Your general location

[Ed Aumiller]

I wish it was required to post your general location on your profile...
I have "Shenandoah Valley in VA" on mine... it gives an area that
you can relate to, etc....
NOT an address, just a general area...

[Doug Dawson]

I wish it was required to post your general location on your profile...
I have "Shenandoah Valley in VA" on mine... it gives an area that
you can relate to, etc....
NOT an address, just a general area...
I generally do when it’s relevant. However, most people shouldn’t like self-doxxing, particularly if they have significant assets. (The internet can be a venal place, there is no rest for the wicked.)

Posting pictures is an egregious example of that, because of the geotagging etc., among other hacks.

[Ronald Blue]

I'm in agreement Ed. Especially when a post asks a question that a general area would help shed light on. In advice given or what they might have in their area for resources or weather related challenges or who knows?

[Rob Damon]

Ed,

Some folks do not want to let the bad people know where they live in fear someone might make a midnight run on their home shop.

With a real name here and even a general location like "Virginia" can zoom in on your location and information.

Ed C. Aumiller II, Mau........, VA
Maybe related to: R.E. Aumiller, T.B. Aumiller, etc.
Age: 50's
Lived in: T.B, Va., Ed......, VA
If that is you, $4.99 will get even more details. This was for free.

If that is you, it took just 10 seconds to find. (I have edited down some of the info above.)

I post mine because I have two alarm systems, cctv and self protection assets and county sheriff that live a few houses down that parks his police car out front. I also have a lot of nosey nellies in the neighbor hood.

Rob

[Jim Koepke]

I'm in agreement Ed. Especially when a post asks a question that a general area would help shed light on. In advice given or what they might have in their area for resources or weather related challenges or who knows?

Often someone will ask for help finding an item. With no idea of where they are located what kind of answer can one give?

If someone is in Portland, OR then some of my favorite places nay be shared with them.

Even things like lumber selection. We do not get Southern Yellow Pine out here in the west. You likely don't get much redwood in the east. Heck, we don't get much of it in the northwest either.

jtk

[Bill Dufour]

Everytime some one with no location asks a question where climate is critical I always ask "location, Climate?" If in search of a particular item i will usually ask continent or make a rsponse based on their last name.
Questions like how much insulation should my shop have. Do I need to have heat in the shop. Is x% moisture content low enough?
Bill D.

[Ole Anderson]

Some folks are new to the Creek and simply don't know how to give their location or how valuable it can be when asking questions. Others are paranoid, that is ok too. Others are risk takers. Most lie in the middle.

[Ronald Blue]

I'm inclined to think the risk is low in here but what do I know? I think Keith does a good job screening. Back when I joined I was rejected initially I suppose because of my uncommon name. I know there isn't any shortage of shady characters in this world. They've been trying to get me to renew my car warranty for months now.

[Tom Stenzel]

Since my name, address and phone number was in the last printed phone book I'm pretty easy to find.

Every miscreant and con artist calls my house. One time the *IRS* called and said if I didn't pay money they would send the local police to come arrest me. I told him it's about time, I haven't paid taxes in 15 years and I wanted to meet him personally so I could pay him with hot lead. I haven't heard back from him.

OK, so maybe I have filed and paid taxes for the last 15 years. But he didn't know that and why let the truth mess up a great line?

Before I moved I had the same phone number from 1965 until 2002. Someone I hadn't heard from would call and say I was hard to find. Obviously reading a phone book wasn't their strong suit.

Well, having my name listed in the phone book beats having my name listed in the obituaries!

-Tom

[Stephen Rosenthal]

I'm inclined to think the risk is low in here but what do I know? I think Keith does a good job screening.

You don’t need to be a member or contributor to access the personal information. It’s there for all the world to see on the wonderful thing we call the Internet (sarcasm intended). I wonder if there is a way to limit access to our personal info to contributors only, a la The Lumber Yard forum. Something for our Administrators to ponder?

[Bill Dufour]

Classic example in the last week is a guy, location unknown, bought some wood, species unknown, and it split. He is wondering if it will split more as it dries, climate unknown. So he wants to know how to deal with the situation.
From his name I am guessing he is in Scotland? No response to my standard location and climate question.
Of course on a metal working site I frequent there is a guy from a small city in Guinea-Bassu who is careful to mention where he is and how hard it can be to locate materials. Many responders obviously miss that fact and tell him that stuff is carried at any big box store in the xxxxxx section. Very few companies will ship to any part of Africa. His shop does have a street name but no address numbers in his town.
Bill D

[Jim Koepke]

Often someone is experiencing a problem with a tool or wondering which tool might work best for them.

