That's a very good question. Having lived though the start of personal adds in the newspaper though the development of internet dating and meeting sites, and having experienced scams and of course now constant scam attempts I have changed over the years.
Long time ago I used my first name (or a variation on it) as my user name (its fairly rare - I think I have met less than 10 other people in my life with the same 1st name). People today still find forums that I participated on long ago and what I wrote by searching that first name (and I still participate in a few of those forums even now under my original "first name" based user name - I've litterly been on some forums for decades).
Then I changed to pseudo names for user names; and if a name was required I provided my 1st name and even my phone number (and lived to regret that in some cases).
Now if a name is requested from most forums (and especially dating sites) I have a standard statement about how most people are honest; however, scammers are common, so for both of us and our safety pseudo names and anonymous phone numbers are acceptable until we meet a few times in person and are comfortable with each other.
In these cases I provide my middle name (with an email address based on my middle name that is untraceable to me, and I have a Tracfone that I paid cash for that is only refilled via cash purchased refill cards and has never ever connected to my home WiFi so it cannot be traced to me). That works. No one have objected (and many have thanked me for that).
My wife and I are very happy with this method as I there were 2 previous blackmail attempts against me when I provided my real phone number (somehow they were able to access the contact list on my phone).
If its a professional forum they get my real name, then either my personal or one of 2 business phone numbers. I've rarely had problems on professional forums.
Thanks. You might wish to research "protonmail.com" and its advantages.
I only access it through a VPN to hide my location.
I only access this site through a VPN as well (using firefox with maximum security and privacy settings), or Tor Browser (you should read up on that as well; and when you use it just use the default browser screen size - as that prevents anyone from knowing our computer screen size. Note:Tor uses an extremely secure and privacy maximized version of Firefox as its browser) - which also hides my computer info and location. For what I expect to be really suspect sites - I use both a VPN and Tor.
How should I answer when asked for my name by strangers online... And why?
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That's a very good question. Having lived though the start of personal adds in the newspaper though the development of internet dating and meeting sites, and having experienced scams and of course now constant scam attempts I have changed over the years.
Long time ago I used my first name (or a variation on it) as my user name (its fairly rare - I think I have met less than 10 other people in my life with the same 1st name). People today still find forums that I participated on long ago and what I wrote by searching that first name (and I still participate in a few of those forums even now under my original "first name" based user name - I've litterly been on some forums for decades).
Then I changed to pseudo names for user names; and if a name was required I provided my 1st name and even my phone number (and lived to regret that in some cases).
Now if a name is requested from most forums (and especially dating sites) I have a standard statement about how most people are honest; however, scammers are common, so for both of us and our safety pseudo names and anonymous phone numbers are acceptable until we meet a few times in person and are comfortable with each other.
In these cases I provide my middle name (with an email address based on my middle name that is untraceable to me, and I have a Tracfone that I paid cash for that is only refilled via cash purchased refill cards and has never ever connected to my home WiFi so it cannot be traced to me). That works. No one have objected (and many have thanked me for that).
My wife and I are very happy with this method as I there were 2 previous blackmail attempts against me when I provided my real phone number (somehow they were able to access the contact list on my phone).
If its a professional forum they get my real name, then either my personal or one of 2 business phone numbers. I've rarely had problems on professional forums.
Hope this helps,
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Anonymous Post Author
2 years ago
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That's an impressive amount of care!
I've already read this twice and you've raised some really good points.
Still need to read it a few more times to digest properly, but thank you!
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olderdude-xx
2 years ago
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Thanks. You might wish to research "protonmail.com" and its advantages.
I only access it through a VPN to hide my location.
I only access this site through a VPN as well (using firefox with maximum security and privacy settings), or Tor Browser (you should read up on that as well; and when you use it just use the default browser screen size - as that prevents anyone from knowing our computer screen size. Note:Tor uses an extremely secure and privacy maximized version of Firefox as its browser) - which also hides my computer info and location. For what I expect to be really suspect sites - I use both a VPN and Tor.
I hope that helps you...