ATHLLC7274708321
00:00:00.000 | A quick word from our sponsor today.
00:00:01.680 | I love helping you answer all the toughest questions about life, money, and so much
00:00:08.040 | more, but sometimes it's helpful to talk to other people in your situation, which
00:00:12.860 | actually gets harder as you build your wealth.
00:00:14.920 | So I want to introduce you to today's sponsor, Longangle.
00:00:18.200 | Longangle is a community of high net worth individuals with backgrounds in
00:00:22.220 | everything from technology, finance, medicine, to real estate, law,
00:00:26.040 | manufacturing, and more.
00:00:27.600 | I'm a member of Longangle.
00:00:29.480 | I've loved being a part of the community, and I've even had one of the founders,
00:00:33.040 | Tad Fallows, join me on All The Hacks in episode 87 to talk about alternative
00:00:37.200 | investments.
00:00:37.920 | Now, the majority of Longangle members are first generation wealth, young, highly
00:00:42.660 | successful individuals who join the community to share knowledge and learn
00:00:46.400 | from each other in a confidential, unbiased setting.
00:00:49.600 | On top of that, members also get access to some unique private market investment
00:00:54.400 | opportunities.
00:00:55.200 | Like I said, I'm a member and I've gotten so much value from the community
00:00:59.120 | because you're getting advice and feedback from people in a similar
00:01:02.320 | situation to you on everything from your investment portfolio, to your
00:01:06.280 | children's education, to finding a concierge doctor.
00:01:09.240 | So many of these conversations aren't happening anywhere else online.
00:01:13.160 | So if you have more than 2.2 million in investable assets, which is their
00:01:17.440 | minimum for membership, I encourage you to check out Longangle and it's totally
00:01:22.000 | free to join.
00:01:22.800 | Just go to longangle.com to learn more.
00:01:26.400 | And if you choose to apply, be sure to let them know you heard about it here.
00:01:29.960 | Again, that's longangle.com.
00:01:34.640 | Hello, and welcome to another episode of All The Hacks, a show about upgrading
00:01:41.720 | your life, money, and travel.
00:01:43.480 | If you're new here, I'm your host, Chris Hutchins.
00:01:45.800 | And usually on the show, I'm sitting down with the world's best experts to
00:01:49.440 | learn the strategies, tactics, and frameworks they use to improve and
00:01:53.080 | optimize their lives.
00:01:54.640 | That means optimizing travel, think flights, hotels, points, and miles, your
00:01:59.280 | money, think savings, investing, getting deals, as well as life and work, think
00:02:04.160 | happiness, leadership, relationships, negotiation, and so much more.
00:02:08.320 | And in my last episode, I talked with Adam Levin about cybersecurity, identity
00:02:13.560 | theft, fraud, and a lot more.
00:02:15.640 | Well, that episode sent me down a serious rabbit hole of research about everything
00:02:20.560 | I can be doing to protect myself and my family online, so I thought it'd be
00:02:24.880 | helpful to share everything I learned so you know what you might want to do
00:02:28.400 | yourself.
00:02:29.000 | We're going to cover protecting everything from your devices, your
00:02:32.160 | identity, to your online accounts, your credit, and trying to remove all your
00:02:36.960 | personal data online.
00:02:38.240 | An incredible amount of time went into this episode, so I'd really love to know
00:02:42.320 | if it's valuable to you, and if so, it would mean the world to me if you shared
00:02:46.000 | it with your friends, your family, maybe your parents, and anyone else you think
00:02:49.960 | would benefit from listening.
00:02:51.200 | Thank you so much in advance for doing that, and let's get started with
00:02:55.320 | protecting your devices.
00:02:56.600 | So simple, quick thing is making sure that you have encryption turned on on
00:03:04.240 | your computer.
00:03:04.880 | If it's a Mac, you turn on FileVault.
00:03:07.400 | It's simple.
00:03:08.160 | If it's Windows, you can go into device encryption and enable that.
00:03:12.280 | The reason I think this is so important is if someone has access to your
00:03:15.720 | computer, you're able to get access to what's on your hard drive if it's not
00:03:20.200 | encrypted.
00:03:20.840 | You might think, "Oh, they can't log into Windows, they can't log into your
00:03:23.640 | computer," but if they have your physical hard drive, get your information.
00:03:26.400 | So definitely turn on encryption.
00:03:28.200 | Also, I just got an email from a listener named Randy who suggested if you want to
00:03:31.840 | create a secure FileVault on your computer for sensitive documents, check out
00:03:35.280 | VeriCrypt, but you can also use disk images on Mac to create a secure disk as
00:03:39.680 | well.
00:03:40.080 | He also suggested that if you're looking to store stuff in the cloud, despite that
00:03:43.640 | they're supposed to be secure, you might want to go a little bit further.
00:03:46.720 | He suggested checking out Cryptomator or BoxCryptor as two ways that you can store
00:03:51.600 | stuff securely in the cloud.
00:03:52.760 | So thanks, Randy, for those suggestions.
00:03:54.400 | Now, on your phone, I would recommend setting up a PIN or a password to unlock
00:03:58.320 | the device, and I would set your phone to automatically erase after a certain number
00:04:03.000 | of failed attempts.
00:04:04.000 | You can also set an option in iOS to not connect to USB devices while the phone's
00:04:08.800 | locked, and you can also turn off what notifications show up when your phone's
00:04:12.360 | locked.
00:04:13.160 | Another thing that I want to talk about is your data when you're on your device.
00:04:17.560 | So I've got a question actually about VPNs and browsing online and when it's safe
00:04:22.400 | and using public Wi-Fi.
00:04:23.600 | So there's really two things that I recommend here.
00:04:26.520 | So one is the DNS servers that you use, which is when you type into Google.com, a
00:04:32.520 | DNS server will translate that to where you're actually trying to go.
00:04:36.240 | And by default, your computer's probably using the DNS server from your ISP, your
00:04:41.040 | Comcast, your Verizon, whoever's providing your internet service.
00:04:44.480 | I don't love the idea of letting those services see where all my traffic's going
00:04:49.680 | because they're notorious for selling that anonymized data.
00:04:52.520 | But I mostly don't like that it's slow.
00:04:54.840 | And so I recommend CloudFlare is my preferred DNS.
00:04:58.560 | If you search CloudFlare 1.1.1.1, you can go figure it out and set it up.
00:05:03.480 | They have an iOS app that lets you set that up also.
00:05:06.080 | So I think it's a great option.
00:05:07.560 | But the question of VPNs also comes up.
00:05:10.320 | So most traffic nowadays is all happening over HTTPS, which means it's secure and
00:05:16.200 | encrypted. So if you're in a coffee shop and you log into your bank, I don't think
00:05:19.320 | you need to worry about someone else there or the cafe owner or their ISP getting
00:05:25.800 | your banking credentials and logging into your account.
00:05:27.680 | That I wouldn't worry about.
00:05:28.880 | However, they will know what sites you browse.
