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That "fun" quiz is stealing your identity

It seems every other post on social media is asking us to participate in some fun and seemingly innocent game.

While this may, MAY, be the case with things that you friends copy and re-post, the chances are that what's really happening is that your identity is being stolen piece by piece.


Mostly they are trying to trick you into revealing the likely answers to your online password recovery options.


You know, "what high school did you go to?", "What's your mother's maiden name?" and so on.


I can sense some puckering happening at your end there.


Yep, these things are starting to sound very familiar aren't they?


More information here:


While we are at it, stop playing with face morphing and other image altering app's and games.


They too are part of the drip fed theft of your identity.


More information here:

In fact anything that tries to get any personal information from you should be regarded with extreme suspicion.


With identity theft, like most major disasters, there's rarely one big thing that causes it.


Big disasters are usually the result of many smallers failures being ignored over a significant period of time.


What I am saying is, you may be poo-pooing what I am saying now, but you won't be down the track when your bank account gets emptied mysteriously.


The folks who built the Space Shuttle thought they'd be fine ignoring lots of problems and warnings from concerned staff...twice!


So how do you battle this when you really, REALLY want or NEED to play that game?


Well, if I am "forced" to record personal data with something I don't trust I use false information.


There's nothing compelling you to answer these things truthfully, but if you ever want to get back in or recover your access to these things you will need to keep good record of your lies :-)


This is why using a password management tool can be of significant benefit.


Most people struggle with keeping track of their passwords let alone the false information they may provide around them.


That's why I use 1Password for not only passwords, but also lies about passwords.


Of course, if the things you play are disposable then you don't have to worry about remembering your lies :-)


Stay safe people and don't tell the internet anything.


David



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