Crossdressing Paranoia + your online footprint

[jenny_geek72]

In the modern world of facebook, twitter, and the internet in general, do any of you have a fear of someone discovering you by chance online?

I am naturally paranoid of my little hobby and I have that fear of having someone I know run across one of my online profiles. Since I am still closeted and I believe NOBODY knows about Jenny, I have a fear of someone I know running across a picture of Jenny and somehow put two and two together. Even though there would be slim chance of that happening, there is still a chance (I've seen and heard of weirder internet crossings happen).

For those of you that are still closeted, do you have a large online footprint? As the username hints, I am a geek at heart and want to utilize many of the social websites to network more but at the same time, I want to keep the "evidence" down to a minimum.

Any advice/suggestions? Am I being too paranoid?

[luludoll]

If you're worried about getting discovered the don't use social networks, you have to be comfortable enough if your personas are discovered. Definitely don't friend your two personas xP

lulu only has an msn account, everything else my guy-side has xP

[brassieres]

I have a little concern, but not really since I have not used my real name here and have been a little vague with my profile.

[Tanya C]

Frankly, my only online footprint is through this site, and I wouldn't have any problem if my association with cd.com was discovered by most people I know. This is because there is a lack of pornographic or obscene content on this site for which I give the moderators a great deal of credit. They have done a great job in preventing cd.com from degenerating into a sex site.
This is one of the reasons I became a member. You see, if people I do business with found out that I was a member here it wouldn't be a big deal (or surprise). But any association with a porno site could be devastating.
At least, that's the way I see it.

[Brenda2246]

I agree with Lulu Doll "don't friend your two personas". Other than that how would they find you, and if the did what are they doing looking at Cross Dresser web sites! LOL Just enjoy, after all girls just want to have fun! Right? Hugs Brenda

[Sarah Jane]

I've created a separate windows user account* and an alternative email address. I also don't post pictures of my face unless I'm convinced makeup and hair make me unrecognizable for the average person. I try to keep image backgrounds as neutral as possible.

I don't have separate accounts for online shops though since they need my real name and address anyway. I also do the shopping from the main windows account specifically because those shops have my address and nothing on the "sarah jane" account is supposed to contain that information. Sure it's not perfect, but there's really nothing wrong with buying female clothes as a guy - after all it might be for my girlfriend.

* If you want to do that too and are on WinXP, make sure you create an unrestricted, non-passworded account first, log into that one, set a password from within that account and confirm that the account's files should be private, log back to your main account and then restrict the new account to normal user. Otherwise files from the new account will be accessible for everyone, since xp doesn't give you the privacy dialog window when you create the account directly with a password.

[Danni Bear]

Jenny,

you are correct to be somewhat paranoid about your identity. there are unscroplous people everywhere targeting everybody in order to enrich themselves.

that being said, there are no 100% secure sites on the internet,especially any of the social networks. people do get found on everyone of them daily. even not linking accounts from any of them together,your activity online can be traced to any site you visit. All anyone needs to do this is the proper software and a desire to track you. will this happen to most people, no as most are not worth the effort or expense. stores and online merchants routinally keep every visitor on their site monitored for a period of time as that enables them to target ads specifically to individuals rather than blanket ads online.

danni

[Suzette Muguet de Mai]

Sarah Jane, is the user account and password within accounts in the control panel of winXP and not in an email account or network account? If one checks out any communications can they check your computer details like main user/administrators name? I named my PC a guys name and have since changed it to a non gender name in case they check and see arghhh a guys name.

[Sapphire]

Individually we need to risk assess the impact should our identities become known – it should not be that way, but cultural tolerance of people who are transgendered can be completely independent of any ethical dimension. For some, the fact that one is different in this respect is enough to justify mindless rejection, or even far more serious consequences.

I agree fully with Tanya that association with websites that have dubious standards is inadvisable - just as is association with any activity that is disreputable. I do not regard this site as falling into this category – thanks to both its moderators and its contributors.

Of course the safest approach, apart from not ever going on-line, could be seen as to never reveal the truth about yourself to another living soul. But we are social creatures and is this the right way to spend your life? And if the worst comes to the worst, provided you are part of a reasonably tolerant community, I suspect that most of the people who know you would judge you no differently than they did before – and as for those who don’t, the fault must be seen as belonging to them and not to you.

