May 17, 2005

• I looked myself up. My current address not listed, nor the address where I lived for three years before this one. I did find a lot of oddly incorrect information: When I searched for my sister, it gave a list of addresses, one of them for an apartment I had six years ago (a place where she never lived.) My name turns up my sister's address (again, never lived there.) My brother-in-law's name turns up my parents' address (ditto.) It must have some algorithm that connects people, but it's certainly, uh, overinclusive. Am I crazy about it? Not particularly, but then, if someone wanted to find me, I know it isn't hard to do, so I don't have any illusions about that.
• True, we no longer have any privacy, but not because of this. This site does not even maintain a database; it only queries third-party databases of already publicly available information. From Snopes:

  Q: Where does the data on ZabaSearch come from? A: The public domain. Information collected by the government, and information that individuals put it out into the public domain. Court records, county records, state records, information that becomes publicly available after you buy a new house or go to the post office and file a change-of-address form. When you move and fill out a change form with the post office, they record date of move and new address, then sell that to info brokers on the open market. When you apply for a credit card, and you don't check the box saying you don't want your information shared, it will be sold.

• my unlisted home telephone number was there. Doh!
• Woah. Found a friend I have talked to in over three years. Should be his address, they even provided his month and year of birth.
• finally i can call Fes' unlisted home phone. zaba dabba doo!
• http://www.zabasearch.com/query1_zaba.php hah!
• calls phone company, has number changed to 618-UP-U-BUTT
• Your Baseless Assumptions of Privacy, Upon Which You Apparently Base Your Entire Sense of Safety, Have Been Skewered Like the Soap Bubble They Were ...for indefinite values of "you." Seriously, it's strange but not surprising. If there were a psycho killer stalking me, I would be worried more about the fact that there's a psycho killer stalking me and less about the fact that he can now find my address more easily.
• I'm very unimpressed. I'm finding a lot less information on almost everyone I search for (if it even finds them) than I've found by using a variety of other tools. The pay services will give you some info that you don't have to pay for and you can narrow more searches with it.
• I'm not even in it. Oh I see, you have to live in the US of A, the land of the free.
• My information is not so up to date. Did the find-an-old-friend thing, and it seemed to work well. Hopefully his information is more current than mine.
• Didn't get three of my last six addresses, including my most current.
• It is not accurate.
• Yay, I don't exist!
• I found me, but not my old friend. *sulks*
• I found me, but the information is from 1999-2000. Not surprising since I left CA 2.5 years ago, but everything in between is missing. It's probably information from registering domain names, since it doesn't have the unit number for our duplex. Ha! It has #2 listed as being born in 1946.
• Zut! Kid I was best friends with in grade school but lost touch with over thirty years ago -- this was in another state -- appears to live five houses down from me now on the same street! I'm about to go ring the doorbell. Wish me luck. Apart from that, I don't like this ZabaSearch thing. I found way too much information about me.
• Wurwilf, you've got an odd but agreeable point about psycho killer stalkers. OTM, thx for the Snopes link; good stuff. And I wasn't deluding myself into thinking I was 'private' per-say, it's just one more thing out there is all.
• I found my ex, but not a thing on me. Crank call time...
• good luck, Little Durian!
• Yep... full name, and most recent phone number and address (although I just moved). I tried clicking on my address to see the "satellite photo," but either the site is slow or it doesn't like Safari, because it wouldn't load. Shit. Time to go off-the-grid, John Connor style.
• You out of Florida yet?
• Nope, couch-surfing until the end of the school year. I'll be in CA in June, and ZabaSearch will no doubt be hot on my heels.
• I think it's a bit creepy that they have the correct current address for my father - he's been in a nursing home for close to 15 years.
• Little Durian -- let us know how it goes.
• This is the same sort of public database search that Lexis Nexis provides for development professionals. However, the search functionality is much much better with LN, allowing for the refining of critera and using additional terms to get better data. I use it at work all the time. Of course we pay about $25,000 a year for access Here are is the database that LN uses, and after playing with Zaba, I think they use the same thing: EZFIND Combined Person Locator Nationwide - The EZFIND file is a group file containing the P-FIND, USFIND, USPAGE, TAXPRO, PILOTS, DCEASE, P-TRAK, P-SEEK, P-SRCH, and M-FIND nationwide person locator files. Although individual records may vary in content, most documents contain a person's name and/or initial, address and telephone number. Excellent source for finding a person's previous address and maiden name. P-FIND contains a nationwide listing of over 146 million individuals, 103 million households with over 71 million phone numbers. This information is compiled primarily from nationwide white pages and includes information from U.S. census data, property records, and other available sources. This data is compiled by a third party from multiple sources. INACCURACIES DO EXIST. USFIND contains 123 million consumer records and over 11 million business records containing name, address and telephone number. USPAGE contains 167 million consumer records containing name, address and telephone number. Latitude and Longitude are viewable only. Records in this file exclude telephone numbers that are unpublished or non-verifiable. TAXPRO contains names and addresses of over 350,000 persons who have registered with the Internal Revenue Service to receive most tax forms, publications, and instructions. These professionals are involved in the filing of federal income and business taxes. PILOTS contains information from the Federal Aviation Administration Airmen Directory. Records