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submitted 3 months ago by A9b382ks@lemmy.world to c/privacy@lemmy.ml

I put my old Gmail accounts on websites like haveibeenpwned.com osintleak.com pentester.com and osint.industries

And the results had a lot of personal info like old usernames I used, old passwords, IP addresses and other info

What can I do now?

I deleted all of my old Gmail accounts. I changed all of my usernames everywhere or deleted the accounts associated with them and changed all the passwords. I use Proton and Email aliases when signing up for services and random generated passwords with fake info everywhere(if possible) and I do use a VPN on all of my devices.

Is there anything more I can do?

Because those Emails had my full real name in them and I used them literally everywhere.

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[-] CatZoomies@lemmy.world 4 points 3 months ago

Use of a VPN depends on your privacy threat model.

Using VPN at all times while using the internet like one normally does is beneficial only to the extent that you encrypt your traffic and prevent your ISP from spying on you… mostly. But if you’re logging into known accounts associated with you, then it’s a moot point. Your traffic is encrypted, but your use of services leaves an easy to follow cookie trail of where you’ve been.

If your privacy threat model is much more serious, then you wouldn’t login to any known accounts while on your VPN. You wouldn’t use services that can be pinpointed to you.

Hence, use a VPN to your discretion. If you generally don’t want your ISP spying on you, keeping it on is always best practice. If you have more things to hide, you’d want to use Tor while on VPN and of course don’t use any services that could be linked to you.

this post was submitted on 29 Apr 2025
54 points (100.0% liked)

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