Continued from part one.
Let's say there's a person who constantly wants access to you, but they don't know you in real life; they only know you over the internet. What should you do then? Fortunately, it's much easier to turn someone away over the internet since, in many cases, it's as simple as clicking a "Block" button. Assuming this stalker only knows you on a single website, deleting them from your friends list is usually all it takes to remove them from your life. But those who have been in this situation many times before can tell you that it's not always that easy.
It's reasonable to assume that you have at least one or two usernames that you've used on many different websites. A pseudonym you once used on facebook could easily be the same one you used for three different gaming websites you've forgotten about, instagram, an old youtube account you no longer remember, and your active twitter account. If a stalker knows your name on one of these: they could easily know your name on all the others. With all that information at their disposal, it becomes easier for them to find out newer usernames you've started using, too.
They used to only message you on facebook, but now that you've removed them as a friend, they're trying to message you on twitter. You block them on twitter as well, but now they're emailing you, whether you like it or not. Where does it end? Assuming you've made a decision to get them out of your life and you're unwilling to listen to what they have to say, this comes down to two tactics: taking preventive measures and having a solid understanding of the media you use - specifically, how it can be used to contact you or connect you to other media.
Starting with the first, taking preventive measures entails preparing for the worst. On facebook - and any other applicable website or software - this means changing your settings so that as much information as possible on your profile is invisible to people who aren't your friends. Needless to say, this makes it harder for would-be stalkers to learn more about you, especially if they were never friends with you on that particular website.
Another preventive measure is keeping your anonymity intact at every possible opportunity. You should obviously use your real name when making an account on your bank's website, for example, but aside from these scenarios where you need to make an account that's linked to you and your actions in the real world (like a profile on your company's website, if they require all their employees to have one), you should always avoid using your real information.
Is your real name John Doe? Congratulations: your new first and last names online are anything but "John" and "Doe." Feel free to use "Bobby Bobberson," "Will Smith," or even "Jane Wilsterhamptonshire." Anything but your real name. The same is true of things like your cell phone number and any other information that's tied to you in the real world. "But what cell phone number should I use when signing up on websites that can detect fake numbers?" you ask, to which I reply: the number of one of the last telemarketers who called you.
"But what about websites that require you to answer a call or type in a code from a text message?" Consider looking into virtual phone numbers, or just biting the bullet and using your real number for that site, and as few other sites as possible. If possible, edit your profile on such websites so that no one can see your phone number but you. Alternatively, you may not even need to perform such a step.
Gmail has become infamous for requiring most people to verify their new email accounts by answering a text or phone call, but if you use a convincingly real first and last name, do not provide a phone number, do not fill out the "Your current email address" field, and do not choose the "Skip this verification" option, gmail won't force you through the "prove you're not a robot by responding to a text or call" page. (This is one example of the second tactic - having a superb understanding of the media you use - and the first tactic combined.)
You might think, "At least it's alright for me to use my real date of birth." If so, you're wrong! You may have used different pseudonyms and hid your phone number on your profiles, but whoops: you used the exact same date of birth on every website you've ever signed up on. Now, when your stalker finds your facebook profile - which you linked from another website, using a different display name on both of them - they'll be pretty sure that it's you, since you're the one who linked it. Once they see that the date of birth listed on both accounts is exactly the same, any doubt will be removed and they'll know to message you on there. They'll also know a new username they can use to find more information about you.
So, how do you keep up with all this information? By writing it down. What's worked best for me - and considering that this has always worked flawlessly for me and has helped me over a thousand times in the past fifteen years, I can't stress how important is is that you actually do this! - is creating a text file which contains every username, password, and email address that you use when registering on websites. In my opinion, the best syntax is as follows:
Abcwebsite.com
Username
pa [Just the first two or three letters of your password]
myemail@gmail.com
Username2
pa1 [Just the first two or three letters of your password. By the time you made Username2, Abcwebsite.com implemented a new policy where all passwords must contain both numbers and letters. Because of this, for Username2, you used your regular password, but added the number 1 to the end of it. You make a note of this by writing down "pa1" instead of "pa" under this account.]
altemail@yahoo.com
=Bcdwebsite.com=
UnrelatedName
pa [Just the first two or three letters of your password]
totallydifferentemailaddress@gmail.com
Did you notice the two lines worth of empty space between Abcwebsite and Bcdwebsite? This is for readability. You'd be amazed by how much easier it is to read and navigate between your different account names, passwords, and email addresses on various websites when you add two lines of empty space directly above each website name. Meanwhile, using one space between your account names is a good practice, especially since you could easily wind up with ten or more email accounts over the years under a single email service.
Notice that three different usernames, three different email addresses, and two different email providers (gmail and yahoo) were used across two different websites. This was used to maintain anonymity. When your stalker uses a search engine to find more information about you and they only know your "UnrelatedName" username, the only results they'll find are places where that name is mentioned - so they shouldn't be able to find you on Abcwebsite, only Bcdwebsite. Even if they do find you on both, they'll see the many differences in your accounts, and could very well think that those three accounts belong to different people.
The main reason why you should always add your email address when keeping track of your usernames and passwords is because some websites don't have usernames; you log in with your email address and password instead. A secondary - but still important - reason is to recover your account in case something goes wrong, and you don't remember which of your many, many email addresses you used when registering that account. You should always write down the phone number you use, if you even use one, for similar reasons.
The final good practice in this example is =Bcdwebsite.com= itself. The two equals signs around it make it a hundred times faster to find certain websites in your text file, especially when using ctrl+f. Need to find the password to log in to one of your gmail accounts? If you use ctrl+f to search for myemail@gmail.com, you're going to have to slowly go through every single website that you've signed up on using that email address in alphabetical order, until you reach "g" for "gmail." By throwing == around Gmail, all you have to do is type =Gmail= or simply =G to jump straight to your list of gmail accounts when using the ctrl+f command. Not familiar with ctrl+f? Try using it now to see how it works!
(And have you made your text file yet? If not, do so immediately. You'll be glad it exists every time you have to reference it. Gone will be the days of, "Yeah, I have an account on there. I just wish I could remember the password :(" This is another reason why you need to make such a list to deter stalkers: you need to be able to log in to your accounts so you can edit them and remove your personal information, or outright delete them, if possible and when necessary.)
You can also write down the date of birth you use on every website if you want to, but I've never encountered a situation where I needed to input my date of birth to verify that I am who I say I am, except on websites that were owned by banks. On these sites, I used my real date of birth anyway - like any sane person would, since you shouldn't lie when registering a bank account - so there was no need for me to keep track of a fake one.
You can pick any random month, day, and year every time you sign up on a new site, and you should be fine. To not come across as a bot, when choosing your DoB, you should choose years that are within ten years of the one you were born in. And remember the point of this: choose a different month, day, and year every time! There's no point in always claiming that you were born on Halloween or any other day you weren't actually born on if you're going to keep reusing it on every website - the purpose is to show your stalkers different dates, so they think Account1 and Account2 were made by different people, when really, they both belong to you.
(You've remembered to actually make the text file by now,
right? If you don't know how to make a text file, just right click your
desktop, hover your mouse over the word "New," and in the menu that
appears to the right, select "Text Document.")
Continued in part three.
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