What are the security implications of losing a paper calendar?

Question

Assuming I have a paper calendar (organizer) with the following information on it:

• dates/locations where I have been and where I'm planning to go
• phone numbers and e-mail addresses of a few people
• my own contact details so the calendar can be returned in case of loss

If I lose this calendar and a stranger picks it up, is there anything I should worry about?

As a fairly average person, I believe the worst that could happen is that

a) the finder doesn't return the calendar

b) may make annoying calls to the phone numbers / send annoying e-mails, although I wouldn't consider this as actually dangerous.

Answer 1

This depends a lot how valuable these information are for the finder, which also depends on who the finder is, what abilities and intentions he has, maybe what city or country you live in (amount of criminality...) etc. And it depends of course about the amount and detail of information in the calendar.

If for example you've put your vacation into the calendar and also where you live then he knows when you are not at home and might rob your home. If he knows who are your friends and maybe when you meet them (calendar) he might try social engineering attacks. If he knows what doctors you visit and how often he might make conclusions about specific illnesses. From the network of friends he might make conclusions about sexual orientation or special preferences which can be used in some countries to blackmail somebody etc.

In other words - something like Facebook could do with all the information collected about you but more physical, with more effort and probably directed against you or your friends.

Answer 2

It all depends on you. If you are some high-value target who is a CEO of a multi-million dollar business then the information in the calendar can be used for further social engineering attacks, providing that it was not lost but actually stolen.

There are other ways to obtain these types of information and contact details through databases and other types of monitoring anyway.