Story Time!
In undergrad, one professor in particular instilled fear in students the way no other could. When people spotted him down the halls, they would spin on their heel, dive into bathrooms, or leap through open windows to escape.
It's not that he mean or rude (quite the contrary) – it was because he couldn’t stop telling extremely long and boring stories.
He’d start off with something related to the class or an assignment, but quickly branch off with, “This is a lot like the kind of thing you’d see in Indiana – that’s where my brother and I grew up. Now he never did computers like I did of course; Mother wanted him to help on the farm since I was leaving so he’s been there since ’78… or was it ’79? It was ’78. That was the year we had that big drought… or wait, maybe it was ’79 because we still had Trigger then… Trigger was my dog, but he died in ’80…” (and so on for several agonizing minutes).
In what I came to call "Old man disease" after my cartoonishly repellent professor, I learned that people tend to spew unwanted detail about themselves (especially online). You have to fight that impulse and learn now how important it is (both as a conversationalist and for safety) to be as vague as reasonably possible.
Omitting unnecessary detail is better for conversation and for safety!As an example, let's say you're traveling and someone asks, "where are you from?" I'd bet you know better than to give turn-by-turn directions to your address and telling them "the key is under the mat!". That's a good start, but what do you say? How much detail should we withhold?
That's exactly backwards. From now on, instead of thinking about what you shouldn't say, consider what you should (if anything). Start by deciding if you want to answer at all and, if yes, ask yourself what is the least amount of detail I can reasonably provide in this context?"
 |  | I've lived this way for a long time and it's never harmed my conversations or made things awkward. I'm simply offering still-correct but more vague answers with limited detail. |
For example, for the purposes of this article, I'll volunteer that I live in the Seattle Area. Knowing that, here's how I'd change my answer to fit the context at hand:
- I'm at a conference in London and an attending asks, "Where are you from?" I say "America"
- I'm in San Antonio eating at a restaurant with friends. The waitress asks and I say, "Washington State"
- I'm at a townhall at the Capitol Building in Olympia. Another Washingtonian asks so I say, "Seattle Area".
At times, I might make a judgement call that it's safe to share more to people at work, the other parents at the sports match, etc., but that's the exception. Even then, I'm still purposely vague about details, because, not only does being vague keep me safer, but the listener most likely didn't want more detail in the first place!
| | Why publicly post family names, ages, interests, and other details? Why not just say "my wife", "my kids" (assuming there's a reason to bring them up at all). Instead of age, "baby", "young", "teens", and "adult" are specific enough. Why list genders? Why be specific about how many? |
It's distressing how often someone might be safe with THEIR data, but careless with others. For example a UK sniper was praised by his command for his record-breaking kills on key Afghan rebels. But it turns out that naming him only put a target on him and his family.
When I worked in OPSEC, I found a State Department directory listing names, titles, work locations, and phone numbers of hundreds of their employees posted openly online (60 pages worth). I've seen church bulletins listing private details of parishioners. Schools and colleges with unprotected student directories.
Or consider if a stalker sees you talking to their target because you're friends/co-workers/etc. So they ooze up to you with some story about how they "found something" their victim dropped or that they're "good friends from high school" and they really want to catch up!
They'll try to convince you to share the target's phone number, address, or schedule, but there's essentially zero cases where that's an OK thing to do. Instead, you can tell them, "Wow Stalker, you found their thing! Thanks, I'll get it back to them." or "You're friends? That's great! I'm sure they'll be happy to hear from you so leave me your contact information and name and I'll give it to them when I see them next!".
Similarly:
- Never upload photos of friends, their kids, or anything else without asking first.
- Never "tag" someone by name. If they're good at LifeSec, you might be ruining it by naming them, their spouses, and their kids in your posts.
- Never tell someone else's stories or rants without asking fist. Just because they freely ranted about their boss to you doesn't mean you can share it online.
 | | Don't be the kind of person who is careless with the information of others! Before posting, stop. Make sure the photos and details you're posting aren't giving away information of others! Make sure you don't fall for Elicitation |