I recently wrote a column about privacy on the Internet. Many people still feel unsafe about accessing the Internet and, in particular certain pages and sites where people are concerned about someone monitoring them and invading their privacy and/or computer.
Well a scary thought to many people is, that they are on the Internet and do not even know it. Now you can type a phone number into Google and find who the number belongs to. It also brings up other information about the person. If for some reason the person is included in a web site, those sites will be listed as well.
Web sites such as Switchboard, 411, Phonebook, and Infospace are also sites where you can find the name, telephone number, and in some cases address of anyone who has a listed number anywhere in the world. Infospace takes it even farther and locates you on a map of your town. It does this if your phone number includes a street address.
In browsing through this site I found a star on the street where I live in a map of Neligh, Nebraska. I searched for an Uncle in the Los Angeles area and found a map of major highways and streets that would lead me right to where he lives. You can find business locations, residents, and other information about most towns and cities and none of us had anything to do with putting it on there.
To most of us this is very exciting as we browse these sites looking for long lost relatives or friends. But some people get very defensive when they see their name and address show up on a computer screen.
Something that is fun to do at Internet workshops is to do these searches and have people find relatives and friends. Also, it is fun to see if there are others out there with your same name. Obviously, with some names that is not difficult.
Now you can search for people using google. Just type a persons name in the search box and see what you get. Also, you can find people from a phone number. For instance, if you see a telephone number in the want ads or somewhere, you can find who the person is by typing that number into the google search window.
It is fun to do these searches just to find friends, relatives, and people with similar names. I have even used these searches to find names and addresses of certain people. Many times you need to know something about the person because it is rare that only one person with one name will show up. So, you need to narrow the search by adding more information like the state or town in which they might live. But it can be rather scary to some people to know that anyone in the world can set down to their computer and find where they live.
Nowadays with all of the new technology that has come about, there are even more ways people can be found on the Internet. However, many of these include only names of people who have entered themselves into the site.
