Cybersleuthing—stalking people online—is a true art. It takes a lot of different skills to do: one must have persistence, a knack for making inferences, and an ability to make connections quickly. I can’t say much about the history of this field, because I believe that I am one of its earliest propagators: it’s not something that you hear about often as an actual practice, but it can be considered a criminal offense if the stalker uses the target person’s material to harass or taunt them.
However, if one doesn’t use the material harmfully and does it with consent (as do I), it is a force for the good. I have spent about two years honing the art of cybersleuthing. I know exactly which websites to use, and what information they reap. I have stalked friends, parents, and some of my high school teachers, finding everything from their relatives’ occupations to their own high school photos. Now, I would like to share some of my top secret methods and favorite websites so that you, too, may become a super sleuth.
My first go-to website for getting the most basic information is the U.S. Whitepages site. If you type “U.S. Whitepages”, it will be the first link that appears. I use this site to get information such as age, address, past addresses, relatives, and sometimes phone numbers. I have found that the information on this site is almost always reliable. However, sometimes it doesn’t give me as much material as I need, so I look to similar sites for supplementary materials like Switchboard.com, 411.com, Peoplefinders.com, and Spokeo.com (note that I only use free sites—often, they will ask you to pay monthly fees if you want to uncover deeper information on a person, but they give you some for free).
Spokeo (or as my dad likes to call it, “Spookeo”) is particularly interesting because it gives you information such as zodiac signs and marital status (however, this information isn’t always as accurate as U.S. Whitepages’). Its home screen used to read, “Not your Grandma’s Phonebook,” and the site has gotten into some trouble because it is, indeed, much more than your grandma’s phonebook. Spokeo’s invasiveness has led to cases that have gone to the Supreme Court, notably Spokeo v. Robins in November of 2015. A man named Thomas Robins sued the website because he found an entry that had inaccurate information, although it isn’t clear whether it was surely intended to be about him or a different Thomas Robins. His “case” has also been disputed because the Supreme Court defines “cases” as situations in which “a person or group can show a specific injury”. Regardless of whether Robins holds a strong case or not, Spokeo and the other sites are still great resources for cybersleuthing.
After using the above sites, I’ve usually only gathered minimal information on a person, so I have found other sites with deeper tracking abilities. My first is used for finding a person’s relatives: Ancestry.com. Ancestry.com allows you to search the actual 1940 U.S. Census (as in, the actual documents have been scanned) for a person’s name, along with information about his or her spouse(s) and locations. It also provides vital records on many people. Usually, I have been able to find my relatives and relatives of people I know in the Census, which I find intriguing. The Census has a lot of interesting facts, including families’ exact addresses, ages of family members, and their occupations in 1940. You’re looking back at a piece of history that has been digitized.
Sometimes, I like to check old newspapers for mentions of a person. Usually, people whom I am stalking were on a sports team in high school, won a competition, or made it onto their schools’ honor rolls. These are all things that usually get newspaper reception, so I seek them out. For this purpose, I use Fultonhistory.com, a website dedicated to digitizing thousands of historic New York State newspapers and allowing the public to search them for free. This site has been one of my favorites; like the Census, you are looking at a piece of online history, but the newspapers usually give more interesting information (maybe even pictures, if you’re lucky). If you are stalking someone who has grown up/lived in New York State, then this is the site to use.
The last site that I’ll share with you is Classmates.com, a true gem for finding high school photos and information on a person. This site displays hundreds of high school yearbooks from almost every state. As long as you know a person’s high school, you can use one of the earlier sites to find people’s ages and calculate their graduation years (usually the year they turned 17, plus or minus 1 year). This site doesn’t have every single graduation year’s book from every single school, but it does a fairly good job. Besides, even if the graduation year’s yearbook isn’t available, you can always check the previous few years to see pictures of the person as an underclassman. You’ll never believe how different a person can be in high school.
With all these sites, and many more, you have a lot of power, and I have learned that you must use it wisely. Remember that not everyone enjoys being stalked online, so you should always be careful and get to know the person before you stalk them. Keeping that in mind, you have the potential to bring back good memories for your targets, memories that they could have forgotten. This is the beauty of the emerging world of technology in which we live: parts of the past and present are being digitized constantly, for all generations to enjoy. With the art of cybersleuthing, we all have the power to surprise and enthrall our peers.