RIG (Random Identity Generator) is a free replacement for a shareware program out there called 'fake'. It generates random, yet real-looking, personal data. It is useful if you need to feed a name to a Web site, BBS, or real person, and are too lazy to think of one yourself. Also, if the Web site/BBS/person you are giving the information to tries to cross-check the city, state, zip, or area code, it will check out.
$ rig
Adolph Cline
739 Anton Dr
Mentor, OH 44060
(216) xxx-xxxx
$
rig is neat, but really limited. It uses a fixed database of 1000 first and last names, and has AFAIK no hooks for generating IDs based on gender, ethnicity, or real-world population density patterns.
I've _long_ considered some sort of system to extend or expand on it, using U.S. Census data (~20k first names and many last, scored by ethnicity probability, plus other demographics).
This is even more comprehensive: http://www.fakenamegenerator.com/ - you get every detail you need, name, occupation, age, even credit card numbers and SSN.
Except it doesn't do addresses, especially postal codes, which is what I'd use it for. Making up names is not the problem, finding a matching postal code with street name and a house number (this database is published and many sites check it) is the issue.
There are lots of syntactically valid addresses at the bottom of Lake Washington in Seattle: useful if you want to avoid spamming random people with postal mail in case that contact information later gets sold on.
It does addresses, broken down by StreetAddress, City, State, PostalCode, and Country. But it sounds like what you want isn't fake identities, you want real ones.
I use their data to demo my medical software. I obviously can't show real patient names, so I import a whole bunch of realistic looking people from here instead.
I've used it in my software as well. Except that the names actually end up looking fake to me. Not sure if its cause I know they are fake or what. Doesn't matter to me either way.
I think a more valuable tool would be one that exports like 5000 identities to a csv file (or a data structure in whatever language you want json, clojure vector of maps, SQL, etc). Then I could import a bunnch of identites into my database and load test my system. I would need to specify column/key names for each field.
This can be easily done with "Faker", see: https://github.com/fzaninotto/Faker
It can create fake names, locations, account info, credit cards and so on...
That does erk me slightly. I appreciate the need for anonymity in some circumstances, and the desire for it in others whether it be needed or not, and I'm not keen on being tracked any more than the next person, but...
The "why should I have to give you X before you'll give me Y? - here have junk instead" thing is wrong IMO. You don't have to give them X, you have the option of going elsewhere or simply living without Y. Why should they give you Y without you providing X if they don't want to? Their house, their rules.
Voting with your feet is more likely to have some effect than providing fake information will.
The "why should I have to give you X before you'll give me Y? - here have junk instead" thing is wrong IMO.
That's an interesting opinion. However, this isn't just "their house." They chose to provide their site as part of the Web, and some of us believe that means they'll have to cope with the broader community's norms and traditions, too, including anonymity and pseudonymity.
I respect your reasoning, but the problem with the web is that people tend to flock to one or a few sites, creating monopolies or oligopolies. So it's not like you have a million sites to go "vote with your feet".
I had the same debate regarding open-ended questions on the stack exchange network a while back, and as a result moved to Quora. But no site is perfect.
I hereby donate this identity to the public domain! Anybody can use Karma Justice for any purpose they want, good or evil! But beware -- whatever you do will come back to you.
I used rot13 for my last name, trying normal words as input until you get a normal word as output. Sparks fun conversations when people find it a strange last name and you get to explain that there is a secret meaning.
Thanks for the feedback. I'll look at adding json, additional data (suggestions welcome), and changing the temporary email domain regularly so it's harder to block.
Did they register a large block of phone numbers? I reverse searched the number they gave me, and it was valid, but I called it and the number is "not reachable".
The e-mail addresses are at guerrilamail.com, provider of temporary addresses - and blocked from my current location. Are those addresses checked for availablility?
No one's going to donate if you just put you bitcoin wallet address. Donations need to take less than 20s and be mindless. Preferrably, just a matter of a few clicks. You might be better off with paypal; unless you're just aiming for trendy and unobtrusive, then bitcoin is fine, but I wouldn't have any expectations.
> you should change your username and email address frequently so sites don't build a history of your activities
isn't it pretty easy for the sites to collect history of your activities anyways since those emails/username are tied to the same account on said sites?
Working with the guy who runs guerrillamail.com, I just added a custom domain for those who are blocked from accessing guerrillamail for the temporary email address. I plan to rotate the email custom domain monthly.
