Delete your old internet past

(this is a re-upload from my old blog. Apparently it's a good article.)

My experience getting my information off the Internet

Recently I decided to learn about tools you can use to ~~stalk~~ find out information about Internet users, and I've been using them to find information I've published about myself on the internet that I really shouldn't have. So, in this post I will show off the tools I used and my technique to finding information about myself that I've published on the internet, and find old accounts, so that you can stay safe on the internet.

Tools (prerequisites)

Before you start, you'll need to install the following tools.

Done? Then continue.

How to use Holehe

Holehe is a tool that allows you to figure out what sort of services are attached to an email address. So, here's what I want you to do:

type in: holehe --only-used [email protected]
find services attached to your email that you don't use. Go on that service and try to reset your pass, and log in.
Check JustDeleteMe.xyz and search that service. Check how hard it is to delete your account on there. If you can't find that service on JustDeleteMe, try looking around in for example Account Settings or something similar.
Delete your account!

Note that you can't use Holehe in bulk like holehe --only-used [email protected] [email protected]. You will have to do this:

holehe --only-used [email protected]
holehe --only-used [email protected]

Now, what do we use Sherlock for?

Sherlock is a tool that searches various services for a username. Here's how you'd use it:

Make sure you're in the directory with Sherlock
type this: py sherlock --timeout 10 username1 username2 username3 etc. Note that if you're on Linux it might be python instead of py.
Try to log in to a service you'd like to remove yourself from with your username. If you can't, try every email you've used in your life to reset your password. If they let you reset your password with just your username, you're probably in luck.
Once again, check JustDeleteMe.xyz and search that service on there, and look at the instructions. If you can't find that service on JustDeleteMe, look around and try to find a way to delete your account on there.

The Holehe trick

Here's the thing you should do with Holehe: check EVERY email you've used in your life.

Doesn't matter if it's an email you "used once", just check it with Holehe. It's a very efficient way to delete your old Internet past.

Another trick is to sherlock the email username. If your email username is something common like [email protected] or something, then there's probably no reason to. But if your email username is somewhat unique like [email protected], then it's probably worth running Sherlock on hunter2269. It's especially worth it when it's gmail because some sites generate a username based on your Gmail when you do Google SSO, and they usually have your full name on there because of your Google account.