My standard suggestion is to list their location in their profile as there may be another SMC member in their area who would be willing to help them or to set up a visit to test drive a particular plane or other tool.

This has worked well for many members including myself meeting others in and around their area.

One was a member with a very common name who was having troubles registering on SMC. He wasn't exactly clear about whether it was he couldn't remember the string of numbers he used after his name or if he forgot his password. That doesn't matter. He looked me up in the phonebook and gave me a call. We have visited each other a few times. Last time was before the covid mess started. He lives in a city with one of my favorite stops for rust hunting when my travels take me that way. He didn't know about the shop so we went there to rust hunt and found a block plane that has been on my want list for years at a great price.

Knowing another member's location can lead to friends we haven't yet met.

jtk

[Kev Williams]

Our house has also been an engraving shop ever since we moved here in 1969, I was 14 then, I'll be 67 in July. We have people come and go all day, if the neighbors and cops didn't know better they'd think we were selling drugs ;) --Google put us up a free online ad about 5 years ago. For most of those 5 years a pic of our house is on the ad. Haven't had any negatives because of it. And with just any simple street coordinates Google Earth can take you right to the front door.

There's no hiding these days... :(

[ChrisA Edwards]

Our house has also been an engraving shop ever since we moved here in 1969, I was 14 then, I'll be 67 in July. We have people come and go all day, if the neighbors and cops didn't know better they'd think we were selling drugs ;) --Google put us up a free online ad about 5 years ago. For most of those 5 years a pic of our house is on the ad. Haven't had any negatives because of it. And with just any simple street coordinates Google Earth can take you right to the front door.

There's no hiding these days... :(

And yet, we have no idea, for members of this forum, what part of the world you reside from your profile

[Ed Aumiller]

Rob,

"Some folks do not want to let the bad people know where they live in fear someone might make a midnight run on their home shop."

Most folks that want to do a "Midnight run" do not go to forums to pick/find targets.. Too much work...

Also, unless they show up at most shops with plenty of help, it would be difficult to take the expensive items,
i.e. heavy tablesaw, heavy lathe, etc...

incidentally, your search yielded the wrong person... However, a look in a phone book would have found me...

We have had alarms on house, shop, garage for over 30 years... Never needed them, but true, you never know... ...

[Kev Williams]

And yet, we have no idea, for members of this forum, what part of the world you reside from your profile
That's because, due to an unfortunate incident from way back, I've done my best to keep my PERSONAL self as anonymous as possible over the years. Because of my business self I'm pretty easy to find regardless :)

[Lee DeRaud]

With a real name here and even a general location like "Virginia" can zoom in on your location and information.If your name is obscure enough, a "general location" is quite unnecessary. (And yes, if my dad's genealogy research was accurate, all the others are related to me.)
Long ago (well before the internet existed), I decided that trying to hide was a fool's errand.

[Keith Outten]

Hiding from people who have advanced Internet skills is just about impossible, particularly Unix administrators.

[Doug Dawson]

Hiding from people who have advanced Internet skills is just about impossible, particularly Unix administrators.
Are you saying that UNIX administrators should be particularly concerned? I agree. :^)

Only participate in forums that have trustworthy administrators. That rules out some large corporate entities.

FWIW, security by obscurity is no security at all. It always gets worse. Be careful out there.

[Tony Zona]

I am wondering why people think anybody gives a big, hairy rat's tukas who or where they are.

I have lived my life publicly as a newspaper columnist and editor for a long, long time, and I have never had a problem with anybody sneaking around to harm me. The difficulties came from people who clearly threatened and those threats were neutralized by authorities.

For a long time, also, I was a partner in an internet forum. Never was there any danger from that public exposure. (Sadly, the business group I was part of did not require public identification of posters. I was ignorant then, but I myself was publicly identified.)

I feel the internet sites that allow people to actually post would be better off if all posters were publicly identifiable.

I don't care who you are or where you are until you say something like "around here" in your post. Where is "here?" I'm curious. I'm not coming for you. I just want to know where you are roughly. After all, you raised the point. If you don't say where "here" is, your post is relatively meaningless. Saying, "Oak goes for $4 a board foot around here" is bullpucky. Tell me where that price is if your going to bring it up. (That is not as bad as the poster who says something like, "This shop costs me a pretty penny." For goodness sake. Just shut up about it if you don't want to say how much. What exactly is a pretty penny? Do you think the bandits will come for you if they know what "a pretty penny" is? If you are trying to tell me how rich you are, I don't care. Nobody cares.)