00:05:31.720 | So if you're concerned with privacy and you don't want whoever's operating the
00:05:36.400 | cafe or your ISP knowing where you're going on the Internet, what sites you're
00:05:40.560 | visiting, they won't be able to see your logins, they won't be able to see what
00:05:43.120 | you're doing on the sites, but they will see what you're accessing.
00:05:45.880 | If that's important to you, you can absolutely use a VPN when you're not at home.
00:05:50.840 | But I will say I don't think you need to worry about the VPN for the purpose of
00:05:55.120 | someone getting access to your logins.
00:05:57.000 | I would say when traveling internationally, there's two other reasons to use a VPN.
00:06:01.480 | One, there are a lot of countries whose data collection and privacy rules are not
00:06:06.200 | nearly what they are in the US.
00:06:07.720 | And by the way, the US is not at the top either.
00:06:10.120 | So if you were in China, if you were in other states where you're worried about
00:06:14.360 | that, you can use a VPN to encrypt everything you're doing.
00:06:16.840 | You can also use a VPN to connect back to whatever country you're from and maybe be
00:06:22.600 | able to access things like Netflix when you're online in another country.
00:06:26.320 | I've heard a lot of good recommendations from others using Cloudflare has a service
00:06:31.000 | called Warp, which helps protect all of your traffic.
00:06:33.920 | It doesn't let you do the specify a new location.
00:06:37.000 | I've had a lot of people recommend ExpressVPN for that service as well.
00:06:40.800 | And then finally, in your browser, if you want to prevent ads from being able to
00:06:45.000 | see who you are, you can use extensions like uBlock Origin and other ad blockers
00:06:49.640 | in Chrome.
00:06:50.160 | If you're on an iPhone and you pay for iCloud Plus, Safari has, I think it's
00:06:56.440 | called Private Relay, which will also provide some protection browsing online.
00:07:00.640 | And I think they add the same thing to the mail app.
00:07:02.800 | So that's another option for iOS users.
00:07:05.240 | So that's kind of device.
00:07:07.320 | But let's talk about logins.
00:07:08.960 | Hopefully from the earlier episode and plenty of other episodes, you're all using
00:07:13.000 | password managers.
00:07:14.120 | My personal favorite is 1Password, allthehacks.com/1password.
00:07:18.240 | If you haven't checked it out, I will call out that 1Password is a cloud hosted
00:07:22.680 | password manager.
00:07:23.520 | That means your credentials, while stored and encrypted with 1Password on their
00:07:27.760 | servers, they don't actually have access to your logins because they don't have
00:07:31.080 | your master password, but they are stored in the cloud.
00:07:34.360 | So there are other options if you want to self-host your own password manager files
00:07:38.320 | on your devices.
00:07:39.160 | For me, I think the convenience is worth using something in the cloud, but totally
00:07:44.600 | understand why you might want to hold them locally.
00:07:46.720 | So I use 1Password to go into all of my logins out there, and I want to really
00:07:53.560 | make sure that I have a different password for every single site.
00:07:57.360 | But there are a few other things I think you can do beyond just that.
00:08:00.240 | So one is using secondary emails.
00:08:03.240 | So when someone's trying to, let's say, hack into your Gmail or hack into your
00:08:10.200 | bank account, most likely the email address they're going to try to use is the
00:08:14.920 | email address that is found all over the internet for you, your most common email
00:08:18.640 | address.
00:08:19.040 | But you can go create a secondary email, either on a per login basis or just one
00:08:23.840 | you use for all your important logins.
00:08:26.040 | You can use the plus feature on Gmail.
00:08:28.360 | So if your email address is John Doe at Gmail, you can say John Doe plus Twitter
00:08:35.200 | at Gmail, and it'll always get rerouted to your Gmail, but the email address will
00:08:40.600 | be different.
00:08:41.200 | And someone who knows John Doe at Gmail might not know what you put in after the
00:08:45.440 | plus sign, and Twitter will know that you have to have the plus sign because that's
00:08:49.840 | your email login.
00:08:50.560 | Your email at Twitter wouldn't be John Doe at, it would be John Doe plus Twitter.
00:08:54.880 | And so you have to know that.
00:08:56.160 | So there's a couple options there for how you can set that up for usernames.
00:09:00.400 | I would also recommend not just using your name, maybe use something that's a
00:09:04.120 | little different, and maybe even do something slightly different for each
00:09:08.040 | site so that your username isn't obvious.
00:09:10.280 | This is all to help prevent people from taking your username or your email
00:09:15.000 | address and trying to reset your password.
00:09:17.280 | You can also do a couple other things.
00:09:19.400 | So I definitely recommend changing your mother's maiden name.
00:09:23.040 | It's too easy to find that kind of information online.
00:09:25.480 | So you can just put any other phrase, word, combination of letters in there.
00:09:30.000 | For a lot of services like banks or your cell phone provider, you can call up and
00:09:34.200 | usually request that they add some increased security to your account.
00:09:38.240 | I would do that.
00:09:39.080 | And then last, if you have those security questions, that's like, "What street did
00:09:42.120 | you grow up?"
00:09:42.720 | Or, "Who is your high school teacher?"
00:09:44.160 | Or, "What's your paternal grandmother's first name?"
00:09:46.960 | You can always just make up an answer.
00:09:49.280 | The answer does not have to be the true answer.
00:09:52.400 | And if you use a password manager, you could store those security
00:09:55.080 | questions there if you want.
00:09:56.200 | You can store them somewhere else.
00:09:57.640 | There are a lot of options for where you can put them.
00:09:59.520 | When it comes to two-factor authentication, given how easy it is for someone to
00:10:05.080 | hijack your phone number, whether that's through SIM swapping or a good friend of
00:10:10.360 | mine had this happen to him recently, someone was able to call AT&T and convince
00:10:15.560 | them to turn on call forwarding.
00:10:17.120 | So they didn't actually take his SIM card.
00:10:19.280 | They didn't actually redirect anything.
00:10:21.160 | His phone still worked.
00:10:22.400 | But for a few days, he didn't realize that every time someone called his phone, it
00:10:26.640 | got redirected to someone else, which meant they were able to go to sites online
00:10:31.520 | and say, "Don't text me the code, but call me with the code."
00:10:34.360 | And this other random person was able to get those calls rerouted to them.
00:10:38.520 | So, if it's possible, I would recommend turning off SMS authentication everywhere
00:10:46.000 | and using an authentication app, like a time-based one-time password, those six
00:10:51.400 | digit codes that refresh, you can put them in the Google Authenticator app.
00:10:55.040 | I'm going to get to other places to put them, but if you have to use SMS, I would
00:10:59.800 | say it would be ideal if you used a number that's not your primary phone number.
00:11:03.560 | So you could set up a free Google voice number.
00:11:06.000 | If you have a Google voice number and you've been giving it out freely over the
00:11:09.680 | past few years, you can always just change that Google voice number for free and move
00:11:13.760 | your two-factor authentication codes where you have to have SMS to Google voice.
00:11:18.080 | Obviously, if you can turn off SMS, even better.
00:11:20.480 | Security keys.
