How to find a dossier on a person on the Internet? The cat is out of the bag

Have you ever thought how much information is known about you? What do others know about you and what can they find about you if they wish? Probably many of you will just wave a hand with the words: “What can be known about me? I’m just a plumber…” You will never guess but lot of things! So, last month Federal Security Service of Russia has finally won a battle against the much-talked Internet site radarix.com that lasted one year and closed it.

For those who didn’t know this service we advise that radarix.com was presented as a private detective the services of which could be used by anyone. Having paid a small fee one could enter a wonderful world of information and find there such data as passport details, phone numbers, TINs, car numbers, numbers of licenses and insurance policies, information on previous convictions and etc. Database included the data on the residents of Russia, Ukraine and other CIS countries. Along with radarix.com there were such resources as radarix.net, radarix.org, radarix.biz. Currently all those sites are not available.

The creation of such site itself registered out of the Russian Federation says for the assumption that various agencies state bodies working with databases regularly sold the information. Otherwise do the owners of the site how could they know about some uncle John from Far East has a criminal record and was regularly arrested by local authorities for unsporting behavior in public places?

However closure of the site does not mean the end of personal data trading. They can create hundreds of such sites. Today browsing the Internet we can see a great number of websites offering you to obtain the information about your neighbor. Having entered in a search line the phrase “Passport Details” we get 3 million pages containing such key words, a dozen of pages which include the firms offering to buy their databases. We clicked at random on one of such links and came to the page where we were offered to acquire a database with passport details of 14,979,000 natural persons living in Moscow for just 1500 rubles (appr. $50).

And there is a plenty of such resources. They offer you to buy the information from the databases of state traffic police, PSRN and others. If some dealer buys a couple of such bases he or she can easily launch another Radarix…

On one hand it is good. There is a splendid opportunity to find the relatives or lost friends and co-workers. All those people the link with whom was lost due to some circumstances. But on the other hand it is a real goldmine for the thieves and fraudsters. Having paid just 10 dollars they can obtain the information about any person, including such details as address, car number, TIN, and even the wages the client gets. It's not for nothing that the State Duma deputies have made a mess having found themselves in the database of the site…

However if you sell the cow, you sell her milk too. But what can do those who want to find their friends and relatives? A sure thing, to search for! Everybody knows such saying – who searches he finds.

First of all you should turn to the social networking sites where thousands and millions of people voluntarily provide the information about themselves. In our country the most popular services of such kind are “Odnoklassniki”, “Vkontakte”, “Moy Mir” and of course LJ. However the English sites Facebook and MySpace are also popular. One should remember that name can be entered either in Cyrillic or in Latin. It’s necessary to try both variants. Entering of the additional information such as age, country, school – help to maximize the search results. But what to do if the person decided to put the nickname instead of the name. Unfortunately, nothing can help you with it and you should try another ways. However… It makes sense to try to search among the friends that you can have in common.

Today there are a lot of sites offering people search services. There you can look through the list of the people who search somebody or are being searched. However it is necessary to note that such sites are of little effect. It is the same like to place an announcement “Apartment for sale”. Those who need an apartment will find the announcement and write you and what about those who do not want it? Yes, exactly! They won’t even enter the site.

One more quite a legal way to find the information about some person is to visit the freelancing sites. Thousands of people are searching for both main and additional sources of income and upload their resumes to the sites. Having entered such sites you will hardly find TIN or car number but the contact details are guaranteed.

There is also such simple method as searching in browser by entering person’s full name. Usuallys uploaded or some data in blogs. In other words, it makes a sense to try.

You can also purchase a telephone directory, but if you don’t know the exact city of a person this will hardly be worthy for you.

Following the article of Orlova D. “Business reconnaissance as a tool of success” published in a journal “Services and prices” a true dossier contains the following items:

1. Photo.
2. Full name.
3. Full date of birth.
4. Nationality.
5. Place of registration.
6. Former place of registration.
7. Passport details.
8. Driving license number.
9. Home phone number.
10. Mobile phone umber.
11. Cars.
12. Houses, flats.
13. Immediate family.
14. Share, bonds.
15. Profession.
16. Checking of the diploma.
17. Law violations.
18. Arms, and license for them.
19. Military service, rank.
20. Anamnesis Morbi.
21. Criminal liasons.
22. Drug addiction.
23. Venereal diseases.
24. Opinion of the immediate environment.
25. Sample of handwriting.
26. Copy of signature.

A part of this information can easily be found online using the tools described above. So, for example, any networking site contains such information as full name, photo, date of birth and the city. Choosing from 3 most popular social networks the most informative one is a project of Pavel Durov “Vkontakte”. There one can find a full name of the person, his/her address, former address, phone numbers, IM number, religion, place of birth, school, working place, military service, and even the places of shopping and leisure. However there is no any guarantee that this information is a credible one.

Profession and places of work can be found from various freelancing websites. From those sites you can also find the exact address of a person.

As for the other items listed below it would be better for you to buy the databases of various agencies and bodies or to hire a good detective who will find even the slightest details about the person you are interested in. Having entered in a search bar “Private Detective” you will find the dozens of the agencies which specialize in that sphere. Though there is a small nuance. It will cost you much more that the search via radarix.com or its analogues.

Also you should keep in mind that while searching such information you violate the human’s rights and intrude upon their privacy. Also, here it worth mentioning the article 137 of Criminal Law which says about the penalty for illegal collection or distribution of information about private or family secrets pursuing their own selfish and other ends. There is also another law provided for punishing such crimes. It is a law “On the personal data” adopted in 2006. namely these two laws played a fatal role in the fate of the Russian “online detective”.

In other countries the situation is quite different. There are lots of the sites alike Radarix there which function and flourish. Nobody knows how long that will last however it is necessary to say that in case of information leakage there could be a catastrophe, since for example in the USA the insurance policy is a very important document and loss of its number may cause great problems. In our previous issues we have already written about the security on the Internet and told that the fraudsters need just a few pieces of personal data to create a clone of credit cards and to empty your bank account. p>

It is impossible to stop the information leakage but it is possible to limit the information on the Internet. Just try not to disclose your information where it is possible. May be you have nothing to hide but you have certainly that can be stolen…

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