typically include pilot's name, address and number, certification class and medical class, and date of last medical exam. DCEASE Social Security death benefits master list of 45 million individuals for whom death benefits were paid by the Social Security Administration since 1962. P-TRAK (archived data - no updates after July 1, 2001), a nationwide person locator of over 300 million records, contains names, alias names, current address and up to two previous addresses, phone number and birthdate. P-SEEK (archived data - no updates after July 1, 2001), a nationwide collection of names, may contain an individuals name, surname, spouse first name and /or initial, current address and up to two previous addresses, birthyear, gender and phone number. P-SRCH (archived data - no updates after July 1, 2001), a nationwide collection of 236 million documents with names, former names, aliases, current address, up to two previous addresses, date address reported, and birth dates. M-FIND (archived data - no updates after September 2001) The U.S. Military Locator file contains names, current military address (when available), branch of service, pay grade code, gender, rank, primary MOS (Military Occupational Specialty Code), active service date, date assigned to current duty station, estimated date of separation and/or date separated for all U.S. military personnel in the Air Force, Army, Coast Guard, Marine Corps and Navy.
• I'm not in there at all. Ha. Then again, I'm 18 so they probably don't have enough dirt on me yet. But they'll find some. Oh yes, they'll find some. oh yes.
• never mind.
• I no longer have any privacy. Did I ever have any privacy?
• Nobody home; left a note. That'll be crazy if it turns out it's him, but it'll also be the fifth time someone in my house has run into a person from their long-ago far-away living on this block. Apparently my block's intersection is the center of the universe. How convenient! This also happens to be the first guy I ever "messed around" with...
• I found my ex, but not a thing on me. Crank call time... posted by surlyboi at 10:23PM UTC on May 17, 2005 good luck, Little Durian! Uunhh. Good luck, surlyboi. I guess.
• I'm not really going to crank her, life without me is punishment enough. =)
• Seconded!
• Nothing showed up on my full birthname that I use on all legal documents. the common name that people call me showed up a year old address and the house I grew up in, along with 38 other matches that had nothing to do with me. I'm not worried. People would find out a lot more about me if they just googled my full name or my internet name.
• I'm a marketing rep at Zaba Search. If we've missed you and you would like to be added to our database, please email us at zabasearch@departmentofhomelandsecurity.gov. If you're not registered, you'll be missing out on lots: * Experience that guilty ego trip you get from having a coterie of stalkers! * Finally, your name will return a hit in Google! * Frequent Spy-er points If you're an existing member who wishes to have your information removed, please email your details, along with a string corresponding to the MD5 hash "cfab9879acdcef5cf23a9ed657013f64".
• First, I'm with Chyren, did/do we have any privacy? Here is one good reason for background checks: my colleague found out his new girlfriend had been lying this whole time about her being "single", younger, no kids, living in a different city. Of course, you may ask, how dare he run a background check? Hmm... PS. A friend sent me the link to Zaba last month, not new Monkey news. Zaba only had my addresses for 1-5 years ago too- darn, how else am I supposed to remember my address??
• Traditionally, I believe you purchase a map of the stars' houses.
• This is all way off. I have a very unique last name- when I searched on my name, it turned up a lot of people with the same last name, and I know almost all of them. That said, there are all kinds of errors. People listed as living in other family members' houses, or with other family members' birthdates. But then there are a few entries with my name on them- the addresses are in towns I've lived in, but different streets. A google search of the phonebook turns up one of the phone #s, and it matches the street in the entry, but it's for people I don't know. Maybe these people wound up with a phone # I used to have? I've moved around a bit within this area code, so I've had a few phone #'s I don't quite remember. Some other addresses with my name on them are for the same people, who moved and kept the phone #. They don't have a single correct address for my mother, who has lived in the same house for the past 20 years with a listed number. They do have a couple of wrong ones though. I mean, that's great for her, but wtf. Oh, and they had a few entries for a relative who's been dead for almost 20 years. Point of rant- the information from this site is shady at best. I'd at least check the info by running the phone # through google if you plan to use it.
• Oh my godz I am scared! According to this database I don't exist. Probably because I'm Canadian.
• Holy shit, I just found Elvis' phone number.
• It found me and my unlisted number :(
• The scary thing is that I'm listed under my ex boyfriend's grandmother's address. I never lived there. That never happened. I am afraid.
• WARNING! DANGER, WILL ROBINSON!!! ZabaSearch is apparently a scam. I bought a report last week, trying to get in touch with an old friend. Although the site says you will be emailed the results within 1 business day, I never received it. After 3 business days, I looked under my account on the site and found a report--but it was for someone entirely different than I had contracted for. I sent the company 3 emails pointing this out and looking to resolve it and never got a single acknowledgement or response. I have just had the charge reversed by my credit card company. DO NOT GIVE THESE PEOPLE MONEY. That is all.
• Correction: Two weeks ago.
• rushmcthat's crazy... how can a company like that exist? i'm glad that the credit card company reversed the charges for you, but can't something more be done??
• They don't have me at all. I guess I'm not cool enough. They do have someone under my fiance's unusual and nearly extinct last name - wonder if it might be an unknown relative?
• I am deeply thankful that I am not listed under any of my former names, nor are many of my friends and family. Living under the radar