00:11:22.640 | I recently bought a YubiKey 5C NFC, which lets you use USB-C and NFC, so you can tap
00:11:28.960 | the back of your phone and you don't have to actually plug it in.
00:11:31.760 | YubiKey has a bunch of other options.
00:11:33.640 | I'm recently a very big fan of security keys because you have to physically have
00:11:38.480 | the key with you, so you can have set up backups and have multiple keys in case you
00:11:42.880 | lose them. Obviously, the downside is if you didn't bring your key and you need to
00:11:46.120 | log in, it's very difficult to do that.
00:11:48.160 | There are some backup codes that you can set up, but for the most part, you need
00:11:51.400 | your key. So it might be too much for some people, but I really like that added
00:11:56.000 | security. As for authenticator codes, you can put them in the authenticator app.
00:12:00.760 | You can also put them in 1Password, which was something that I was doing, but
00:12:05.840 | realized that by having my authenticator codes in 1Password, I was not necessarily
00:12:11.640 | having two-factor authentication.
00:12:13.440 | I wouldn't say it might not be perfect two-factor authentication to store your
00:12:17.520 | authenticator codes in your 1Password because your Gmail password might also be
00:12:22.200 | in there. However, if someone were to compromise your Gmail password or your
00:12:26.000 | Facebook password, but not your 1Password login, then you would actually have some
00:12:31.680 | protection because they would need both your Gmail password and your 1Password
00:12:35.480 | login to be able to get in.
00:12:36.840 | And if you have 1Password secured with a security key, you're making 1Password
00:12:41.520 | two-factor authenticated.
00:12:42.840 | So you can have a little bit of protection putting your OTP codes into 1Password.
00:12:47.160 | And I think the convenience of on mobile and web being able to copy and paste your
00:12:52.440 | two-factor codes from 1Password directly in and autofill them is certainly a
00:12:56.800 | convenience. But for people who really want true two-factor auth, you can use a
00:13:02.080 | service like Google Authenticator or OTP Auth is another app and store those
00:13:06.400 | locally. You can use the Authy app as well, which actually stores those codes in
00:13:10.560 | the cloud so you can transfer them between devices, but they're in at least a
00:13:13.680 | different service than 1Password.
00:13:15.680 | So I haven't experimented yet with Yubikey's ability to store one-time passwords
00:13:21.440 | on your security key, which would be a different place to store them than OTP
00:13:25.480 | Auth or the app. But it's something that I might play around with in the future.
00:13:30.040 | And finally, once you have a security key set up, you're now eligible for Google's
00:13:34.080 | advanced protection program, which is awesome.
00:13:36.760 | So that just adds an increased layer of security to your Gmail account, which is
00:13:41.200 | something that if this is important to you, I would definitely take a look at.
00:13:44.480 | It does add a couple restrictions for authenticating third-party services to your
00:13:50.040 | Gmail, to your Google Drive and that kind of stuff.
00:13:53.200 | It disables app passwords, but it does add a lot more security.
00:13:56.640 | So if that's important to you, then I would definitely check out Google Advanced
00:14:00.480 | Protection. But you do need two security keys, a primary and a backup to be able to
00:14:04.760 | turn that on. Finally, if you're going through all these Gmail settings, I do
00:14:07.960 | recommend that you look at all the services that you've authed, and this is true on
00:14:11.720 | Google, on Facebook, on Twitter, to go in and see, is there an app that I
00:14:15.920 | authenticated to my Gmail five years ago that I gave all of these permissions to?
00:14:20.880 | And so I would definitely go check out what you've authenticated to all of your
00:14:24.560 | services and potentially delete a lot of them or even refresh them, because
00:14:29.400 | sometimes you've set them up so long ago that there weren't as many options.
00:14:33.040 | There might have just been auth Twitter or auth Google.
00:14:36.120 | Now there might be more options like allow this thing to only read my Drive files,
00:14:40.880 | but not make changes to or delete things.
00:14:43.000 | So I definitely would go do that.
00:14:44.240 | I want to tell you all about the most amazing way to buy a second home, and I know
00:14:49.880 | because we actually bought one for one eighth the cost.
00:14:53.040 | And don't worry, I'm not talking timeshares.
00:14:55.320 | I'm talking about Picasso, and I'm excited to partner with them for this episode.
00:14:59.240 | So how does it work?
00:15:00.400 | Picasso buys amazing luxury homes in over 40 world-class destinations, creates an
00:15:05.760 | LLC for each home, and you can buy as little as one eighth of the property.
00:15:10.000 | But it doesn't stop there.
00:15:11.440 | Picasso also professionally manages the home, handling design, cleaning,
00:15:16.480 | bills, repairs, taxes, and more.
00:15:19.400 | And the scheduling system makes it fair and equitable for
00:15:22.720 | everyone to enjoy their home.
00:15:24.280 | When we found Picasso, it felt like it was made just for us.
00:15:28.400 | That same week we found the perfect place in Napa, we toured it, and
00:15:32.600 | the next week we were closing.
00:15:34.080 | Since then, it's truly become our second home, and it's been so amazing.
00:15:38.440 | And it's true real estate ownership.
00:15:40.640 | Owners can sell at any time, set their own price, and tap into Picasso's
00:15:45.680 | active marketplace of buyers.
00:15:47.280 | In fact, on average, Picasso listings resell in 12 days with a 12% annualized gain.
00:15:54.040 | For a modern way to buy and own a second home, go to allthehacks.com/picaso,
00:16:00.200 | where our listeners will get a free Picasso access account, which means you
00:16:04.520 | can see new listings before they go on the website and get up to $10,000
00:16:09.480 | in credit towards closing costs.
00:16:11.200 | Again, that's allthehacks.com/picaso.
00:16:14.920 | P-A-C-A-S-O.
00:16:17.840 | I wish I could say that I'm eating a fully balanced diet every day, but the
00:16:23.200 | reality is that I am definitely not.
00:16:25.320 | So I love having an easy way to get my daily nutritional insurance, which is
00:16:29.960 | why I kickstart my day with Athletic Greens, and I am excited to be
00:16:33.640 | partnering with them for this episode.
00:16:35.280 | I started taking it because I wanted to see what all the hype was about, and I've
00:16:39.280 | kept it in my daily routine for months.
00:16:41.760 | Every morning, I mix it up with some cold water, add a few ice cubes, it
00:16:45.920 | tastes so good when it's cold, and I head to my office feeling focused and
00:16:49.960 | energized for the day, which is a feeling I absolutely love.
00:16:53.520 | I also love that it's made from 75 high-quality vitamins, minerals, and
00:16:57.920 | superfoods, and contains less than one gram of sugar.
00:17:01.200 | It also has no GMOs, nasty chemicals, or artificial anything.
00:17:05.360 | To make giving it a try easy, Athletic Greens is going to give you a free
00:17:09.720 | one-year supply of immune-supporting vitamin D and five free travel
00:17:14.280 | packs with your first purchase.
00:17:16.360 | All you have to do is visit allthehacks.com/athleticgreens.
00:17:21.280 | Again, that's allthehacks.com/athleticgreens to take ownership over
00:17:26.800 | your health and pick up the ultimate daily nutritional insurance.