This is exactly what we are trying to prevent. We believe there should be some semblance of identity in the internet. For the exact opposite of this post, check out bluecheck.me
The claim that Google requires intrusive personal dossiers for revenue generation is a myth. Google doesn't even use detailed personal dossiers in search ads, which we all know generates the vast majority of Google's revenue. It's really hard to do much better in search advertising than current query + location. Yes, we do a bit more than that, and will probably do more personalization going forward, but more personalization rarely yields more revenue. Instead, it usually improves our metrics associated with user satisfaction, although again the effects are probably far smaller than you would think.
I'm having some trouble understanding what your product does exactly. The blue check isn't an official verification is it? It's just one chosen by bluecheck, correct?
Ah, I think you are right. Wikipedia says, "The law in most jurisdictions also allows the owner of a registered trademark to prevent unauthorized use of the mark in relation to products or services which are identical ... The test is always whether a consumer of the goods or services will be confused as to the identity of the source or origin." I'd say it's reasonable that people aren't going to be confused by the difference between a social media product (or whatever you'd call this) and a biometric device. Then again, both products have a connection to personal identity.
Here's what I've learned in 10+ years of web marketing, and it's simple.
If someone is giving you fake info, it's because they don't want to be contacted. It's a cold lead you'll just spend money chasing that most likely will never convert.
Sometimes worse than a cold lead, but a toxic lead. When companies step over boundaries I've spent at least some effort to erect, not only will I not convert (if only out of spite, even if I think their product might otherwise have some value to me), I'll spend days, maybe weeks ranting about how shitty they are to everyone who will listen.
I wish more people took a sane approach like this. I can't tell you how many times I've had to turn down - politely at first - sales from seemingly reputable companies. I find it hard to believe they would approach anything else in the organisation with that level of clumsiness.
I'd rather buy from someone who is actually willing to listen to me.
Good job, but I suggest you add more flair. For example, you could certify that a person is appropriate for a work environment, for example checking their political views and browsing history. Also great for health insurance, making the process of risk assessment more transparent, with verifiable drug use history, eating and exercise habits and even DNA testing. This is a grow market.
(See also fakenamegenerator.com, discussed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7095010)
Personally, I use this:
RIG (Random Identity Generator) is a free replacement for a shareware program out there called 'fake'. It generates random, yet real-looking, personal data. It is useful if you need to feed a name to a Web site, BBS, or real person, and are too lazy to think of one yourself. Also, if the Web site/BBS/person you are giving the information to tries to cross-check the city, state, zip, or area code, it will check out.
You don't see many people called Adolph these days. I wonder why that is.
Yeah, the only one that I know is my friend Adolph Mussolini Stalin. He always gets weird looks for some reason.
Then there's my little dog Tojo. I keep telling him "we're not in Canton anymore".
rig is neat, but really limited. It uses a fixed database of 1000 first and last names, and has AFAIK no hooks for generating IDs based on gender, ethnicity, or real-world population density patterns.
I've _long_ considered some sort of system to extend or expand on it, using U.S. Census data (~20k first names and many last, scored by ethnicity probability, plus other demographics).
Though it is useful.
This is even more comprehensive: http://www.fakenamegenerator.com/ - you get every detail you need, name, occupation, age, even credit card numbers and SSN.
Would be cool to have an API. Could be useful for mass address book creation.
Who would need mass address books?
People writing address book software.
Faker (for ruby here https://github.com/stympy/faker) originally for perl, available elsewhere also
Nice, anything like this available in Python or C# land? Or even a simple desktop app rather than a webapp?
There's something similar in python https://pypi.python.org/pypi/fake-factory
C# - https://github.com/slashdotdash/faker-cs
I was reminded of this as well.
Very useful for generating fake data when writing test cases.
I don't like the idea of doing this on a website. Why not just do it offline? Why fetch the data from a server where it could be captured and logged?
What data can they capture and log, beyond data captured and logged at any website?
Except it doesn't do addresses, especially postal codes, which is what I'd use it for. Making up names is not the problem, finding a matching postal code with street name and a house number (this database is published and many sites check it) is the issue.
There are lots of syntactically valid addresses at the bottom of Lake Washington in Seattle: useful if you want to avoid spamming random people with postal mail in case that contact information later gets sold on.
You don't see addresses on this website? Look just below the randomly generated name.
