My general rule is that unless I've had extensive contact with someone - for example, have been emailing then and IMing them for several months - I won't tell them any more about my personal information than I would tell a stranger that I met on the subway. Even then, I only tell people stuff if I feel quite secure with them. There are people that I've been speaking to for years who don't know anything more than my name. (And really, if I had an uncommon name, I'd be far more careful with that than I am. As it is, it's common enough that even with a general location, you'd still have several thousand people sharing it.) I have a post office box to do ebay stuff in, or to give to random people online if we're exchanging CDs or something.
When I'm online, I have a firewall up and frequently - though not always - surf through a proxy server. (If I'm honest, I used MultiProxy (from mutliproxy.org) for quite a while, though I got a new computer recently and haven't reinstalled it. This post has reminded me to do so - thank you.)
It's still not foolproof, and I'm sure that if someone was determined to find out who I am and where I'm from, they could do so. But a few safeguards make it less likely, and I'm fortunate in that in ten + years online, I've only had one incident where I felt like I was being stalked, and one where I didn't feel stalked, per se, but certainly harrassed. In both instances, they were males, quite a bit older than I, who became a little bit obsessive. One of them was largely harmless, but the other started phoning me several times an hour, threatening to kill himself if I didn't pick up the phone, saying that he'd come and find me, and it was extremely creepy. I ended up moving and changing my email and ICQ number before he went away. (I was moving anyhow, it was just fortuitous that it happened when it did.) For me, red flags go up when someone - especially someone of the opposite gender - is 'just getting into' something that I'm in and wants assistance, or if they claim to be a fan of things x and y (things that I'm also a fan of,) but don't seem to be able to intelligently theorise on it or discuss it in any sort of depth beyond 'Harry's such a great wizard! I bet that he wins in the end!'. A huge age difference is again a warning sign for me, because honestly, the difference between my life and the life of, say, a 45 or 50 year old man is staggering, and I have a hard time believing that someone like that would be terribly interested in being friends for the sake of friendship. With women it's harder, but if we seem to be in completely different circumstances and don't have much in common, I'm a bit leery of being too friendly. Clearly, that's not always going to be accurate - one of my good friends is 20 years older than I, in completely different fandoms, and we get on swimmingly; I've known her for a year or two now, she has various pieces of personal information, and shows no signs of being batshit insane. But that's the sort of thing that makes me a little more likely to make someone 'prove' themselves to me before I really trust them.
Anyhow, I hope that some of that rambling was a little helpful. I guess in the end, my feeling is that anything that puts one more step between your real identity and your online identity is a good thing, and I like to maintain that distance unless I either really trust someone.
no subject
When I'm online, I have a firewall up and frequently - though not always - surf through a proxy server. (If I'm honest, I used MultiProxy (from mutliproxy.org) for quite a while, though I got a new computer recently and haven't reinstalled it. This post has reminded me to do so - thank you.)
It's still not foolproof, and I'm sure that if someone was determined to find out who I am and where I'm from, they could do so. But a few safeguards make it less likely, and I'm fortunate in that in ten + years online, I've only had one incident where I felt like I was being stalked, and one where I didn't feel stalked, per se, but certainly harrassed. In both instances, they were males, quite a bit older than I, who became a little bit obsessive. One of them was largely harmless, but the other started phoning me several times an hour, threatening to kill himself if I didn't pick up the phone, saying that he'd come and find me, and it was extremely creepy. I ended up moving and changing my email and ICQ number before he went away. (I was moving anyhow, it was just fortuitous that it happened when it did.) For me, red flags go up when someone - especially someone of the opposite gender - is 'just getting into' something that I'm in and wants assistance, or if they claim to be a fan of things x and y (things that I'm also a fan of,) but don't seem to be able to intelligently theorise on it or discuss it in any sort of depth beyond 'Harry's such a great wizard! I bet that he wins in the end!'. A huge age difference is again a warning sign for me, because honestly, the difference between my life and the life of, say, a 45 or 50 year old man is staggering, and I have a hard time believing that someone like that would be terribly interested in being friends for the sake of friendship. With women it's harder, but if we seem to be in completely different circumstances and don't have much in common, I'm a bit leery of being too friendly. Clearly, that's not always going to be accurate - one of my good friends is 20 years older than I, in completely different fandoms, and we get on swimmingly; I've known her for a year or two now, she has various pieces of personal information, and shows no signs of being batshit insane. But that's the sort of thing that makes me a little more likely to make someone 'prove' themselves to me before I really trust them.
Anyhow, I hope that some of that rambling was a little helpful. I guess in the end, my feeling is that anything that puts one more step between your real identity and your online identity is a good thing, and I like to maintain that distance unless I either really trust someone.