00:17:30.320 | So that's passwords and logins.
00:17:32.560 | I want to talk a little bit about financial stuff, your credit.
00:17:35.800 | So I definitely recommend monitoring your credit.
00:17:38.280 | I have Experian Alerts set up for free.
00:17:41.200 | I use Credit Karma, which is also free to get alerts.
00:17:44.560 | Chase also has a free identity monitoring product called Chase Credit
00:17:48.600 | Journey, which is worth looking into.
00:17:50.440 | Also, if you've ever been part of a security breach, the company that was
00:17:54.160 | breached usually offers a free premium credit monitoring service for at least
00:17:57.920 | one year, so that could be an option as well.
00:17:59.960 | For me so far, I think those alerts work.
00:18:02.280 | I don't pay for an extra service.
00:18:04.440 | However, I do think it makes a lot of sense for people to freeze their credit.
00:18:08.000 | So you can go into Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion and go freeze your credit.
00:18:12.680 | And that means that anytime someone is trying to open up a new credit card, open
00:18:17.120 | up a new loan for an automobile or a mortgage or anything, you have to unfreeze
00:18:22.400 | your credit to do that.
00:18:23.400 | So I definitely think freezing your credit makes sense.
00:18:25.880 | Even I, who like opening up new cards and getting signup bonuses, it's not hard to
00:18:30.600 | go in, temporarily lift that freeze, apply, and then refreeze those accounts.
00:18:35.200 | Or if it's temporary, you set it to automatically reinstate the freeze.
00:18:39.120 | I did look into credit fraud alerts, which you can set up for one year easily or a
00:18:44.080 | longer period of time, I think if you're in the military or if you have been a
00:18:48.160 | victim of identity theft, but if you're going to go ahead and freeze your credit,
00:18:51.520 | everything I've read is that it's a little bit redundant because fraud alerts
00:18:55.480 | will kind of tell the financial institutions to take a little bit of extra
00:18:59.440 | precaution when opening up an account.
00:19:01.240 | But if your credit's frozen, then they won't open it up at all.
00:19:04.320 | So I don't know if fraud alerts make sense if you're willing to freeze your
00:19:06.840 | credit, but if for some reason you don't want to freeze your credit, I would
00:19:09.480 | definitely look at setting up fraud alerts.
00:19:11.200 | I actually, in the process of doing research here, was recommended to freeze
00:19:15.600 | my credit on two new credit bureaus that I never even really knew existed.
00:19:20.000 | One is ChexSystems and one is Inovus.
00:19:22.840 | The three that everyone should be having their stuff frozen on are
00:19:25.600 | Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion, but I didn't know about those other two.
00:19:29.200 | I'll put some links in the show notes for everything I'm talking about here.
00:19:32.600 | So it's going to be a really detailed show notes, or if you go to
00:19:35.280 | allthehacks.com/78, which is this episode, you'll get a link to everything
00:19:41.360 | I'm talking about, lots of details there.
00:19:43.600 | So I froze my credit on those two new credit bureaus because I didn't
00:19:47.720 | know I should, and I'm glad I did.
00:19:49.400 | One thing you can do when it comes to your credit is there's a website,
00:19:52.240 | optoutprescreen.com, which lets you opt out of all of the mail you get with
00:19:58.120 | different offers for new credit cards.
00:19:59.960 | And I was so tempted to do it because we get so many credit card offers at home,
00:20:04.920 | but I would say one in a thousand of them is for an offer that is sometimes
00:20:10.760 | better than all the other offers.
00:20:12.040 | So I remember one time, I think I got an Amex Platinum 150,000 point signup
00:20:16.600 | bonus in the mail that you could only get if you got the letter in the mail.
00:20:20.160 | So for me, I'm willing to deal with a bunch of junk mail about credit card
00:20:24.400 | offers on the off chance I get one.
00:20:25.920 | But if you'd rather just get rid of them, optoutprescreen.com is a good option.
00:20:29.840 | And finally, I talked about reviewing all the services you've offed to
00:20:33.320 | Google and Facebook and Twitter, but lately in the last few years, financial
00:20:37.880 | institutions have been adopting something called open banking.
00:20:40.760 | So if you've ever used Mint or a bunch of other products online to aggregate
00:20:46.360 | your financial data, it used to be that you would go in and type in your Chase
00:20:50.440 | login and password, and they would just go crawl the data from your Chase
00:20:54.560 | account and aggregate it in one place.
00:20:56.880 | Recently, a lot of the banks have adopted a similar authentication service
00:21:02.360 | called open banking, where they redirect you to Chase's site, you log into your
00:21:06.480 | Chase account and you approve sharing your information with Mint or like
00:21:11.200 | Expensify does it for expense reporting.
00:21:13.240 | So given that, I would encourage everyone to go look on Chase or Capital One or
00:21:18.720 | any other banks that you have an account at, Wells Fargo, et cetera, and go look
00:21:23.800 | in your settings to see who you're sharing your data with, because you might
00:21:27.640 | be sharing your bank data with an app you downloaded to, you know, explore your
00:21:31.640 | money, deleted the app, but forgot that you're still sharing your data with them.
00:21:35.840 | So that's another one when it comes to your money and things to do there.
00:21:39.120 | When it comes to just your general identity, I already mentioned making
00:21:42.640 | sure you ask for increased security from a lot of your services like banks and
00:21:46.720 | cell phones, but I would also go to have I been pawned pwnd.com and I'll link to
00:21:52.760 | that in the show notes and just set up alerts.
00:21:54.880 | This is a site that tracks all of the breaches from different companies who
00:22:01.040 | have their databases breached online and expose, unfortunately, your email
00:22:06.880 | address, your information, your logins, your passwords, your phone numbers.
00:22:10.720 | This will show you on a one-time basis, all of the breaches you've been a part
00:22:14.840 | of and what email addresses were leaked there.
00:22:17.480 | So great thing to go look at.
00:22:19.520 | Or if you use one password, they have a feature called Watchtower, which does
00:22:23.000 | this for you already, and will highlight all the logins you have that have been
00:22:26.080 | found in breaches, but you can also set up alerts on your email and your phone
00:22:29.520 | number for new breaches.
00:22:31.280 | So if they find your information in a new breach, they'll let you know.
00:22:33.800 | So that's identity theft.
00:22:35.360 | I want to talk about personal data because this is where I spent an
00:22:39.360 | incredibly large amount of time over the last few weeks.
00:22:42.840 | So in the episode I did with Adam Levin, he talked about how there's all these
00:22:46.920 | data brokers that collect your data.
00:22:48.520 | I was blown away at how many there were.
00:22:51.560 | And if you go online and search for your name and, you know, maybe your street
00:22:57.320 | number and street name in quotes, or search for your phone number in quotes,
00:23:01.960 | or even search your name and the city you live in on Google or Bing or anywhere,
00:23:06.480 | there are so many websites, hundreds I found that have my personal data of my
00:23:11.440 | address and my phone number and all this stuff, family members.
