dreamshark (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
dreamshark) wrote2022-11-16 05:07 pm
dreamshark) wrote2022-11-16 05:07 pm
Oh, no! My phone number was found on the Dark Web!
Gosh, I remember when my phone number was available to anybody with a phone book. Which was everybody with a phone.
Man, that's a blast from the past. Remember phone books?
Man, that's a blast from the past. Remember phone books?
no subject
There is certainly a difference between being doxed and simply being available. And yes, there have always been reasons to have unlisted numbers, which is why phone companies offered that service even in the days of phone books. But so far I don't seem to have suffered any harm from the presence of my publicly available contact information allegedly being "on the dark web."
Passwords and credit card numbers are more concerning, which is why I pay at least a little bit of attention to these dire warnings from that Experian service that I somehow got a free subscription to. So far, the only password that seems to be out there in DarkWebLand is the one that I use for situations when I don't see any need for a password at all, but I can't proceed without providing one.
no subject
Yes. Not recently, but it was disturbing. There have been more recent incidents among people close to me, including my housemate of a year ago.
Check on https://haveibeenpwned.com/ to see what information of yours has been revealed in data breaches; and https://haveibeenpwned.com/Passwords to check passwords.
Another reason to be cautious is the amount of spam, phishing, etc. these days -- Your address and phone number are public information, but if they're in a spammer's database they're much more likely to get used.
no subject
K.
no subject
Read the docs on the site -- the protocol for checking is pretty secure. And the site has been around for several years and has a good reputation.