Acts20.com

WHAT IF....What if every security question you have ever used/answered for any number of different websites was collected and placed under your name?If so, they would probably have the following:Your mother's maiden name.Your favorite movie.Your pet's name.The cities you were born in, married in, live in.Your favorite sports team.Your spouse's middle name.Your wife's maiden name.The street you lived on in high school.

Registration forms aren't powered by some central software product and the data held by varying companies is completely separate and independent. No one is collating your answers to security questions and no one could even if they wanted to.

I am no paranoid about it. I simply realize that we give away a LOT of information that could be used against us in some way if someone can bring it together.I am sure that many small companies do not give up any info, but when you consider how interconnected everything is, I have to think that, over time, it would not be too difficult to gather lots of information on you. Consider that if someone could just gain access to your email, they would likely know tons of stuff if they were so inclined.

Sure, that's great, except that's not how any of this works.

Didn't you guys ever watch Person of Interest? (5 seasons on Netflix).The govt collected all of that information in the name of security - and the machine predicted terrorists and lots of other bad things based on it

No -- but would you recommend it? I just caught up to real time on the last show I was watching, and am looking for another one to get into. Yes - the first 3 seasons are excellent.I think a computer guy like yourself will really enjoy it. Jim Caviezel is one of my favorite actors - and he is the star - but the rest of the main cast is good too. It sort of tailed off in the last two seasons - but did sort of close the books on the show in the finale

You're correct, however with about 15 years or more of phishing attempts, corroborative data pooled on the dark web, people giving away their answers with their real profile names on phishing Facebook posts, there is enough to guess your answers out there (or a lot of you anyways). 20 years ago the amount of public (or dark) information on everyone in the world was in the terabytes. Now I read that there is around 250 exabytes that is being mined on a daily basis, much of it is identifiable.My point is be careful out there. Change those passwords you think are so clever but haven't changed them in 10 years, don't answer random FB surveys. Everything you put out there is mined, some just for selling you stuff, some for worse purposes.

Agree with everything here 100%. I was talking from the context of legitimate companies, but you are 100% correct that there ARE bad actors endeavoring to collect everything they can. Thank you for pointing that out.

If someone created a database with each email address and/or name they came across, then, even if the opportunities were far, far apart, added such info that DID come available--either through legit means or leaks or hacks, etc.--that person can assemble an incredible amount of info.It's just my thinking that there are meta-programs out there that scour the internet looking for certain characters--or even certain word usages--that identify the user. From there, phishing and everything else can supply little pieces. For instance, most people use the same passwords over and over. I use different ones for personal info, but when I sign on to some sites, I tend to use the same password, since I can't remember 20 passwords. That can give someone more than an even break in tapping into your information.

Try a password manager. I use and really like KeePass. There are some other options as well. I have an incredibly long master password, and then all of the rest of my passwords are stored in the keeper. They are one-way encrypted in a way that is impossible, without literally billions of years of computer processing time, to hack without my password. When I need a password, I just copy it to my clipboard from the program and use it. The software clears my clipboard automatically after 7 seconds. I have no idea what any of my passwords are -- the software randomly generates passwords for me of the longest possible length (don't even get me started on websites that limit the max length of your password).