00:23:14.320 | And so I wanted to figure out what to do here.
00:23:17.200 | So I went first and said, you know what?
00:23:19.840 | I want to learn about this.
00:23:20.840 | I'm going to go do it all myself.
00:23:22.240 | And there's actually a really great list of all of the data brokers out there on
00:23:27.040 | GitHub, and I'll link to that in the show notes.
00:23:29.120 | And if you want, you can manually go through all of them and you can request
00:23:33.920 | them, remove your data.
00:23:34.840 | Some of them, it's really simple.
00:23:37.040 | You just give them your email address and remove it.
00:23:39.040 | Some of them you fill out a Google form and who knows how long it will take.
00:23:42.440 | Some of them you have to upload your driver's license.
00:23:45.400 | Some of them you have to send an email and, and some of them make it even harder
00:23:49.800 | than all of those things.
00:23:51.200 | And you, maybe you have to send them a letter.
00:23:53.200 | And so fortunately there are states that are adopting new laws.
00:23:56.960 | And so in California, we have the CCPA, which makes companies and data brokers
00:24:02.720 | need to comply with your requests to delete their data.
00:24:06.600 | And so if you're in California, there are some sites that's like, is this a CCPA
00:24:11.320 | request, which may take longer, but is possible online or is it not?
00:24:16.000 | And then maybe you have to mail something in.
00:24:17.560 | Also, when it comes to removing data, Google has this blog post I'll link to
00:24:21.720 | about some new options for removing your data online and from search.
00:24:25.080 | And then there's also these marketing sites, Axiom and LexisNexis, where
00:24:29.520 | there's personal data there in like marketing databases, and you can
00:24:33.120 | request those be removed.
00:24:34.480 | But I went through this process and I was like, God, I spent.
00:24:37.360 | Dozens of hours trying to delete my information.
00:24:41.040 | And I felt like I was just, it was cat and mouse and I would delete a bunch
00:24:45.520 | and then I would look and there was still a few more.
00:24:47.560 | And so I asked a handful of people I know, one of whom is actually the
00:24:51.520 | person who shared a lot of the info in here, because he's very meticulous
00:24:56.200 | with privacy and security and protecting himself.
00:24:59.720 | I'm not going to name him, but thank you so much.
00:25:01.480 | If you listen for helping me with this episode.
00:25:03.600 | And, you know, he suggested I check out a service called delete me and I did.
00:25:08.440 | And I was like, Oh, wow, here's a company that's just going to do all of this for
00:25:12.000 | you.
00:25:12.280 | And so I actually first checked it out, signed up for it and looked and ran a
00:25:18.040 | process to delete myself.
00:25:19.280 | And even though I thought I had gotten through all the information online for
00:25:23.600 | myself, they still found a handful of sites with my personal info.
00:25:28.040 | So after that, I was like, wow, I spent easily 15, 20 hours deleting my own data.
00:25:33.600 | And then I went through this process with them and they found yet more for around
00:25:37.720 | a hundred dollars.
00:25:38.800 | I could have had someone do all this, save me dozens of hours.
00:25:41.960 | And then they'll continually check on an ongoing basis to find more data because
00:25:46.520 | it turns out that data just keeps popping up.
00:25:48.520 | And actually I reached out to them and said, Hey, I really like your product.
00:25:52.280 | Can we talk about it?
00:25:53.560 | So I got connected with their CEO and then I actually asked them if there was
00:25:56.760 | something we could do together.
00:25:57.880 | And they offered a 20% discount and became a partner of the show.
00:26:01.400 | So I first heard about their product.
00:26:03.680 | I then use their product and then reached out to them.
00:26:06.400 | So if you go to all the hacks.com/delete me, you get 20% off and so far I'm very
00:26:13.160 | happy with the product.
00:26:14.280 | And if you have requests for things that they don't search for, they focus on
00:26:18.760 | personal information on data brokers, but there are a couple other requests I'll
00:26:21.880 | talk about that they have a service where you can ask one of their advisors to help
00:26:25.560 | remove other things.
00:26:26.600 | So if there's other stuff you find online, maybe it's related to real estate or
00:26:30.160 | financial transactions or something, you can actually ask them to help and remove
00:26:33.880 | that as well.
00:26:34.720 | So I'm actually going to bring on Rob from delete me for a minute right now,
00:26:40.680 | because I had some questions that I just couldn't get the answer to.
00:26:44.000 | And I thought it'd be great to have him on for a little bit to just talk a little
00:26:47.560 | bit more about where this data comes from.
00:26:49.600 | Rob, thanks for joining me.
00:26:52.520 | Thanks for having me.
00:26:53.880 | Yeah.
00:26:54.840 | So as people listening know, I've gone through a lot of the process of trying to
00:26:58.920 | really take what I learned in the last episode and put it into action.
00:27:02.520 | And the one that really took way more time than I expected was trying to delete
00:27:07.640 | myself off the internet.
00:27:08.680 | And I had found your service and I thought, Hmm, do I want to try this myself?
00:27:12.520 | Do I not?
00:27:13.520 | I went through the process of trying it myself and then ultimately ended up using
00:27:17.200 | you guys as well and found stuff that I didn't even find.
00:27:19.720 | But I just want to start and understand this problem.
00:27:22.160 | How is everybody getting all this data about people on the internet that we need
00:27:26.320 | to go find and delete?
00:27:27.240 | Yeah.
00:27:27.760 | I mean, what's happened over the last decade or 15 years or so is that the data
00:27:33.520 | that we've all been sharing in our daily activities when we're going online.
00:27:37.560 | And last time I checked, we spent a lot more time online today than we did 10
00:27:41.840 | years ago.
00:27:42.480 | That ultimately is feeding databases, which get traded in sort of a gray
00:27:47.320 | aftermarket behind the scenes where data is bought and sold.
00:27:51.480 | And ultimately a combination of that data and data that's scraped from the public
00:27:58.040 | internet has created vast treasure troves of profiles about every American which
00:28:03.520 | reside in hundreds of data brokers databases today and which they sell to
00:28:10.040 | anyone and everyone that wants to buy it.
00:28:12.920 | And is it as easy as just deleting it all?
00:28:15.200 | Or is it going to pop up next week, next month?
00:28:17.600 | Because there's so many people with this data.
00:28:19.520 | Yeah.
00:28:20.960 | Under today's laws, which hopefully we'll get a chance to talk about, which are
00:28:25.200 | changing and evolving rapidly because of this problem.
00:28:29.320 | Under today's laws, there's no simple way to say, "Hey, remove me once and for all
00:28:35.280 | from your database."
00:28:36.560 | There's simply a way to say, "Hey, you're publishing a link to my profile.
00:28:41.800 | It contains information that I don't want exposed.
00:28:44.280 | My family, my children, my home address, the net worth of my house, my cell phone
00:28:49.800 | number for robocallers," all this kind of stuff.
00:28:51.880 | And you can say, "Hey, opt me out of that.
00:28:54.320 | I don't want that link shown to anybody, period, or resold."