[Danni Bear]

tania,

on winXP you can make the account names invisible except to power users and admins. the only thing that shows is that there are accounts there. the passwords of any account can be had if you have acess to the computer and the knowledge of working within the registry after booting the system with a boot disk . this can be done with all versions of windows and mac. unix can be subverted also but not as easily as windows.

Danni

[Mary Morgan]

I have always assumed that if one wanted to, they could find out just about anything. True or not, I try to minimize my exposure for the sake of my insecure family members, not so much for myself.
I am careful not to inadvertently mix the activities of my two personas and I do not join sites as both. Of course further protection would require a separate computer altogether.

[crossdrezzer1]

after every session delete you internet browser and buy a program like system suite and that cleans your computer,,mostly your cookies and temp internet files,,that will do it for you..

[Gerrijerry]

If you don't want others to find out. simply do not play on the internet. Sooner or later it will happen if you are on line. Some one will find out. It is only how long it will take, not if it may happen.

[Vickie_CDTV]

after every session delete you internet browser and buy a program like system suite and that cleans your computer,,mostly your cookies and temp internet files,,that will do it for you..

No need to buy anything. There are free, well-established and reputable programs that do this, such as CCleaner (www.piriform.com)

The best thing to do if at all possible is do not share a computer with others (it is a such bad idea for so many reasons), buy a cheap old PC for them or yourself to for you do your TG related stuff. If that isn't possible, and one can put up with the incovenience, one can boot off of a Linux CD or UBCD4WIn and do your TG related stuff; that way nothing is saved to the hard drive.

Of course, if one with local access to your PC or network is out to get you, and really knows what they are doing, there are other ways they can snoop on what you are doing.

[eluuzion]

Am I being too paranoid?

Paranoid refers to being concerned about a threat when there is no concrete evidence to prove any real threat exists.

So no, you are not paranoid. Taking protective measures or engaging counter-measures to neutralize or safeguard your personally identifiable information and sensitive data from threats that actually exist is simply using common sense measures to address the realities of today's world. Safety requires more than locking your doors and windows now, contrary to what many people choose to believe.

It is virtually "impossible" to become "invisible" by starting today. But if you started over 10 years ago as I did...you can come pretty close. What you definitely can do is minimize the access points to your data by protecting the doors that lead to it, as well as producing as much disinformation as you possibly can.

"not doing anything wrong" is irrelevant. Just ask anyone who has had their identity stolen if they believe in that kind of logic...lol

If you want to take your privacy seriously, this will give you some BASIC knowledge. (the emphasis being on Basic)

http://billstclair.com/matrix/

One of the keys to online privacy is to never, ever cross-post between two identities in any way, even in the style and structure of your posts on various forums and such. Never join Facebook, MySpace or similar networking sites, or own a "smartphone", if you expect to maintain any hope of privacy.

One tip that can have a tremendous impact on the ability to "find you" is to use initials (last third of the alphabet) as a first name and a common name for a last name. Such as "S. Smith". Try a google search with that name and see how many results you get, lol. I have used initials for my first name in real life for so long now that I barely remember what my real first name is, lol. I can guarantee most of my friends and aquaintances could not tell you what it is!

just a thought...

:love:

[Charise52]

I realize that I am out there... I buy skirts, Dresses and Lingerie in the stores as well as on line.... yet I feel safe, and/or I feel it does not matter... I am so used to wearing womens' jeans and tops and in the summer wearing shorts and tops and camis and panties and ear rings... and perfume... my last two girlfriends were fine with it, and it is so obvious to my friends today... I simply do not care about the spy network... although I do know it is there.... I hope they will get some hints from the stuff I buy...

[Joanne f]

I am not worried about my family seeing my picture as they already know and have seen me on this site many times but i would be uncomfortable with outsiders knowing who i am for many reasons so hopefully the setting i am in will not give any clues , and i am not on any social network sites .

[Steph.TS]

I don't want to be Jen when I transition, I just picked the name when I first signed up as I hadn't given that might thought yet, i also use a new e-mail address that no one I know knows about and it identifies me as Jen, I don't post on twitter or facebook as Jen, and I'm care what information I give out in public areas of this forum. in the information age, a little paranoia goes a long way. BTW I'm thinking I'd like to be Stephanie when I transition, but I'm still giving it some thought.

