The whole story is a bit of a long one, but in short:

Saturday evening about 7pm I found a stray dog wandering near home. No collar. Very happy & friendly though.

I took him home, phoned the dog warden, and in the meantime my wife put a message & pic on the local community facebook page.

About half an hour later the owner turned up on our doorstep without us giving out our address.

My wife found this quite frightening.

Can you work out an address from Facebook ? The only thing we could think of is that my wife’s profile pic is of our Akita who died last year, he was quite distinctive, so anyone who’d seen him around may have known where we live and put 2 & 2 together. Seems like a stretch though.

Your grass needs cutting.

About half an hour later the owner turned up on our doorstep without us giving out our address.

At which point you asked them how it was that they found you?

Nice socks

Get some sleep. You look tired.

If someone is determined enough and has internet access they could probably find out the identity / address of most people.

We tried it on here one idle Friday afternoon and some posters took less than two minutes to be identified in the real world.

Many people unwittingly leave a digital footprint across the internet a mile wide.

Pre Facebook days we found a stray staffy in our road. Word got around and some chav with no teeth turned up saying it was his.. IIRC correctly the actual owner turned up 10 mins later and we managed to track the dog down (somehow, seem to remember it being quite an adventure!)
Can’t imagine how many would have been round to claim it if we’d had social media to advertise on!

if its a small community, they may have a mate in common with one of you who knew where you lived?

Get some sleep. You look tired.

Is that you Jason? We need to talk to you.

Obvious question, did you give your address to the dog warden, who in turn gave it to the owner?

Failing that, it’s always amazing how connected everyone is, particularly if you live somewhere reasonably small. A lot of my Facebook friends know other people I know, though not through me (if you see what I mean!)

The other socks were better

Long shot did your wife tell them where you lived and forgot?

Yes, by far the easiest way would be to ask a friend of a friend on FB, or a F of a F of a F – well, easiest if you want to avoid the whole “Hi, I see you have my dog post on FB”.

What can happen reasonably frequently is someone will send someone they’re not friends a private message on FB, sadly FB defaults these to a sort of unknown mailbox that few know about and less actually check – look for ‘message requests’ which usually is taken by the sender as being ignored and they turn into Internet Supersluthes.

How easily you can be found depends on your secruity settings.

“Your grass needs cutting“

Pot, kettle… 😀

“At which point you asked them how it was that they found you?“

Yes. And from his obviously bullshot answer, it was clear he wasn’t going to tell us. So we all stood around and waited for warden to turn up & scan the dog’s microchip.

“If someone is determined enough and has internet access they could probably find out the identity / address of most people.“

I’m sure that’s true, but wouldn’t the normal response to someone finding your dog be to ask for their address, wait for a reply, and then turn up ? Turning up uninvited is scary/creepy.

FWIW: traveller stock. There’s a few of them in the area but they don’t usually cause any problems. The dog warden was a lovely lady and said she deals with them a lot.

Do you like dags?

Turning up uninvited is scary/creepy.

Are you now worried that they know where you live? .. oh.

Remember the good old days when you used to get a telephone directory sent to your house once a year. Big book that had your name, number and address in it? Those still exist in online form.

Show us your FB profile and we will see how quickly a bunch of STW’ers can arrive…

Show us your FB profile and we will see how quickly a bunch of STW’ers can arrive…

A real name & general area should be enough…

http://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/528632/Identity-theft-fraud-criminals-online-information-Starbucks-coffee-shop-video-prank-Cifas

A real name & general area should be enough…

this. If you’re a company director your home address is all over the internet…

If you’re a company director your home address is all over the internet…

Well your “Correspondence address” which isn’t necessarily the same.

As I have used in the past to locate people on the internet, Death Notices are awesome as they list peoples address and a large chunk of their family. So a couple of names and general area and you are sorted if someone died in last 10 years or so.

Here’s the real technical answer; In theory no, because the data is private. However, Facebook & also Twitter record the spatial data of posts and tweets. This is then used for target marketing and other things at a later date.

So if she used FB or Twitter here content would have spatially related data.

OP posted a photo of the dog with a geotag in it?

How could you see the geotag if it was inside the dog?

🙂

How could you see the geotag if it was inside the dog?

Post of the week 🙂

I’ve taken your washing down but you can mow your own bloody lawn!

Sundayjumper – I came back to this thread to stalk.
So far I have the town you live in, I think street and house.
You have large willow tree in front garden, a drive up the side of the house that goes into the back garden after the garage it seems from above. House looks detached with a hipped roof. One of your neighbours across the way is a florist.

*edit* – like us you have leaded windows in a modern house.

Is that your fence?

A facebook page has your name on it. The person would know the town. Phone book or goggle will do the rest.

I suspect my previously obscure and definitely unhealthy, interest in classic Japanese motorcycles is about to become common knowledge.

Is that your fence?

no he’s just pleased to see you.

701arv
spot on 😉

701arv – i would be more worried about you other ‘interests’..

Name from Facebook, approximate location based on where they lost the dog, and look you up in the phone book for the street adress.

Did you issue the dog with anti-telepathy headgear?

matt_outandabout

Other ‘Interests’

presumably you mean all those incursions into Cambodia in the seventies?

I am ashamed, it’s true.

I have just tried googling myself but it didn’t find my facebook account which is a pity as I think that would have been the route to my real name. Fortunately I have one of the most popular names in the country so that helps on the obscurity front.

Whereas I have the digital footprint the size of Mogolia…

Familiar?