There are Creek posters near me and they have never hunted me down. If they did, though, they better be prepared. I'll set down a beverage of their choice in front of them and we'll laugh and grin for a while.

I decline to navigate this world in fear.

[Ronald Blue]

There are Creek posters near me and they have never hunted me down. If they did, though, they better be prepared. I'll set down a beverage of their choice in front of them and we'll laugh and grin for a while.

I decline to navigate this world in fear.[/QUOTE]

Well stated Tony. It's far more likely whomever is looking to take your personal property already lives nearby then they are to track you down here. I've got to go....someone is calling about my car warranty.

[Doug Dawson]

I decline to navigate this world in fear.
it’s not about fear. It’s about respecting traditional boundaries. There’s a whole lot about what’s going on right now that you don’t seem to appreciate. :^/

[Tony Zona]

Explain it to me, please.

[Alex Zeller]

Most thieves are too lazy. If they can sit behind a computer screen and get you to enter sensitive data that's what they will do. But if they have to actually drive to your house and figure out where stuff is kept then they are going to be less tempted. Next is how much is theft of an issue in your area? Some people live in very rural areas where it could take an hour to drive there from where crime is a problem. When I was much younger I worked in a city and it wasn't that unusual to have people walk in off the street with used "items" they wanted to sell. It became clear that most of this stuff came from job sites and parking lots. Places where they could sneak into and out of quickly without standing out.

Try doing a google search for yourself and just your state. Unless you have a real common name you'll most likely still show up. If you're worried than what you really should do is change your name when you sign up.

[Roger Feeley]

I had a friend who wasn't at all concerned who knew his address. He was a gunsmith and any work he did for law enforcement officers was no charge. His specialty was something with fine tuning trigger pressure on Glocks. So pretty much every cop in the greater Kansas City metro was his friend and had been to his house. He used to joke that if his address ever came up on 911 the street would be packed with off-duty cops.

[Perry Hilbert Jr]

I am certainly not that internet saavy, but for my work, a certain amount of snooping was required. I can often find a person, even when cops are having trouble. Sometimes people were easy to find. One guy damaged my client's car and then told the insurance company that the accident was my client's fault. My client's car was parked and unattentended at the time. We had to file suit and the guy had been moving all over the place, even county to county. The process server couldn't find him to serve the papers. I contacted a fellow who finds such people for a living. Paid the guy $100 and 20 minutes later, I had 70 pages of information about the guy. Pictures of him, pictures of his vehicles, where he last worked, shoe size, medical records, bars where he uses credit cards, people he associates with, relatives, where his ex wives and kids reside. Family doctor, and also, where he most recently ordered items on line and had them delivered. The process server cornered the guy at a bar and served him. Turns out the guy I paid to do the search, is some computer hacker/genius hiding in Canada some where.

[Clifford McGuire]

The times are a changin'.

I work for a software company that does business in Europe and we've had to radically change how we handle PII (Personally Identifiable Information). We have to protect info like names/phone numbers/addresses from the public. And we have to have a way to erase every trace of it if the user requests it.

It's coming to the US. California has passed legislation that is at least as restrictive as the European Union.

I wouldn't be surprised if someday it affects Sawmill Creek.

[Anuj Prateek]

If someone is active on Internet, basic set of personally identifiable information is already available. Then based on country (public domain records), a lot more can be discovered if some is really inclined.

Key is to not have this information available in bulk. Most of the websites - forums & e-commerce - don't have resources or technical know-how to prevent scraping/leaking of such information from their websites.

Personally, I prefer not to provide any information that's not relevant to a website. If a website asks anything beyond name, email, city, and age I get uncomfortable. Similarly, I avoid most websites that doesn't my support PayPal or asks to set "Password Recovery Question".

[Brian Elfert]

That seems like a lot of paranoia if you won't even set a password recovery question. They are only trying to protect your account. A lot of sites will no longer allow things like your mother's maiden name. i hate a lot of the security questions because I don't have answers to them. I have never been married, have never had a pet (even as a child), and no children either.

[Brian Elfert]

The times are a changin'.

I work for a software company that does business in Europe and we've had to radically change how we handle PII (Personally Identifiable Information). We have to protect info like names/phone numbers/addresses from the public. And we have to have a way to erase every trace of it if the user requests it.

It's coming to the US. California has passed legislation that is at least as restrictive as the European Union.


That day is going to absolutely going to suck if the US does what Europe did. A lot of businesses are going to have to spend a LOT of money complying. A lot of software it would difficult to erase every trace of someone's data. Many websites will probably end up spending the money to develop a whole new back end to comply with the new requirements. My employer has data on customers going back a long, long time.