Not in Dutch
It does addresses, broken down by StreetAddress, City, State, PostalCode, and Country. But it sounds like what you want isn't fake identities, you want real ones.
The idea is to bypass syntax checking while trying to be anonymous, not perpetrate identity fraud.
I use their data to demo my medical software. I obviously can't show real patient names, so I import a whole bunch of realistic looking people from here instead.
I've used it in my software as well. Except that the names actually end up looking fake to me. Not sure if its cause I know they are fake or what. Doesn't matter to me either way.
Great, the profile has a QR code also .Fantastic
Awesome tool! It even comes with a temporal fake mail generator, really useful.
I think a more valuable tool would be one that exports like 5000 identities to a csv file (or a data structure in whatever language you want json, clojure vector of maps, SQL, etc). Then I could import a bunnch of identites into my database and load test my system. I would need to specify column/key names for each field.
This can be easily done with "Faker", see: https://github.com/fzaninotto/Faker It can create fake names, locations, account info, credit cards and so on...
Maybe something like this? http://www.identitygenerator.com/
This is great. Would be nice if it came with a facebook, twitter, and gmail account.
And with car keys and an ID card.
Very useful for sites like Quora who do not understand that some users don't want to use their real life identity.
That does erk me slightly. I appreciate the need for anonymity in some circumstances, and the desire for it in others whether it be needed or not, and I'm not keen on being tracked any more than the next person, but...
The "why should I have to give you X before you'll give me Y? - here have junk instead" thing is wrong IMO. You don't have to give them X, you have the option of going elsewhere or simply living without Y. Why should they give you Y without you providing X if they don't want to? Their house, their rules.
Voting with your feet is more likely to have some effect than providing fake information will.
The "why should I have to give you X before you'll give me Y? - here have junk instead" thing is wrong IMO.
That's an interesting opinion. However, this isn't just "their house." They chose to provide their site as part of the Web, and some of us believe that means they'll have to cope with the broader community's norms and traditions, too, including anonymity and pseudonymity.
I respect your reasoning, but the problem with the web is that people tend to flock to one or a few sites, creating monopolies or oligopolies. So it's not like you have a million sites to go "vote with your feet".
I had the same debate regarding open-ended questions on the stack exchange network a while back, and as a result moved to Quora. But no site is perfect.
Karma Justice, who lives on 3024 Boulevard Way, seems TOTALLY legit.
https://fakena.me/j/51e765ff78903ffbedbdceef372865290806b49d...
Hah, my initial first name database is the top 1000 baby names... so this is a humorous coincidence.
I hereby donate this identity to the public domain! Anybody can use Karma Justice for any purpose they want, good or evil! But beware -- whatever you do will come back to you.
I used rot13 for my last name, trying normal words as input until you get a normal word as output. Sparks fun conversations when people find it a strange last name and you get to explain that there is a secret meaning.
Thanks for the feedback. I'll look at adding json, additional data (suggestions welcome), and changing the temporary email domain regularly so it's harder to block.
Did they register a large block of phone numbers? I reverse searched the number they gave me, and it was valid, but I called it and the number is "not reachable".
Exactly this. What of the companies that require "SMS" verification? Where does the text go to?
It's the correct area code for the city and zip code, but otherwise a completely randomly generated phone number. rand(201,799)-rand(1000-9999).
The e-mail addresses are at guerrilamail.com, provider of temporary addresses - and blocked from my current location. Are those addresses checked for availablility?
The email address is based off the randomly generated name, with extra characters added. The possibility of a conflict is extremely low.
If guerillamail.com is blocked, try mailinator.com (or any of its numerous sibling domains).
This is extremely useful for my day to day work, thank you!
No one's going to donate if you just put you bitcoin wallet address. Donations need to take less than 20s and be mindless. Preferrably, just a matter of a few clicks. You might be better off with paypal; unless you're just aiming for trendy and unobtrusive, then bitcoin is fine, but I wouldn't have any expectations.
I like how Fakena (the way I first read the domain) sounds like a perfectly cromulent "ethnic" female given name.
> you should change your username and email address frequently so sites don't build a history of your activities
isn't it pretty easy for the sites to collect history of your activities anyways since those emails/username are tied to the same account on said sites?
Working with the guy who runs guerrillamail.com, I just added a custom domain for those who are blocked from accessing guerrillamail for the temporary email address. I plan to rotate the email custom domain monthly.
