Darkoshi

After creating the new Facebook account under my real name, I started getting emails "Do you know so-and-so?", including names of some people I know from work. They looked like LinkedIn emails, and I didn't pay much attention to them.

Then I noticed that the emails were from Facebook, not LinkedIn. How did Facebook link me with those people? I haven't yet posted anything on Facebook, haven't friended anyone, and have only filled out a few things on my profile.

Both accounts are set up under the same email address, so maybe it's based on that.

But how did Facebook get info on my LinkedIn connections? At first, I thought that I might not have turned off sharing with 3rd Party Applications in the LinkedIn settings. But I checked the settings, and they were already set not to share my info.

I wonder, has Facebook been sending similar emails to my work colleagues, saying "Do you know [my name]?", and linking to my new account?

My email address is not public on either account. But where I work is visible on LinkedIn. I suppose any 3rd party could do LinkedIn searches to find everyone connected to that company. And I suppose Facebook could use my name to link me up with those other people.

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One thing I've been mentally debating is having my gender publicly visible on the Facebook account. I like that I can display my true gender, "androgyne". It could be a simple way to come out to friends and family who might not otherwise know, without making a big deal of it.

But I was thinking... there are health insurance plans that have clauses that exclude transgender-related expenses, and some (though hopefully few) even go so far as to exclude any services at all for a person who is transgender.

So maybe it would be better *not* to publicly out myself as transgender under my legal name.

And do I really even want to out myself to just anyone from work? Sometimes, I think it would make me seem even more odd from other people's viewpoints.

Maybe I'll set my gender display to friends-only. Though it's likely already been data mined, as that's one thing I've had publicly visible so far.

Not sure I'm even going to use the FB account for anything. Haven't felt inspired to so far.

2016/08/27: changed post visibility from Access List to Public

"What street did your best friend in high school live on?"

Best friend? Not. Street names? From a quarter century ago, in a town I haven't lived in since? Heh. You over-estimate my memory.

"First name of maid of honor at your wedding". Pfah.
"First name of best man at your wedding." Double Pfah.
"In what country were you married?" Eyeroll.
"What is your domestic partner's middle name." Ah, that's better. :-)


..and then the site automatically logs me out due to inactivity because I'm spending too much time posting about the security questions instead of answering them.

Do most people really have lists of "favorite" things, which they can easily remember? So many "security" questions that websites let you choose from are of the sort which ask what your favorite book/movie/thing to eat/holiday/teacher/etc is.

I don't have many easily remembered favorite things, so that greatly cuts down on the questions I can select (assuming that I give true answers to the questions).

When I was a kid, I did have a favorite book, a favorite movie, and various other favorite things. As a kid, you often are asked what your favorite things are, so you think about it, and decide on answers. But as I got older, I slowly lost interest in my old favorites, and I came across various new books and movies that I enjoyed. It was harder to choose favorites. The older you get, the more things you experience... is it normal to always peg certain experiences as favorites? If I think long enough, I can come up with various books and movies I've enjoyed, but I don't categorize them in my mind as favorites. I don't even have a favorite author anymore.

Is this related to dysthymia (not experiencing much enjoyment in things), or a normal side-effect of aging (having experienced too many things, to bother choosing and remembering favorites)?

On a similar vein, I recently had a problem logging into an account. I had to answer the security question "Where did you spend your honeymoon?". Never having been married, it dumbfounded me. I tried entering various answers that I might have originally given, like "nowhere", "I didn't", etc., but none worked. I finally regained access to the account by another route, and promptly changed the security questions.

Forestfen had difficulty logging into her Yahoo Mail account today. She was being prompted to perform an extra sign-in verification step (aka 2-factor authentication). It wasn't simply a prompt advising her to set up 2-factor authentication as I sometimes get; it was actually prompting her to enter a phone number for the security code to be sent to. There was no way of bypassing it.

To Forestfen's knowledge, she hadn't previously turned on 2-factor authentication, nor had she previously entered her phone number on any Yahoo Options page.

This was corroborated by the fact that the extra sign-in verification window had an entry field for her to enter her phone number in. That was the really odd thing about it (though that didn't occur to me until later). Anyone could have entered any phone number, and have been sent a code for logging in.

I tried logging into her email account from a completely different computer, and got the same prompt as she was getting. This at least assured me that the problem wasn't due to malware on her computer.

The prompt had 2 fields, a "Country" drop-down and a "Phone Number" entry field. There were 2 push-buttons - one to receive a phone call, and the other to receive a SMS message. Forestfen first tried the phone call option (she said she got an automated call with a 3-digit number), and then the SMS option (which sent a 5-digit number), and finally got logged in.

The Yahoo Account info page shows "second sign-in verification" is flagged as being in "beta".
I suppose this must be some bug in their logic.

Apparently, BestBuy.com doesn't let you include special characters in your account password. I tried 4 different passwords, all of which followed the stated guidelines (6 to 30 characters, must include at least 1 number), and yet were rejected. Then I tried one without any special characters, and it was accepted.