Every click, every search, every post leaves a trace. Every week on \u201cWhat the Hack\u201d we explore what to do about that. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This week\u2019s episode<\/a> features Academy Award-winning filmmaker Dan Sturman <\/strong>and an imperfect storm of mistaken identity, amateurish social engineering, and the real-world effects of your data being out there for anyone to grab.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This story begins with two people named Dan Sturman\u2014one with enemies, one without\u2013and it ends with the wrong Dan Sturman being targeted by hackers. It\u2019s a classic false positive, where an online result seems to match a person but is actually a misidentification. In the world of personal data removal, we see it all the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dan Sturman’s story is a cautionary tale about digital visibility. He\u2019s a guy who, thanks to a very sweet early-adopter friend, scored his own name as an gmail address back in the mid aughts when the email service was still in beta mode, no numbers, just his name. And there\u2019s something to the “I got here first” vibes of a one or two name handle\u2013otherwise hackers wouldn\u2019t spend so much time trying to hijack them<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Well, that beautiful OG handle is exactly what put Dan Sturman in a hacker\u2019s sites.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When hackers decided to go after the other Dan Sturman\u2014the one with the big title at a well known gaming company, they did what any hacker does: They Googled him. But the Dan Sturman who popped up, with his OG public-facing, early-adopter email\u2013the kind of email address you\u2019d expect from a tech-savvy dude was the filmmaker. <\/p>\n\n\n\n And then these bad actors (emphasis on bad, read: inept) fell for what I\u2019m going to call a scammer-facing false positive. Hackers and marketing people can have a similar feel, which was the case here. The first calls and emails were from real people doing real jobs making real offers\u2014jet charters, investment opportunities. But the wrong Dan Sturman even got a call about a sapphire necklace that was ready for pickup at Tiffany\u2019s. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Then the messages took a turn for the darker. There were spoofed calls from his own sister\u2019s number and texts threatening to go after his family. And just like that, Dan Sturman the filmmaker was the unwitting stand-in for someone else’s enemies.<\/p>\n\n\n\nWhat\u2019s In an Email Address?<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n