@40hz - You got me having a quick search, and I found this:
http://howmanyofme.com
Lets you see how many people in the US have the same name.
For my name, pretty much all results are about a hockey player.
-Renegade
Interesting! And thx for finding that. I got this result back:
![Screenshot from 2012-09-16 11:13:18.png](https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?PHPSESSID=643e9eb97da017c1a546901b014404c3&action=dlattach;topic=32249.0;attach=69026;image)
Which isn't always 100% correct as they pointed out on the website. And in this case, it isn't. Because I do know of one other person with the exact same name as mine except for the middle initial. We've emailed each other back and forth a few times and had a good laugh over it. Funny thing is we both also know a few people in common - so it looks like the
Six Degrees of Separation thing has some truth to it.
![Grin ;D](https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/Smileys/fun/laugh.gif)
Still, 2 people out of 314 million makes for a pretty uncommon name.
Of course now that I've said
that (which is a good example of how easy it would be to make an unintentional slip that has privacy implications
![mrgreen :mrgreen:](https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/Smileys/fun/icon_mrgreen.gif)
) some enterprising individual could consult a listing of unique names for the United States, sort by geographic region, and probably narrow it down to twenty or fewer candidates for my name. Some intelligent guessing at age (as revealed by opinions I've expressed, music I listen to, and pop culture things I've referred to) would narrow that candidate list even further. Probably to five or less. Then all you'd need to do is check voter or motor vehicle registrations and find the house address. That's how the US Justice Dept. works data correlation when conducting an investigation or fishing expedition. And it works!
Put a few people on the ground in vans to verify someone is actually at the address
and get a current photo - and
voila - they have my ass! Especially now that they plan on the widespread deployment of facial recognition software. Use an ATM, enter an airport, pass through an automated toll lane, or show up on the wrong "privately owned" sec-cam and they'll know where I am.
Like I said, losing battle. Or more correctly:
lost battle.
Far too late to put that evil genie back in its bottle.
![genie.jpg](https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?PHPSESSID=643e9eb97da017c1a546901b014404c3&action=dlattach;topic=32249.0;attach=69028;image)
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