Drinks and dresses — and the stalkers who notice them
It's OK to have habits and routines. But keep in mind how they can be used against you
Deep autumn has arrived in DC in earnest, which is why we’re all spending more time indoors after dark.
Last week, for example, I took this picture:
Please note that as part of the challenge, I posted the picture during the day, after some time had passed after I left the restaurant.
Pro-tip: Restaurants are some of the best places for a stalker to find you. Why? Because it usually takes time for a patron to leave.
If you post your appetizer in real time, someone could show up to hassle you by the time dessert arrives. How do I know this? It has literally happened to me, back when I worked in Moscow.
These crappy experiences are a big reason as to why I started this Substack in the first place. Going through them was not fun. But at least I can now help other people avoid them!
The first person to correctly pinpoint my location was Phillip, and he didn’t even have to try that hard:
As another person mentioned very quickly, I was clearly having a mojito:
Google images did the rest.
However, geolocation is never a guessing game, and anyone who is really invested in pinpointing your location is not going to take chances. So let’s take a closer look at the picture Omnigeek kindly posted and note how the two sides of the photo almost seem as though they don’t line up (because you have a wall, and then you have a panel with the frosted glass):
Let’s match the elements to my photo, even though, as ALT noticed, the chairs had changed:
The chairs could have thrown our hypothetical stalker off, but let’s check out my original photo again:
One of the reasons why I wanted to do this with you guys is this: Nowadays, people look at my exercises and say, “Oh, well, you have a bunch of OSINT geeks following you. These exercises don’t apply to people in the wild.”
Except they do, and as I’ve just demonstrated, anyone can pick up these skills. Including people who are very unpleasant.
That’s not all!
As Iaen noticed, the picture had a certain aesthetic:
So I asked if anyone could figure out what kind of dress I was wearing.
Immediately, Justin did:
All you have to do in order to get a clue is to snap a closer screenshot of the dress and reverse-image search it.
And look at all of the potential information the choice to wear it gave away:
My love of vintage fashion
My love of DVF in particular
My willingness to spend money on DVF.
Someone could use that to track me to my favorite vintage stores. Or to catfish me in a buying group with an item they wish to sell.
In fact, people have tried to catfish me by using my habits, routines, and interests throughout last year. This included a catfishing attempt using an old podcast I used to co-host.
This is why it’s important to not just be self-aware when posting pictures online, it’s also important to understand the language of manipulation. I did a good primer on that when I talked about the famous catfish who associated herself with Bagram Airfield — and I will talk about it more.
Stay with me ❤️
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