I was reading Atrios this morning, when in the comments section on one thread—I don’t usually read the comments threads, because, well, it’s the same ol’ echo chamber and I have dishes to do, but today I read the comments and boy am I glad I did—someone mentioned Anybirthday.com. For some reason I thought it was one of those lists of famous people’s birthdays, and I’m always interested in who was born on my birthday. So I went there and checked it out.
Oh. My. God.
Everyone’s birthday is on there. Everyone’s. Forget famous people: I’m talking about you and me and that guy over there. Well, I can’t say for sure that mine is, because after paging through several screens of “Diane Patterson” I still hadn’t gotten to mine, but I’m going to assume everyone’s is on there. I looked up several people I know, and their birthdays are sure there, so I’m assuming mine is too.
Everything’s available on us these days. It’s really quite shocking.
I was pretty freaked to find my 10 year old son on there.
If it’s any consolation, it appears to be limited to people in the US. Not much consolation if you do live in the US, I know.
Great another tool for phishers. Birthdays are used by some institutions as a secondary ID verification tool.
:Sarcasm:
anybirthday.com helpfully provides address information. Perhaps they could add mothers maiden name, and social security as well…..
:Sarcasm:
I wonder where they obtain the info…