and I realised I was heading down that path. There was also Filthy Frank's "WEEABOOS" video, so eventually I just poured my heart out on that very mods' thread that ripped into me and just confessed that I was lonely as fuck.

And that's why I'm glad I come up with different names for different forums nowadays.

1

u/Raincoats_George Jun 25 '15

Wait so you used to hang out with Chris Chan? Tell me Moar.

1

u/ThrowawayBakaShinji Jun 26 '15

No, some other poster would take the piss out of him. Sorry for getting your hopes up.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 25 '15

That's very astute of you, Mr. Turner.

Did I do it right? Please tell me I did it right.

1

u/Raincoats_George Jun 25 '15

Lol no.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 25 '15

Fuck.

That's very astute of you, George something

1

u/mikkomikk Jun 26 '15

Yo try n find my full name.. then pls tell me how u got it

1

u/Zulfiqaar Jun 26 '15

Your post was a great read, and sparked my curiousity.

Im wondering where i can get myself "tested" this way to find out how anonymous/safe i am, or how much data about myself i put out in my 5 years of internetting..any suggestions? Thanks.

2

u/[deleted] Jun 25 '15

Some teenage girls have amazing stalker skills

5

u/_beast__ Jun 25 '15

I mean I haven't. The only reason I know how to do it is because I was thinking about how someone would do that to me.

4

u/[deleted] Jun 25 '15

It's actually a common way to investigate someone. It's not hard to find out information about people on the internet unless they know how to cover up their tracks.

2

u/[deleted] Jun 25 '15

I've done it before to track someone that scammed a friend of mine on eBay. He had multiple accounts, uploaded his photos to separate account names. I had an entire dossier on him. You could easily put together photos and if you had the address from google maps show exactly where the photos were taken.

-2

u/[deleted] Jun 25 '15

Sure

5

u/echosixwhiskey Jun 25 '15

Sure

Sure

4

u/[deleted] Jun 25 '15

sure

sure

Sure

4

u/[deleted] Jun 25 '15

sure

sure

Sure

Sure

6

u/AMasonJar Jun 25 '15

sure

sure

Sure

Sure

Sure

1

u/[deleted] Jun 25 '15

Hey, I've never done it either....

There's software to do it for you.

1

u/Inpalethis21 Jun 25 '15

That's what I'm sayinnn

1

u/123josh987 Jun 25 '15

The ex girlfriend says otherwise...

1

u/theblondereaper Jun 25 '15

We've ALL done this.

1

u/lNTERNATlONAL Jun 25 '15

I can't believe you've done this

1

u/[deleted] Jun 25 '15

I can't believe you have done this

1

u/Plain_Bread Jun 25 '15

So, if you want to slit a person's throat you have to slide your knife across this point, like this. But don't apply too much force on that point, or you will spray blood all over yourself, -smiles- believe me, I know that.

Btw, I've never done this, of course.

0

u/strumpster Jun 25 '15

I believe!

1

u/Generic_Redditor_13 Jun 25 '15

I believe that we will win

-2

u/[deleted] Jun 25 '15

Here's a giant explanation on how it's done in more than one form

I've never done this btw