[Cynthia Anne]

I could care less who finds out what through the net! I say if you don't like the way I'm living you just leave this long haired country girl alone!

[SallyS]

I did worry a bit when I posted a few images here, but to be honest my mother has known about it for years, so I'm sure most of my family do as well, we just don't talk about it?

I work from home so don't have work colleagues to worry about either.

I've got to an age where I don't really care what people think, but would still like to protect my children from any 'aggro' they might get if a school friend sees my 'other' self on-line.

So all I can say is don't go overboard if your worried about it.....but do keep on-line as it is a great place to be with other people who like to cross-dress:)

[Kate Simmons]

Only that if you are afraid to get your feet wet, you will never get in the pool and swim.:)

[MichelleP]

It is my biggest and worst fear. My real world footprint in video and televison media is by no means large but if I were somehow outed by posting an en femme photo on the internet it would mean my job and for all intents and purposes my career. Most of my family know and some of my close friends know that I am transgendered but NONE of the people I work with know. (although to be frank, I believe some women I work with suspect this) It is the only reason I am so reluctant to post a picture here.

[Stephanie Anne]

Wait, why would I be ashamed of someone finding my online persona? Then again my online persona is my real life persona. I guess the fear of getting fired, evicted, dumped, divorced, beat, killed, or worse, bullied is the reason why people hide.

[Jorja]

If you are worried about someone finding out it just takes the simplest of ideas to be safe.
My all time #1 tip is to just go ahead and transition. That way you don't have to worry about anyone finding out. Your out and that is that. ;)

[Wendy_Marie]

There was a time when I spent a lot of time as Wendy Maid and actively sought out Dominant Females whom to serve in the capacity of Domestic Sissy Maid...Still do from time to time.
One of these lovely women gave me a piece of advice...if you are afraid you'll get caught then you probably will. Stay away from the more Vanillia sites and if someone does happen across you then they have something to hide or share as the case may themselves. I have been dressing as Wendy now for more than 30 yars...and the only time I have ever been caught is when I wanted to be. Just use common sense and stay low key if you are afraid to be found out.

[Karren H]

I'm not parinoid. And I am spread all over the web.... And through Facebook fan pages, even have been discussed about on the air on Sirius radio and chat online with DJ's on a numbert of programs as Karren the married guy from Western PA who crossdresses... And personally I don't care... If I bump into someone that knows the male me fine. I have made so many great female friends through facebook that accept me for who I am... I'm still amazed at the level of acceptance there is when you get one one one with people. They find we are just as normal as they are.

[Stacye Rose]

I decided to quit worring about being "caught" by anyone-anywhere-anytime. I'm an adult who is cleverly disguised as a normal contributing member of society. What I do or who I am in my free time is no concern of anybodys unless I choose to allow them into my life. Besides-anyone who wants to "out" me is going to get no response other than "And?' "You didn't know" or "Yeah? So, who cares" The best place to hide is in plain sight.

[JustineFallow]

Anybody who finds out about my CD'ing will only do so if they're actively looking for such info, and looking hard. Like others here, my screen-name has no connection with my real name. If they do find out and confront me, I'm going to ask why they're so interested in what I do with my private time.

[sissystephanie]

Because I do business (I mean real business) online quite a bit, I do use 2 entirely different persona and websites. But at this point in my life I am much like Stacye. I really don't care about being "outed." This is who I am and if you don't like it, well tough ****!

[NathalieX66]

I'm all over the web too.
I immortalize my femme self in pictures, and yet I live life as a normal guy.
Anyone who knows me personally, and ends up on this site or other sites is equally complicit..."et tu Bruté"?
I really AM a girl.....and I'm a guy too. I can live with people knowing this side of me, and not have regrets while on my deathbed.

[LitaKelley]

I have a huge online footprint and not once ever had any issues with it.. however, I was never concerned with it anyway, BUT, for those of you whom do have concerns, do know that Facebook and YOUTUBE utilize facial recognition AND you could be outted by this.

[jenny_geek72]

My online footprint is growing. I am hoping to increase my social networking with other gals that share my interest. For the most part, it is to share my experiences good and bad. I almost justify it by telling myself that an online presence is validating the existence of Jenny . . . that and I am just a geek at heart that loves the online experience.

Thanks for the feedback.