Great, bookmarked! And here's one with pictures: http://www.designskilz.com/users/
I am curious, how does it makes sure that a name is fake? Even if its random, isn't there a high chance to generate a real name?
Yes, but there is a 0% chance that the name it generates is someone who lives at that address with that phone number.
Your math does not checkout.
Ok, something like a 1 in 9,313,641,036,000,000,000,000 chance.
Yes but real names aren't guaranteed to be unique either, it's the combination of other fake information that matters.
Oh wow this is fantastic. They are providing everything. :)
A JSON-formatted return value would be convenient
Ask and you shall receive[0]. Wrote this using Faker[1] after viewing the responses of this thread.
[0]: http://www.certifiedwebninja.com/fake.json
[1]: https://github.com/fzaninotto/Faker
This is exactly what we are trying to prevent. We believe there should be some semblance of identity in the internet. For the exact opposite of this post, check out bluecheck.me
Surely there's room enough for both? People who want to be anonymous, and those who want to be verifiable? Why does anonymity need to be 'prevented'?
How can you target ads if people are anonymous?
You seem to take targeting ads as an essential operation that everyone will agree is essential.
Poe's Law strikes again. It's not my point of view, but it sure is for the incumbents.
As long as you can tell them apart you can target ads. You don't need to know the names, exact addresses, email etc.
Instead of targeting ads, just develop products that everyone wants. Problem solved!
Location + search terms are vastly more useful than any comprehensive history.
The comprehensive history, by contrast, is really starting to creep people out.
Source: G+ discussion with a Google engineer.
https://plus.google.com/104092656004159577193/posts/HFT1emeF...
The claim that Google requires intrusive personal dossiers for revenue generation is a myth. Google doesn't even use detailed personal dossiers in search ads, which we all know generates the vast majority of Google's revenue. It's really hard to do much better in search advertising than current query + location. Yes, we do a bit more than that, and will probably do more personalization going forward, but more personalization rarely yields more revenue. Instead, it usually improves our metrics associated with user satisfaction, although again the effects are probably far smaller than you would think.
I'm having some trouble understanding what your product does exactly. The blue check isn't an official verification is it? It's just one chosen by bluecheck, correct?
Prevent what? Better pedigree data for the NSA, FBI, BKA? Fuck that noise.
"BLUECHECK" is a registered trademark of 3M: http://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=78959070&caseType=SERIAL_N...
I don't really know what this means for you. I'd be interested to hear from anyone who has some idea.
According to that link, it's a brand for a biometric device. I don't think it'd conflict, but IANATL.
Ah, I think you are right. Wikipedia says, "The law in most jurisdictions also allows the owner of a registered trademark to prevent unauthorized use of the mark in relation to products or services which are identical ... The test is always whether a consumer of the goods or services will be confused as to the identity of the source or origin." I'd say it's reasonable that people aren't going to be confused by the difference between a social media product (or whatever you'd call this) and a biometric device. Then again, both products have a connection to personal identity.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trademark#Registration
Here's what I've learned in 10+ years of web marketing, and it's simple.
If someone is giving you fake info, it's because they don't want to be contacted. It's a cold lead you'll just spend money chasing that most likely will never convert.
Sometimes worse than a cold lead, but a toxic lead. When companies step over boundaries I've spent at least some effort to erect, not only will I not convert (if only out of spite, even if I think their product might otherwise have some value to me), I'll spend days, maybe weeks ranting about how shitty they are to everyone who will listen.
I wish more people took a sane approach like this. I can't tell you how many times I've had to turn down - politely at first - sales from seemingly reputable companies. I find it hard to believe they would approach anything else in the organisation with that level of clumsiness.
I'd rather buy from someone who is actually willing to listen to me.
Good job, but I suggest you add more flair. For example, you could certify that a person is appropriate for a work environment, for example checking their political views and browsing history. Also great for health insurance, making the process of risk assessment more transparent, with verifiable drug use history, eating and exercise habits and even DNA testing. This is a grow market.
Preventing it is not a good idea, but we should still try to make it unnecessary if possible. That is another topic though.
Only way to make it unnecessary is either by making people perfectly tolerant, or perfectly uniform. In both cases it won't be people anymore
I said if possible. Eg. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7809766 (notice my comments)
Preventing anonymity harms a lot of people:
http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Who_is_harmed_by_a_%22Rea...
Is that the Royal We, or do you care to identify who "we" really are? Since you're so concerned about identity and all that.