Oh for Heavens sake! There are good security programs available today to stop that nonsense! Get one and stop trying to "Hide from the world".
Randy Cuberly
Sorry, no offense intended, but that is pure BS Randy! There are credit monitoring software, and Life Lock and others, but the sales pitch is better than the product, and most just alert you after the horse is already out of the barn, and assist you in rebuilding your life after the fact.
If you are in the public eye, or own a business, your profile is a matter of public record and you have to bite the bullet and your info is "out there". But putting your personal info into additional areas of the internet where and when unnecessary is just making it easier to be a target. And even businesses, smart ones, use a P.O. Box on their web page, and either use a graphic of their info@ email address, or better still, do NOT publish their email addresses on their web page at all, they make you fill out a FORM to request info. This stops a huge amount of SPAM. And SPAM is where much of the phishing comes from. So they don't have to worry about their secretary opening some email and clicking a link by mistake and getting their server encrypted by ransomware, or letting some key-logger get their passwords.
The weak link is the organics (humans) involved, and falling for something you think is legit. We all have come close or actually have fallen for these ruses, and it is easier when they can affect a more realistic ploy.
It is easy to laugh at the Nigerian Prince who wants to send you millions, just give him your bank account number to wire you funds... but how about this one:
I got a FB request the other day from well known stunt flyer. It even had a picture of him with his plane as his avatar. It was NOT him, I am already friends with him....and if I had accepted, I would have been friends with 2 of the same person, 1 nice stunt guy extraordinaire, and 1 criminal fake, looking to invade my personal life and gain access to me. This is the new reality, the one thing we always feared.
Smarter criminals.Look at the Yahoo hack this month... happened 2 years ago, just finding out now. People who did NOT fill out their profiles fully just have to change their password, or all their passwords on everything they use, if that password is not unique to just Yahoo. People who put in their birthday, favorite color, etc etc etc. are now having to sweat a real chance of identity theft.
Please don't mislead people into an utterly false sense of security, you are not doing them any favors.
Eric