My employer has archives of old systems for financial and legal reasons. It would suck big time to have to go into those old systems to remove someone's data.

[Lee DeRaud]

One thing that drives me crazy is that people deliberately post stuff that used to be (semi-)private for the whole world to see and then go full state-secret about stuff that used to be (semi-)public.

In the not so distant past, a big book of street addresses and phone numbers of everyone in town would show up on my driveway every year. Now people think they should burn their computer and start over from scratch because their email address showed up in some database in Estonia.

[Anuj Prateek]

That seems like a lot of paranoia if you won't even set a password recovery question. They are only trying to protect your account. A lot of sites will no longer allow things like your mother's maiden name. i hate a lot of the security questions because I don't have answers to them. I have never been married, have never had a pet (even as a child), and no children either.

These answers by definition are supposed to be simple to remember - and - relatively simple to guess.

Before two factor authentication started to get adopted, these were one of the simple ways to get into anyone's account.

Its not whether a website has good intent, it about whether they have means to protect data they collect. Since it's usually not easy to ascertain, it's better to not collect or provide any unnecessary data.

[Brian Elfert]

Its not whether a website has good intent, it about whether they have means to protect data they collect. Since it's usually not easy to ascertain, it's better to not collect or provide any unnecessary data.

You apparently prefer that anyone can reset your password to a website without any authentication?

[Anuj Prateek]

You apparently prefer that anyone can reset your password to a website without any authentication?

There are alternate means. Reset link is pretty common. My preference is websites use any of the big Open ID providers.

[Dwayne Watt]

That seems like a lot of paranoia if you won't even set a password recovery question. They are only trying to protect your account. A lot of sites will no longer allow things like your mother's maiden name. i hate a lot of the security questions because I don't have answers to them. I have never been married, have never had a pet (even as a child), and no children either.
there is no rule you need real answers for such questions. You just need an answer. Use any name you wish (and will remember) for nonexistent children. Hackbarth would be memorable and certainly not traceable to you (Well, it might now be...).

[Bill Dufour]

When my Mom worked on the Manhattan project in Tennesse during the war The People from Berkeley called it Podunk. The FBI told them that was too obvious and would draw attention from spies. I think they just called it "the job site" from then on.
Bill D

[Bobby Fletcher]

That seems like a lot of paranoia if you won't even set a password recovery question. They are only trying to protect your account. A lot of sites will no longer allow things like your mother's maiden name. i hate a lot of the security questions because I don't have answers to them. I have never been married, have never had a pet (even as a child), and no children either.

Such question are made to get more data about you. I do not think that moderators and owners of this forum use this data somehow. But a lot of other websites can gather this data for some statistics or to manipulate with your data. And if you do not want to share your location or any other info you can be sure that if someone wants to know where you are he can use any sim card location tracker (https://celltrackingapps.com/sim-card-location-tracker/) to detect where you are and learn all other important information.

[Roger Feeley]

In the not so distant past, a big book of street addresses and phone numbers of everyone in town would show up on my driveway every year.

Hmmm.. You made me realize that I haven't seen a phone book for about 5 years. Good. Those things went straight to the recycle bin. At one time, I tried to get off the distribution list and failed. Well, I tried anyway...

[Jim Koepke]

Hmmm.. You made me realize that I haven't seen a phone book for about 5 years. Good. Those things went straight to the recycle bin. At one time, I tried to get off the distribution list and failed. Well, I tried anyway...

So many people with cell phones have canceled their land lines it can be costly to get phonebooks to only those subscribers with landlines.

jtk

[Doug Dawson]

In the not so distant past, a big book of street addresses and phone numbers of everyone in town would show up on my driveway every year.
There are people, maybe even here on this forum, who don’t know that you could get an “unlisted number” for your “landline”. Those were the days.

[Kev Williams]

There was 'unlisted', which meant you're info wasn't in the phone book, BUT an operator could look you up-

And there was "unpublished", not in the book AND operators could NOT look you up.

[Brian Elfert]

Hmmm.. You made me realize that I haven't seen a phone book for about 5 years. Good. Those things went straight to the recycle bin. At one time, I tried to get off the distribution list and failed. Well, I tried anyway...

Yellow Pages were great before the Internet. They were even still good in the early days of the Internet before a lot of stuff went online. Some days I miss being able to find a plumber or whatever by simply opening the Yellow Pages. Now days you have to watch out for all the websites online that are national services that only refer you to a local plumber, electrician, etc.