Thread by @troyhunt

Had an email recently which boiled down to a guy being into porn sites about a decade ago: "all I ever did at these sites was create accounts, with fake emails that I opened and discarded the same day"

Turns out that whilst the email addresses were fake, the passwords weren't: "I was stupid enough to use the same password for my real life accounts and for these shady accounts (it's generic, but my whole family knows it's my pw)."

Then another penny drops for the guy: these sites often store IP addresses, not just of the last login but the one used at registration as well. So now he's stressed that even with fake email addresses, someone could correlate both his password and IP and de-cloak his port habit.

So he tries to have his data deleted from the porn sites: "I contacted one of the cam sites I was a member of back in about 2012 - it's now called Bongacams. I could not completely remember my profile, but they advised that they NEVER delete old accounts - just freeze."

He goes on: "Adultfriendfinder does not seem to care at all that they were breached twice and still indicate that they will never delete inactive accounts either". He was also on Ashley Madison and we know very well what their approach was to deleting unused accounts...

Obviously these websites need to do a better job of supporting customers who want to remove their tracks, especially given the nature of adult content. Did they really need to collect IP addresses? And keep them? Forever?

But I also think it's fascinating from a privacy angle: a decade ago the guy obviously never gave any serious thought to either the possibility or likelihood of his browsing habits one day being made public. Now, he's trying to erase his history and having a hard time doing it.

Moral of the story: you need to think ahead about what accounts and browsing habits you want to keep private not just now, but in the future. That applies to email address choice, password choice and obviously using a VPN as well. You can't go back and change this stuff later on!