00:28:58.520 | And so the design of our service, and that's Delete Me and similar services
00:29:05.840 | that you can find, have built into it an annual subscription where we relentlessly
00:29:10.440 | go back and monitor and look to see if these data brokers get your information
00:29:15.920 | again, and then republish it.
00:29:17.640 | And a couple of stats I'd love to know.
00:29:20.680 | On average, how many hours does each session save?
00:29:24.800 | Yeah, it's a great question.
00:29:26.680 | Over a year, our average customer will save 60 to 80 hours of their
00:29:33.000 | life through signing up for us.
00:29:34.600 | So we think at $129, that's a pretty good deal.
00:29:37.480 | What percentage of people after that first report have stuff pop up again in
00:29:42.240 | the same places you've already scanned?
00:29:44.080 | Is that 90% of people that comes back or how frequent is that?
00:29:47.840 | Yeah, so about 35% of our customers will see their personal information
00:29:57.560 | repopulated in some shape or form at a data broker that we remove
00:30:03.040 | them from after six months.
00:30:05.400 | Wow.
00:30:06.680 | And how have laws affected this?
00:30:08.920 | Right now, we have a patchwork of state laws, more and more going
00:30:13.320 | through different legislatures.
00:30:14.640 | There's laws that have been passed recently in Colorado and Utah and
00:30:19.200 | Vermont, and they continue to evolve mainly based on California, which was
00:30:23.560 | mainly based on the European GDPR and all these laws.
00:30:27.320 | I mean, I'm not a lawyer, I'm an entrepreneur, but they're all this sort
00:30:30.760 | of the same shape and size to me.
00:30:32.400 | When I look at them, they have all these nuances, but they grant citizens
00:30:36.680 | rights to access their data, correct their data if they're mistake being
00:30:41.120 | made that they find and to redact or remove or delete their data
00:30:45.440 | in certain instances as well.
00:30:46.920 | So the really good news here is that no matter where you live, it is almost
00:30:54.600 | guaranteed that you're going to get more rights to wherever your data is located
00:30:58.880 | in any database that's custodying it.
00:31:02.200 | And that's good for everybody, except for the companies that are doing
00:31:07.360 | stuff with your data that you don't want them to do.
00:31:09.560 | They might be less profitable and I'm okay with that, but is it as simple
00:31:14.080 | as if I have a friend that lives in California, can I use their address
00:31:17.480 | when I submit this form so that I can take advantage of some of those
00:31:20.520 | protections or if I open up a PO box in California, is that enough?
00:31:24.840 | It's not simple.
00:31:25.680 | You can't simply claim you're a resident, but we do like playing
00:31:28.640 | tricks on the data brokers ourselves.
00:31:30.920 | So we do what we can.
00:31:32.120 | We use threats under the CCPA for residents of other
00:31:36.160 | States to get things removed.
00:31:38.520 | And a lot of times companies are not mal-intentioned and
00:31:42.360 | sometimes they will just do it.
00:31:43.560 | They want an easy process as well to make things efficient.
00:31:46.760 | So if California sets a certain bar, their processes will often
00:31:51.080 | be extended to other States.
00:31:53.160 | That said, there are some frustrating data brokers out there that I would
00:31:58.240 | call the true bad guys that really just don't give a damn.
00:32:01.560 | How hard can it be for some sites to remove your data?
00:32:05.000 | Yeah, it's a whole litany of things.
00:32:08.160 | I mean, every one of these data brokers has different processes and some of
00:32:11.480 | them are super technical and efficient.
00:32:13.680 | And I'd go so far as to say almost user-friendly, almost, but many of them
00:32:19.440 | are not, and they are increasingly changing them, requiring more identity
00:32:24.440 | verification, "Hey, give us your phone number.
00:32:27.040 | Give us your email," to which we say, "Hey, screw you data broker.
00:32:31.000 | We're going to use aliases so that you never get more of our customer's
00:32:34.560 | information than you already have."
00:32:36.560 | Getting the crew together isn't as easy as it used to be.
00:32:41.360 | I get it.
00:32:42.080 | Life comes at you fast, but trust me, your friends are probably
00:32:46.360 | desperate for a good hang.
00:32:47.680 | So kick 2024 off right by finally hosting that event.
00:32:51.720 | Just make sure you do it the easy way and let our sponsor Drizzly, the go-to
00:32:56.640 | app for drink delivery, take care of the supplies.
00:32:59.160 | All you need to come up with is the excuse to get together.
00:33:02.200 | It doesn't even have to be a good one.
00:33:04.040 | It could be your dog's birthday, that the sun finally came out, or maybe
00:33:08.120 | you just want to celebrate that you got through another week.
00:33:10.960 | With Drizzly, you can make hosting easy by taking the drink run off
00:33:14.840 | your to-do list, which means you can entice your friends to leave their
00:33:18.200 | houses without ever leaving yours.
00:33:20.560 | And since I know you like a good deal, Drizzly compares prices on their
00:33:24.000 | massive selection of beer, wine, and spirits across multiple stores.
00:33:27.720 | So when I really wanted to make a few cocktails while we were hosting
00:33:30.680 | family last week, not only could I get an Italian Amaro delivered in less
00:33:34.640 | than an hour, but I found it for $15 less than my local liquor store.
00:33:38.720 | So whatever the occasion, download the Drizzly app or go to drizzly.com.
00:33:43.720 | That's D-R-I-Z-L-Y.com today.
00:33:47.640 | Must be 21 plus, not available in all locations.
00:33:52.920 | I just want to thank you quick for listening to and supporting the show.
00:33:56.280 | Your support is what keeps this show going.
00:33:59.120 | To get all of the URLs, codes, deals, and discounts from our partners, you
00:34:04.000 | can go to allthehacks.com/deals.
00:34:07.080 | So please consider supporting those who support us.
00:34:10.480 | I think about this in the context of my children and I'm like, wait, there's
00:34:14.360 | no information about them on the internet yet, right?
00:34:16.840 | How soon should I be worried about this for them?
00:34:19.840 | It's a great question.
00:34:21.280 | And I was just on another podcast with somebody talking about a new law in
00:34:26.160 | California that they just passed in addition to the CCPA, which is designed
00:34:30.360 | to protect children's data on social media in ways that it is currently not
00:34:35.560 | protected. And the problem is it, this data starts leaking out about
00:34:40.840 | our kids earlier and earlier.
00:34:42.480 | We give them iPads, we give them access to watch streaming media.
00:34:46.040 | When kids used to watch TV, TV had no idea there was a kid in the room.
00:34:49.760 | Now they know and they know exactly what's being watched, when, for how long.
00:34:54.640 | And they'll eventually connect the dots to exactly who that identity is.
00:34:58.960 | And that's somebody's children.
00:35:00.320 | And I was just talking about this concept, which I think is pretty scary.
00:35:04.000 | And I'm a parent as well, of a digital profile being built up over many, many
00:35:09.960 | years from when somebody is, say, 10 years old to when somebody's post
00:35:14.360 | graduated from college and starting out in their work life and then getting
00:35:19.640 | married and everything, if that digital trail can be correlated from that
00:35:24.400 | child all the way through, and there's the amount of data that we think there
00:35:28.880 | is in these profiles, whether it's Apple, Google, Amazon, who knows?
