I was having one of those "whatever happened to" conversations with a friend I've known since I was a teenager. One person we knew didn't participate in any social media, but it was surprising how much information was out there. :eek:

It's very easy to do that which you claim is remarkably difficult to fake.

It's even easier for females or for those who are thought (by some at least) to be female. ;)

The information is public -- it's just that there's no absolutely no reliable mapping (reduced or otherwise ;)) between a person and the information google returns when given their passport name. Nor is there any reliable relationship between what google turns up and reality. You'd have to be crazy-stupid to use anything that google handed you either positively or negatively.

If someone wanted to appear to be a "well-known professional", it would be trivial to create a LinkedIn account with 100 connections. (Do you really think there aren't services that do this for people seeking e.g. US or Canadian visas?)

On the other hand, I know many very successful professionals who don't have have linkedin or facebook pages at all or just have an empty placeholder that they never use. (I've never felt any need for one.)

For my own name (which isn't terribly common), google seems to identify several distinct women, including a yoga instructor, an audiologist, a college track athlete, and a woman who seems go out drunken partying a lot. Unfortunately, google also thinks that one of these woman writes a great deal of rather creepy soft porn with a disturbingly high page rank. How would I (or any of us (or all but one of us :eek:)) prove to the Canadian authorities that they're not her? (If she's even using her real name...)

Don't confuse the ease of creating a profile with the ease of making it look real. Anyone who uses the various social sites as the tools of their trade can spot a fake profile instantly, especially when coupled with other information that an immigration officer is likely have.


Really now? So if an immigration officer Googles me (along with my city or my current employer, since I too have a common name that returns everything from athletes to convicted felons) then sees a LinkedIn profile that corroborates my story, a Facebook profile as well, a Twitter feed that shows me having used that service for four years and has evidence of numerous verifiably real people speaking to me, then sees a quote from me in the newspaper or a panel I served on at a conference, they'd be crazy stupid to draw the conclusion that I must be who I say I am?

How silly.

If a CBP officer Googles me and sees all of the information out there that's already public anyway (most of which I allow to be out there), then sends me on my way faster as a result, I really don't see the big deal.


Edited to add:

Google doesn't "think" anything. Google returned search results of pages on the Web. Those search results (assuming what you say is true) show a lot of "creepy soft porn" written by the woman in question. Those pages' PageRank have absolutely nothing to do with how likely an observer is to draw a connection between you and the person in question, and PageRank in general is a tiny fraction of what goes into a particular site's appearance on the high side of search results. Cross checked with information beyond one's name (as I said, city, employer, and so on), any idiot would likely conclude there are two different people in play.

Without going into detail, I can say beyond any doubt whatsoever that references previous posters have made to MapReduce, PageRank, and other Google technologies (Let me guess... looking for a way to make a weak reference to BigTable or GFS?) are backed by miniscule to zero knowledge of the technologies themselves, and should be ignored entirely.

"Robin Sage" would disagree with you.

(If she was real)

http://www.computerworld.com/s/artic..._network_risks

Run your name through Spokeo or Intellius...go ahead and pay the 5.00 for your information on Intellius..you might be unpleasantly suprised.

I worry much less about US Government than I do about Data Aggregators. At least the goverment has laws and controls on how they use data. Commercial organizations don't.

+1

They are wildly inaccurate. And they make their business by selling data. What kind of recipe for disaster is that?

OMG that is creepy. Remarkably accurate, and yet some glaring errors, too.

The only confusion is that which your post above is communicating.

That someone can often spot a fake profile doesn't mean that that someone will always instantly (if ever) spot a profile as fake even when they come across the fake profile.

Not all fake profiles are of equal "quality".

Plenty of misinformation pulled up by those searches. Even some dead dogs are thought to be living persons according to one or both of the above providers of data.

Commercial organizations that aggregate personal information should be subject to tighter scrutiny and laws that regulate them a lot more than is the case currently. Same goes for government organizations.

Ugh... why do you keep changing the argument? You're making the opposite argument than is clearly intended in the OP, which I keep making.

I never said one should rely on public data as the only source, and I never said social media profiles are the only source that should be relied on.

* Numerous social profiles on multiple sites
* Conversations with real people who verify I'm real on those sites
* Quotes from me in the newspaper
* Participation on panels at actual industry conferences -- perhaps even complete with a video

And you're saying that using all that public info *in addition to* info a CBP officer already has is a stupid means of the CBP officer thinking "Yup, you're who you say you are... have a nice day"?

What exactly are you arguing that we're giving up here?

Let's just don the tinfoil hats and call it a day. :rolleyes:

If only that were the case.

If only that were the case.

So you say.

Actually you are saying that.

:rolleyes: Not everything is an argument.

1. Given misinformation is part of the internet picture -- or even perhaps the whole picture -- reliance upon online searches of Google can be an invitation to relying upon fiction.

2. It's very easy to do that which you claim is remarkably difficult to fake.

My dog was offered a credit card as well as a spot in a beauty pageant.

My cat was given a credit card and got a 25000 mile bonus which he graciously gifted to me with a ticket!

Stuff like that has been going on long before the internet came along. I guess my outside cats are off the grid though; no CC offers or bonus miles for me. :D

Dan Savage is taking suggestions for redefining his first name, as he still believes mandatory pink triangles (and all that comes with it) are a good idea. So anyone named Rick should be forewarned.

Current leader defines "Ricking" as a disgusting act involving the last name.