Kent

Just imagine all of the information that is out there about you that you might not want people to know, and how easy (for a mondo-techie guy like Tom Owad) it is to extract all of it, and use it. Oh, and imagine how surprised you'd be if you got a signed copy of a book from the author without prior contact...

"It is possible for users to associate a shipping address with their wishlists, so that others can order them gifts. Though the full address is hidden, city and state remain visible. I already have first and last name. With this information, I can do a Yahoo People Search to obtain an exact street address and phone number. Viewing the wishlists that contained Apple I Replica Creation, I found that all four provided the user's city and state. Of these four, one was a common name that produced multiple hits in his town, two were unlisted (although one of them was in the Intelius database which I opted not to pay for), and the final individual was present on Yahoo People. So I sent him a signed copy and thanked him for his interest.

Thanks to Google Maps (and many similar services) a street address is all we need to get a satellite image of a person's home. Tempted as I was to provide satellite images of the homes of the search subjects, it just seemed a bit extreme even for this article. Instead, I opted only to pinpoint the centers of the towns in which they live. So at least you'll know that there's somebody in your community reading Critical Thinking or some other dangerous text."

(via Boing Boing)

(Made me do a quick check of my Amazon wish list. Fortunately nothing too subversive. Other than maybe a Nina Hagen CD or two...)