It's My Life

Colour me suspicious, but I never trusted certain social media sites and loyalty-rewards-offering retail stores, so I have always lied about my date of birth.

I never felt that I needed a meaningless greeting once a year from an automated program that could not care more, or less, about my birthday. One could not open an account without inputting a date, but there was no fact check. I think on MySpace, one could even claim a vampire's date of siring.

I just saw proof --or what I take to be proof--that Mr. Sugarmountain (you have to understand basic German to follow the code) leaks.

On Pentester, you only have to enter your year of birth. Nothing more. So, if the full birthdate that you revealed to some site or another shows up, you know that National Public Data acquires information from Mr.SM, or wherever. If your true D.O.B. shows up, you need to worry.

https://npd.pentester.com/search

Pentester has mediocre reviews from subscribers, you do not have to subscribe to see how far and wide your info has been disseminated, and what that info is. What you pay for is for them to scrub it. 

Finding out which old addresses are linked to your SSN for free, is useful. It might also give you a heads up if an identity thief has bought a new property in your name, so, all in all, I would bookmark that site and check it monthly.

Here is a second source:

https://www.pcmag.com/news/is-your-ssn-in-the-national-public-data-breach-heres-how-to-find-out

 

Duck Duck Go has a subscription service for just under $100 a year to remove your info from data broker sites

https://duckduckgo.com/pro?origin=funnel_pro_paidsearchgoogle_prosearchtest_pirkeyword3&gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAjw6JS3BhBAEiwAO9waF3nlHB5N9ZZrCrtaqAjf9ILDhLvABzqHVl-eygT90RVXT9o-nHAkCBoCLvkQAvD_BwE

There is a site similar to the name of my title of this blog article. For a subscription price that seems very reasonable, it claims to be able to remove contact information from multiple "people finder" sites, but the trouble in my experience is that one removes the stuff one day, and it is back up the next, rather like some of the ebook pirating sites of the Oughts (2000s).

Whackamole with your identity, IMHO!

https://erinarvedlund.wordpress.com/2011/04/26/is-mylife-com-a-scam-site-makes-you-pay-to-find-friends-then-makes-your-life-hell/

Experian's advice

https://www.experian.com/blogs/ask-experian/what-to-do-if-information-is-found-on-dark-web/

Reddit discussions tell you that anyone who tells you they can actually remove your social security number etc from the dark web is not being straightforward.

The trouble with Lifelock, Discover, Bank of America, and others, is that they will tell you over and over again for decades about the passwords revealed ages ago by the old romance-novel focused site Fresh Fiction.

Talk about crying Werewolf!

Here's a convenient site with comparisons of the for-subscription sites that will tell you when your information might be exposed.

https://www.consumersadvocate.org/id-theft-protection/lp/best-identity-theft-protection/?pubid=371&skip_geo=1&link_type=go&pd=true&keyword=personal%20information%20protection&gca_campaignid=285629702&gca_adgroupid=154195761789&gca_matchtype=b&gca_network=g&gca_device=c&gca_adposition=&gca_loc_interest_ms=&gca_loc_physical_ms=1023640&gca_creative=677414853974&gad_source=1

The trouble with all of them is that you have to give them the very information that you don't want all the world to know in order for them to monitor it.

The simplest solution, which costs nothing but an hour of your time, is to put a freeze on your credit reports on all four credit reporting sites. You then have to keep in PIN in a safe place, so that you can temporarily remove the freeze if you need to borrow money... and of course, have an "official birthday" like King Charles III for your admirers, and a secret and private real one.

All the best,

Rowena Cherry