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Caught your eye, eh? Admittedly, the title is meant to be a hook. However, the extent to which it grabbed your attention is negligible when compared to the effect it has on automated information collection systems. These are known by a number of different names; “robots”, “‘bot’s”, “web crawlers”, and “crawlers” are some of the more common ones. For the sake of clarity, I’ll collectively call them, “Crawlers”.  Crawlers are software that silently scans or “crawls”  the web looking for useful content. This information gathering can be completely legitimate. It can also be shady or even criminal.

An example of the legitimate use of crawlers is the so called “Googlebot”. There are many different kinds of crawlers that Google uses depending on the functions that are being supported. The so called “Googlebot” goes from one web domain to another indexing the contents for it’s search engine. Another example of the legitimate use of crawlers is software that searches the internet for education or research projects independent of traditional search engines.

There is a type of crawler which is shady in it’s purposes, but often stays just this side of the criminal. It’s purpose is to gather personal information that otherwise wouldn’t easily be available to the general public. An example of this is the bulk harvesting of email addresses from the internet. This kind of massive database building yields a potentially profitable product that can be sold, leased, or used to market spam and other nuisance email. Ever wondered how that “Turn-key travel agency home business” knew your email address five minutes after you created the account?

The criminal uses for crawlers is fairly obvious. The internet exists to transport information in one form or another. It has no other purpose. A great deal of personal and confidential information that would not otherwise be available can be trolled out of the internet ocean. There is so much information about every person, that having even a minuscule source can be enough to severely victimize individuals or groups. The internet is a goldmine for profitable crimes such as identity theft and scams.

Keep this in mind when you consider the activities of crawlers; information is like a gun - it can’t act on it’s own but it’s potentially very powerful. Information simply exists. The extent to which information can harm or help is dependent on several factors; the actions of the person(s) using it and their goals, or a person simply being made aware of information without actually acting on it.

Information itself has no morality or values. Access to it does. Not everybody should have access to every source. Not all information is appropriate for everybody on this planet. This is common sense. For instance, it’s known what sizes underwear come in because you can see the brands in the store. That’s public. The size and style I wear is private information, and there are only two people that know. It’s not a matter of national security, but I don’t want people at work knowing my size and brand. But if I type:

I bought a pair of banana hammocks for a special encounter.

before you can say, “spam and eggs”, A crawler will have harvested, indexed and filed this sentence along with the rest of this article into a database , and as a result, I will probably get spammed shortly after I publish this article.

Information can be extremely, critically damaging. It can be embarrassing. It can be enlightening or fun. Information is many different things and can be used for many different purposes. This really brings me to the point.

Don’t expose yourself on the internet.

You may not realize it, but every bit of information you put on the internet, in any form, becomes a permanent part of many, many different databases that exist for as many different purposes. It doesn’t matter if you later decide to delete it or modify the info. Once you save that facebook entry, it’s out there permanently, often just a Google or Yahoo! away. So if you ever use your real name, especially first and last, you are identifying yourself permanently. If you ever put your picture out there, you are providing a personal link to you that you may not want to give to others. If you put both, you are providing enough information for an individual to learn much more sensitive information about you. Confidential? If you type it, it’s out there. Be paranoid. My mother used to say, “just because you’re paranoid dosen’t mean they aren’t out to get you.

Don’t upload family photo’s to a website or make a youtube of them. You are exposing your family to the potential of being harmed by anonymous cyber stalkers, criminals, private investigators and even content for other sites.  If you are going through a situation that involves personal issues like a divorce or unusual relationship situations , Private investigators can use what is freely available on the internet to collect information about you and your family and/or track you down for a client.

As for the aforementioned family photos or other mementos, make sure the others involved are ok with it. Showing the family photo’s current and past, is a very effective way of giving the world a look into your life that can be used against you and others. Just be aware that there are many people out there that can take a little personal information and build on it to get a great deal more about you. Things you don’t want them to know like social security numbers and drivers licenses.

Be safe,

Denigris

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