I Am Officially Not Stupid

The Internet, of course, is rife with people trying to get to know you. Whether they're trying to market junk to you, steal from you or stalk you is irrelevant. You must keep aware at all times.

I had always skipped Internet questionnaires before, but found one called, "Are You Stupid" to see what level of questions they were asking. It was actually a decent set of questions, touching upon math, science, history, geography, plus pop culture.

They included such gems as: "What is the world's capital?", "Do you know what sex or gender you are?" and "Complete the following phrase: Luke, I am your _______." (Local Congressman was option C)

Number 15 was my a-ha moment. "Do you know when your birthday is?" with three boxes in YYYY/MM/DD format. This was actually their second attempted swipe of my identity. They got the first piece when I identified my gender. Had I also given them my birthdate and later my zip code, they would have more than enough information to start impersonating me.

Out of 20 questions, those were the only two I answered, well ... differently. There's no way for them to verify their correctness. In order to get to the results, however, I had to input my home address. Yah, right! I told them to send pic-a-nic baskets to Yogi Bear, at 22 Forest Rd., Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming.

And then finally: the results page.

82.5%
Smarty Pants!

Congratulations! You are not stupid. We dub thee, "Smarty Pants" ....

That is why I am not stupid. The couldn't trick me into giving away my personal information!

Despite their questionable math skills (18 of 20 equals 82.5 percent?), they, I learned, are not stupid either. I lost the initial results sifting through my browser history to get the wordings right, forcing me to retake the questionaire. This time, though, it checked my phony information against databases of real information.

It knew I wasn't 108 years, 3 months, and 7 days old. After getting locked into the 90210 zip code (that show's graphic was just to the side), a fake street number on a real Beverly Hills street didn't work. I couldn't find any local RNC offices spam, so I guess I have to apologize to Beverly Hill High School if they are suddenly inundated by contact lens adverts.

Wrapping things up, paranoia is decidely healthy when it comes to your personal information. Identifying something as simple as U.S. Representative pins down where you live nearly as well as your zip code. When someone, anyone, asks you a question, make sure you know who you're talking to and why they're asking. Paranoid? You betcha.