00:35:34.240 | I think big tech might be able to predict things about your child that
00:35:38.560 | you would never be able to predict.
00:35:40.120 | And for them to have that level of information, I don't know what
00:35:44.120 | they're going to do with it.
00:35:45.000 | Maybe it's innocent and they just want to sell you stuff and maybe they cross
00:35:48.520 | lines, but it's pretty scary to me because I don't know as a parent, you
00:35:54.240 | know, what the possibilities are if big tech ends up with more insight
00:35:58.920 | about my children than I have.
00:36:00.200 | And so what's the solution?
00:36:02.680 | Is it don't let your kids use an iPhone or a Gmail?
00:36:06.360 | Cause that seems like it would not go over well for most families.
00:36:09.360 | It wouldn't.
00:36:10.480 | And I don't think that's the solution.
00:36:12.120 | I think that, you know, modern life requires us to participate
00:36:15.640 | in using modern technology.
00:36:17.240 | So I think the best thing to do as a parent for children is some of the
00:36:22.760 | basics I think you've talked about in some of your other podcasts, you know,
00:36:26.800 | one is do not let them use the same email for all their different accounts.
00:36:33.600 | Whether they have a streaming media account and then a Snapchat account or
00:36:38.280 | an Instagram account, create a different profile with no linkage between a common
00:36:43.680 | email or a common phone number so that the data about them can't be
00:36:48.560 | aggregated and correlated.
00:36:49.960 | That's, I think, very important.
00:36:51.560 | And then I think, you know, the basic things that most parents are already
00:36:55.880 | doing, limiting some, some screen time and teaching them about the do's and
00:37:02.760 | don'ts of social media and actually teaching them about digital advertising
00:37:07.000 | as well, Hey, when you're watching a streaming media, here's who's making
00:37:10.800 | money and why the ads are being sold to you and this kind of thing.
00:37:13.960 | So last thing you've been in this space a lot longer than me.
00:37:16.400 | Is there other data out there that I should be trying to make sure it's
00:37:19.280 | removed?
00:37:19.840 | That's not my contact information or pictures of my house and floor plans
00:37:24.400 | and all that kind of stuff.
00:37:25.240 | Everyone should be Googling themselves on a semi-regular basis and seeing what
00:37:30.080 | those results look like, because you never know what data is out there and
00:37:35.040 | presented in what context.
00:37:36.480 | Beyond that, there are a ton of hidden data sets about us that we should be
00:37:42.800 | more aware of and we should constrain the use of that includes your credit card
00:37:48.400 | company, selling all the data about your transactions.
00:37:51.400 | That includes your telephone carrier and your ISP selling data about your
00:37:57.600 | behaviors that they collect sort of secretly without telling you.
00:38:02.000 | I think Verizon sent out a huge notice to all their customers.
00:38:06.040 | I mean, it was amazing to read this because it was like, here's why we value
00:38:10.200 | your choice and your privacy.
00:38:12.840 | And then you read it and you're like, hold on, this whole five pages written
00:38:17.480 | by the best lawyers in the world are all about how they're selling all of your
00:38:21.640 | data from your cell phone and your ISP service to anyone they want.
00:38:26.440 | So could I email Verizon and say, hey, please stop doing this?
00:38:29.200 | Is that like an option for a lot of these companies that they don't tell you
00:38:32.480 | about and make easy to know?
00:38:34.560 | It is. And again, if you're a resident of a state, not just California, but
00:38:39.840 | there's five or 10 other states now that have specific privacy laws that you can
00:38:44.880 | cite, it makes it easier for them to have to comply with some of your requests.
00:38:51.200 | But all of this stuff requires some knowledge, some expertise, and that's the
00:38:56.040 | kind of thing that we want to bring to our customers.
00:38:58.520 | And even if you're not a customer, you can come visit us and ask us a question
00:39:02.600 | and our privacy advisors will try to help out and rest assured, you know, it's
00:39:06.840 | not just us, but we are trying to map out where these data sets are, how to go
00:39:12.880 | constrain the resale of your data, even if you like the product, right?
00:39:16.720 | Like I'm happy with my cell phone service from T-Mobile.
00:39:19.760 | I don't want to stop being a customer of T-Mobile, but I want to understand what
00:39:24.480 | my rights are to make sure they're not doing things with my data that I wouldn't
00:39:29.160 | want. And I got to say, the first thing I found when I was doing my search on
00:39:33.040 | myself is you guys have a site where it's like, if you don't want to pay us,
00:39:35.840 | that's fine. Here's a list of how to remove yourself from all the data
00:39:38.640 | brokers. So I appreciate that, though.
00:39:40.520 | After going through that process, I'm not sure it was worth my time.
00:39:43.400 | And, you know, this episode was a follow up to the last one because there was so
00:39:47.320 | much I needed to go do that I hadn't done.
00:39:49.120 | Now I feel like I have a few more calls to make with Verizon and my ISP.
00:39:52.720 | So now maybe I'm going to have to do a second follow up with everyone to share
00:39:55.920 | what else I found and worked on removing.
00:39:58.000 | But this has been great. Thank you so much for joining me.
00:40:00.600 | Thanks for having me, Chris.
00:40:01.480 | OK, so hopefully that was really helpful to hear a little bit from Rob about
00:40:07.520 | Delete Me. I'm a big fan of the product.
00:40:09.520 | I want to talk about some other personal data that I found online that I was
00:40:12.760 | surprised about and really spent some time thinking about what to do.
00:40:16.720 | So a lot of it was related to real estate.
00:40:19.080 | And whether you rent or buy, there was probably some website when you found your
00:40:23.360 | home or your apartment that you looked at in order to decide you wanted it.
00:40:27.480 | Maybe it was Zillow, maybe it was Hotpads.
00:40:30.160 | There are a bunch of sites online, apartments.com, where real estate
00:40:34.360 | brokerage sites, MLS sites, apartment rental sites.
00:40:37.400 | And they almost never take down the information about your property.
00:40:42.480 | On top of that, it seems like every house has its own website.
00:40:45.840 | And that website often doesn't get taken down.
00:40:48.280 | And that website might not just have photos of the house.
00:40:50.840 | They might have the floor plans.
00:40:52.280 | They might have all of the disclosure packet.
00:40:54.480 | They might have one of those Matterport 3D walkthroughs.
00:40:57.560 | So aside from just personal data, if someone is able to get your address,
00:41:01.320 | I figure it's probably not beneficial for someone to be able to click through
00:41:05.160 | 57 pictures of your house in every room or download your floor plans.
00:41:08.800 | So I would recommend reaching out to two sources.
00:41:12.320 | One, any of the sites that have this information, sites like Zillow and Redfin
00:41:16.160 | or apartments.com, they all have an ability to opt out and request pictures
00:41:20.240 | or be removed from the website, but also to the real estate agent
00:41:24.520 | who listed the house if you purchased it.
