Nudge from the distant past

[altivo]

I graduated with a bachelor's degree in liberal arts from Michigan State University just under 50 years ago. The alumni association and university development people have long ago lost track of me after a half dozen address changes through that time. I never could afford to give them the kind of money they were asking for in any case.

Twelve years after graduation, by which time I was living in Chicago rather than Michigan, I got my first amateur radio license. Back when I was on campus, I never took any engineering classes or had any thoughts about radio licensing.

Today a letter arrived from the faculty sponsor of the MSU Amateur Radio Club, based in the engineering school. They are celebrating their 100th anniversary this year but their membership had dwindled down to just two students a couple of years ago. Through considerable effort, they managed to recruit a couple dozen new members and get them licensed. They are seeking funds for more recruitment and perhaps for some demonstrations or educational displays. This seemed like a good idea to me, and I will send them a small check.

However, I have some trouble figuring out how they even located me. The letter was addressed to me here at the farm, where I've been for the last 20 years, and it included my current call sign which is slightly different from the first one I received back in 1983. My name is common enough to have caused a lot of mistaken identifications over the years, and matching the entire list of alumni for half a century against the current FCC license registrations given only the names hardly seems a likely approach. How did they do it?

I sent an e-mail to the faculty sponsor hinting that I'd like to know what the process was. We'll see if he responds. Unfortunately, the club itself apparently describes its current activities only on facebook, so I'm not able to see much of that. I rejected facebook years ago and deleted my account with no plans to ever go back.

Comments

[frith]

I've read that Facebook never forgets and that it spiders details on people based on information gleaned from posts on Facebook by people that know them. Thus, I've read that people opening a Facebook account for the first time find that much of their information has been filled in for them. I have no intention of testing this, ever.

[altivo]

Partial truth. Again, this depends on the ability to isolate facts based only on a name. Facebook demands "real names" from registered users, but if your real name is John Smith they have problems isolating you from the other John Smiths in the world.

It was when they began suspending accounts that used nicknames or pseudonyms that I bailed.

[frith]

A friend once linked my given name with an account name of mine in his blog about 15 years ago and it didn't take long for Google to spider it. I asked him to fix that and the name connection no longer shows in Google results. I am curious how your Alma Mater selected you, in case there something else I can look out for, even if there is nothing I can do about it.

[altivo]

I'll let you know if I find out. You made me curious. I haven't googled myself in a long time.

What I found were a lot of obituaries, including several recent ones. Fortunately, none were actually mine, they just had the same name. A link to Facebook offered to find me, but only found several namesakes.

Google images did have two actual photos of me among the first several hundred it displayed. One was on a page for the musical group I play in. The other is older, in the membership roster of an antique microcomputer user group.

Beyond that, nothing in the first 10 screens full of Google results.

[ranunculus]

I have a very unique name. As far as I know I'm the only person with my specific name in the USA. This makes me pretty easy to identify. So it is interesting that the only things easily available on me except a few old movie credits for things I worked on and links to my business where I make no secret of my name. In the first 20 or so hits they have both my birthdate and address wrong. I see no reason to correct this.
I signed up on Facebook early, so they have the wrong address.... and still have the account only so my horse pasture business can be found.
I quit using Facebook about 5 minutes after signing up when I couldn't type out a thoughtful preliminary post. Never saw any reason to go back.

[altivo]

OK, I actually got a brief response from that faculty member. He says that the mailing list for that request was composed by two hard working alumni who searched through "very old records" manually.

Still really doesn't explain how they found me, but at least it appears not to have been some massive database screening.

He did give me the names of the two alums. Coincidentally, one has the same name as a fellow who was in my high school graduating class (another simple, common name.) However, I'm quite sure that individual was not at MSU when I was there. Looked for a link from the call sign to a photo of him to see if it was the same guy, but no photo found. He does still live in Michigan, whoever he is.

It might just be a complete accident. My present call sign was held by someone else before me, back in the 1980s. It's entirely possible that the prior holder was in fact an MSU student and a member of MSUARC at that time or earlier. If they just looked up call signs of former members, without checking names, they would have picked me up from the current FCC records.

[frith]

Still a mystery!

[lhexan]

One of the rare times when it's good that an institution tracks you down. ^_^

[altivo]

Right. I don't mind if Michigan State or a subset thereof knows where I am. Alas, I won't be giving them thousands of dollars, and even if I could the gift would be tied up to specific uses to avoid abuse.

Given the ever-increasing accuracy with which Google targets me with advertising on topics that actually do interest me, I shouldn't be surprised that other organizations can hunt me down, I suppose.