Easy online spy tricks you’ll wish you knew sooner

The Internet is a treasure trove of information…if you know where to look. Whether you’re trying to check out a website, learn more about your neighborhood, or research what’s being posted about you online, a little technical knowledge will go a long way.

Here are some simple yet powerful tricks to improve your spying skills.

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View the details of any site

I came across a website that offered a great promise of a free trip to Hawaii. Aloha! All the site needs is your personal information and credit card. Before you take the plunge, make sure you are not set to fail.

A WHOIS lookup scans a database containing information about domain names and their registrars – so you can find out who owns a website and see if they have a real business address and contact information.

How can you do this?

• Go to the WHOIS lookup site. There are a lot of them on the Internet. I use who.is.
• Plug the site’s URL into the search bar. You’ll see who owns the site and their contact information, including address and phone number.

Next time you think a friend has been scammed, use this cool tech party trick. You could save them some money and embarrassment!

Related to: Your IP Address: What it is and why you need to protect your IP address if you care about privacy

Run a free background check

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Your online business is everyone’s business, whether you like it or not. How can you check what the Internet has got? Here’s a quick and easy way:

• Head to Google and type your first and last name in quotes. See what pops up. People are usually interested in the organizations you belong to, your social media profiles, and any pictures of you floating around the internet.
• Next, your credit score. You can get a free credit report from Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion once a year. Go here to get yours online. verify The fourth credit bureau, Innovis, too.
• What about family tree sites? It can be fun, informative… and incredibly invasive. Find yourself at FamilyTreeNow.com. You will be shocked.

Find out who your neighbor is

Go and introduce yourself. If that’s not possible, you can find out online in most cases through your county’s assessment website. These government-run sites use data from residents to estimate the value of real property within a county, city, town, or village.

Once there, you can find out where the person you’re interested in lives, get details about their home or any other properties they own, and much more. You can also view signed documents, such as the deed to their home. Yes, really.

The easiest way to find your county assessor’s website is a quick Google search. Just type in the county you’re looking for, plus the word “resident.” You can also go to Publicrecords.netronline.com. This directory includes official state and county websites that you can search by zip code.

Each county assessor website works a little differently, but here’s an overview of how to search the Maricopa County website here in Arizona.

20 tech tricks to make life better, safer and easier

Click on Go to online data next to the County Assessor option, then search by name or address. Click Magnifying glass icon To search and you will see the address, owner, lot number and other information. Then click on Parcel number For more detailed information and access to any relevant documents.

Privacy 101:How to get photos of your home from Zillow, Redfin, and Realtor.com

A picture is worth a thousand words

Words and profiles are one thing, but what about your photos? All of these sites are

Worth checking out to see what pops up.

• Bemez: This site allows you to upload a photo of yourself (or anyone) to find that photo online. This is especially useful for tracking where your photos appear online. Beware: you may recover grainy images from adult content.
• Tin I: Another excellent reverse image search tool that may yield additional results.

Related to: Think of Google Lens as the smarter version of Google Images.

Go down memory lane

Not all online investigations are scams. It’s fun to try this with all the places you’ve lived or the house you’re considering buying.

Navigate to old Street View images on Google Maps. You can see what the place looked like in retrospect as long as Google has taken pictures there. I spotted photos dating back more than a decade. Talk about a form of virtual nostalgia.

• Open Google Maps on your browser, and type address And click on image This pops up.
• He chooses See more dates To scroll through images.

Now, share this article and amaze your friends with your technical prowess – or save them from falling for a scam. Either way, you’ll look like the smartest person in the room.

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