00:41:26.720 | They can actually go into the MLS and remove all those photos,
00:41:29.840 | which will push out to all of these sites and they'll update them.
00:41:33.480 | They can also take down the pages on their own website.
00:41:36.440 | And something else you can do is once any of these sites have been removed,
00:41:40.720 | whether it's pictures or content, Google and Bing have a remove
00:41:44.920 | outdated content tool that I mentioned when I was talking with Rob,
00:41:48.240 | which will actually go in and remove the search results.
00:41:53.000 | So Google's out there indexing the Internet, right?
00:41:55.080 | They're not trying to store your information.
00:41:57.280 | But if you delete a picture from Zillow,
00:42:00.240 | Google might not immediately know that that picture is gone.
00:42:03.640 | So Google has this tool and Bing has one as well where you can say, hey,
00:42:07.240 | in your search results, there's a picture.
00:42:08.560 | But the actual website that has that picture is no longer there.
00:42:11.400 | And in somewhere between minutes and hours, you can give them the URL
00:42:14.840 | of that picture.
00:42:15.440 | If Google says, oh, yeah, you're right, that picture is not there.
00:42:17.720 | They'll remove it immediately from their search results.
00:42:20.000 | So that happens over time, naturally over about a month or weeks.
00:42:24.320 | But if you want to get it gone right away,
00:42:25.920 | you can use their remove outdated content tool,
00:42:28.040 | which I'll link to in the show notes also.
00:42:29.920 | And finally, when it comes to maps, you can actually reach out to Google,
00:42:33.520 | Bing and Apple and ask them to blur your house on Street View.
00:42:37.600 | I will point out that it is a irreversible decision.
00:42:40.800 | So make sure that you really want to do this now and forever
00:42:44.080 | if you make that request, but it is something you can do.
00:42:46.600 | And then finally, when it comes to personal data,
00:42:48.640 | if you've set up a trust for yourself or your family, know two things.
00:42:52.560 | One, it is possible for someone to find out
00:42:55.800 | who the trustees are on that trust.
00:42:57.800 | So it doesn't really protect anyone from finding out who you are, what you do.
00:43:02.600 | It does make it a little more obfuscated.
00:43:04.640 | So if you do want to buy your home and you want to buy it in a way
00:43:07.800 | that no one will be able to trace it to you, you probably should be doing that
00:43:11.080 | in an LLC and likely a two tiered LLC for true privacy.
00:43:15.320 | And that's for things like,
00:43:16.840 | you know, your car registration, your house deed, you know,
00:43:19.120 | even if you buy I bonds or something.
00:43:21.200 | So that's something to do if you want the most privacy.
00:43:24.160 | Most of those things don't show up on the Internet,
00:43:26.360 | but they are records that someone could usually request or find
00:43:29.840 | from different places, especially with your home.
00:43:31.960 | But if you do just have a trust, you know, maybe consider not naming it
00:43:35.520 | the John Doe Trust, maybe come up with a name that is a little bit different
00:43:39.120 | so that it's not so obvious who it is.
00:43:41.440 | OK, so that's personal data.
00:43:44.080 | There's just a couple other things I'll hit on before I wrap.
00:43:46.960 | I was thinking about how all these data brokers get your information
00:43:49.400 | and you're filling out your address online all the time.
00:43:51.600 | And obviously, if you're trying to ship something to your house,
00:43:54.360 | you might need to put your address there so you get it.
00:43:56.720 | But you can also get a P.O.
00:43:59.600 | box at the post office.
00:44:01.080 | You can go to UPS and actually get a P.O.
00:44:03.960 | box, but one that has a real street address and can receive packages,
00:44:07.440 | even packages, whether they're FedEx or DHL or something else.
00:44:10.320 | There are a lot of virtual mailbox services online where you can get an address
00:44:13.800 | in a city and send mail there and they'll scan it.
00:44:16.400 | You can even send packages there and they'll reship them to you.
00:44:19.520 | So depending on how much you want to complicate the process of receiving mail,
00:44:23.800 | you could get one of these services and send your mail there
00:44:27.520 | and not have to worry about it, or even just use it for websites
00:44:31.360 | where you don't think you need to be giving out your home address,
00:44:34.920 | but you need to give out an address.
00:44:36.400 | But you want it to be yours
00:44:37.440 | in case for some reason there's something that's going to come.
00:44:39.800 | When I did some quick research at the lowest price point online,
00:44:43.880 | these virtual mailboxes where they scan your mail,
00:44:46.400 | you can get them at like ten dollars a month.
00:44:48.880 | You might have to pay for the scans, but you know, you can at least get the address
00:44:52.320 | PO box at the post office in the Bay Area is about 20 bucks.
00:44:56.040 | And then a lot of other postal services where you can receive packages and mail
00:44:59.920 | were anywhere from 20 to 40 dollars a month because you can't receive packages
00:45:04.320 | if you get a PO box at the post office, unless they're USPS packages.
00:45:07.600 | When it comes to unsolicited mail, there's a website, DMA Choice,
00:45:11.200 | which you can go in and submit yourself and say,
00:45:13.720 | I don't want to receive unsolicited mail, please stop sending it to me.
00:45:16.800 | They also let you put your email address on a stop spamming me list.
00:45:19.960 | That's an option.
00:45:20.960 | If you're getting catalogs you don't want,
00:45:22.560 | you can always call the catalog company and ask to remove you.
00:45:25.320 | And then if you're not already on the do not call registry
00:45:28.520 | and don't want more spam calls, that's an option.
00:45:31.320 | Also, a lot of carriers have recently launched their own apps
00:45:34.680 | that you can download to block and screen spam calls.
00:45:38.040 | And most of those are free as well.
00:45:39.560 | So I know this is a lot of information.
00:45:44.160 | Hopefully the show notes will be helpful in organizing it
00:45:47.240 | and figuring out what you want to do and taking action.
00:45:50.120 | This was a scary but kind of fun process for me because now I feel a lot better.
00:45:55.480 | You certainly don't need to take all of these actions, right?
00:45:57.960 | You can decide which ones are the most important to you and focus on those.
00:46:01.680 | But I wanted to make sure I kind of tried to gather everything I could
00:46:05.720 | and put it in one place for all of you so that if this is important to you,
00:46:09.640 | you know what to do and you know how to do it.
00:46:11.800 | So hopefully that's really helpful.
00:46:13.600 | And I really appreciate you guys listening.
00:46:15.720 | Definitely.
00:46:16.320 | If you think other people need to know this, share this episode with them.
00:46:19.160 | You can share it straight from the player app.
00:46:21.200 | You can share a link to the website, whatever is easiest.
00:46:23.840 | I really appreciate it.
00:46:25.040 | I would love as many people as possible to be able to protect themselves online
00:46:28.840 | and fight back against these brokers, scammers, fishers and everyone out there.
00:46:32.360 | Really just that suck, to be honest.
00:46:34.560 | So thank you so much for listening.
00:46:36.280 | I will see you next week.
00:46:37.360 | [MUSIC]
00:46:47.360 | [BLANK_AUDIO]