Ask HN: Has Google figured out you gave them a fake date of birth?

Re:Ask HN: Has Google figured out you gave them a fake date ... by jqpabc123 on Thursday May 06, 2021 @02:35AM (#27059860)

Never give anyone your real DOB without a proven need to know.

The key to using a fake DOB is consistency. Use some simple formula to be able to reproduce your fake DOB on demand. If you can't do this, if you use different DOBs, Google will obviously know your date is fake.

As an example, here is what I do to create a consistent DOB for my fake online persona.

Swap month and day (instead of May 10th, I use Oct. 5th) then reverse the last 2 digits of year. My formula obviously won't work for you if the resulting date is invalid so develop your own. For example, you could subtract X from year, month and day. Or use your mother/wife's month and day with your year. Anything will work as long as you can remember and reproduce it.

My online persona also uses a different spelling variation of my name.

Once again, consistency is the key to not eventually being rejected or banned.

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Re:Ask HN: Has Google figured out you gave them a fake date ... by slim on Thursday May 06, 2021 @02:59AM (#27059970)

Or simply chose 1st january 1970 as your date of birth

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Re:Ask HN: Has Google figured out you gave them a fake date ... by jqpabc123 on Thursday May 06, 2021 @04:08PM (#27068483)

Google is a data driven company. They know based on nothing but sheer statistics that this date is most likely fake.

Why make it easy for them to identify fake data?

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Re:Ask HN: Has Google figured out you gave them a fake date ... by nielsbot on Thursday May 06, 2021 @03:34AM (#27060181)

ha.. that's what I do too.. Guess it's not unique.

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Re:Ask HN: Has Google figured out you gave them a fake date ... by ntnlabs on Thursday May 06, 2021 @05:01AM (#27060713)

Soooo many people were born on that day ;)

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Re:Ask HN: Has Google figured out you gave them a fake date ... by Crosseye_Jack on Thursday May 06, 2021 @06:14AM (#27061146)

Valve reported in 2013 that 93% of its users were born on January first.

I’m not sure it’s related but I find it amusing

> January 1, 2021 Minus 9 Months Would Be: April 1, 2020

News just in 93% of PC gamers born because of April Fools Joke gone wrong.

Yeah I’m sure that’s it ;-)

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Re:Ask HN: Has Google figured out you gave them a fake date ... by dkarras on Thursday May 06, 2021 @05:46AM (#27060998)

Why would you need an algorithm if you are not going to use something like the service name as a seed (so each service gets their own DOB - which might not be necessary)? Just pick a year, and pick a day. Use it.

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Re:Ask HN: Has Google figured out you gave them a fake date ... by jqpabc123 on Thursday May 06, 2021 @08:17AM (#27062079)

Just pick a year, and pick a day. Use it.

As I said, "Anything will work as long as you can remember and reproduce it."

I find that I tend to forget purely random dates over time so I prefer a semi-random date based on something I will not forget.

It's just a memory trick, I forget meaningless dates but I don't forget simple privacy algorithms. Your mileage may vary.

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