Perfect example of how street addresses have been used for identity thefts

I've been wondering that Finnish company gives street addresses of people for everyone in the web for search. Here's my posts (original and followup) about that one. I just read this morning about a guy who hijacked women's email and FB accounts anf blackmailed those with nude photos he found from send folders.

So the problem is that in many social media sites you bypass password login with a security question. And those can be something like "which street did you grew up?" or "street name of childhood home?". Using that information you can get in without password.

Now if you take that, social media services and the service you can get street addresses, it's damn easy to hijack some accounts. First find out for example who are someone's parents, then check parents home address and try to use that one. I bet that works for many.

And there's many smaller harm making possibilities with sharing home address, like someone can order you all the free vacation and shopping catalogs delivered to you post box and other similar things.

I rest my case.

Written by +Henri Hämäläinen