how did a stranger find out my real name with my yahoo/flickr account?

[Carly]

through specifically yahoo/flickr

I am a yahoo answers/flickr user. this happened to be even though i do not use my real name or give out any private information. my real name isn't in my yahoo email and i use a different email for facebook and everything else.

how did a stranger find out my real name, assuming he/she can only find it from my yahoo/flickr information?

i never speak to strangers on the internet

I am a college student living on a college campus.

thanks!!

[Soorena]

There are only things that could have happened:
1. They met you in real life and recognized you somehow online
2. You have entered some kind of personal information SOMEWHERE on there that gave away your real name.
If you never give out any info on the internet, no one will ever be able to see your name. Maybe you put the same username as facebook and he searched your username there? Or you had a nickname on your yahoo that he looked up on google? You are the only one that can know so it's impossible for us to figure it out but checkout all the info you have entered on Yahoo and Flickr, it might surprise you.

[Fred]

No matter how many times you ask the answer does not change. you passed data on an open woreless connection, or you infected your machine with spyware. Whic is probably right now sending out your personal details to the whole Internet. In stead of continuously asking the same question, why are you not scanning your machine for spyware?

[DonnaB]

You would be surprised at how easy it is to track people and find out their real name, where they live, what they do for a living if you know how to research online.

Example:

On a particular site that I volunteer as an online tech, a gentleman asked for help to remove viruses from a Windows 8 computer that he said was installed by his son. After a few indepth scans cracked software was found. I pointed this out to him and he said his son installed the cracks to access free software from the App store. He asked me to please help him remove the cracks. I did, though in the mean tiime I googled his username, found his FaceBook profile, his MySpace profile which had a picture and also found that he was a member to many hack forums. The guy was lying to me. He was not the father, he was the son himself. It took me 15 minutes to find out who he was, (real name) and in what area of the USA he was located.

Trust me, even the slightest bit of information may seem nothing to you, though to a complete stranger that is determined, that tiny bit of info is all they need.

On another occasion, a fellow here on Yahoo Answers asked if anyone knew how to find people. He was looking for a specific patent lawyer. All he had was a last name and a brief description of a street and that the lawyer worked for a large company. I found him on LinkedIn, though refused to provide the mans location and who he worked for since I had no idea if the guys intent was as he said it was. He could have been a bad guy for all I know.