Random Valid US Address
fakena.me
fakena.me
I'm rather fond of http://www.fakenamegenerator.com/
It gives names, (probably fake) addresses, credit card numbers, as well as a bunch else. It allows CSV export if you want up to 50,000 identities generated. It gives you options regarding the country too.
It would be 1 in 365, but leap years mess it up a bit.
From time to time, I need to lease VPN services, VPS and so on. And I choose to do so pseudonymously, paying with Bitcoin. But bizarrely, sometimes providers want contact information. I need valid information, of course. And I do provide a working email address. But it's rare that a telephone number will be used. Sometimes I have setup VoIP. But mostly I just need a telephone number that won't raise alarm, if called. So I tend to pick restaurants that have recently failed, business hotels or hostels.
Sometimes I need a valid return address for mailing cash. In that case, I pick a homeless shelter or other charity. That way, if the letter is returned for whatever reason, the money goes to a good cause.
And you trust those providers?
But yes, I tend to trust those providers less.
It seems odd to accept Bitcoins, and yet want contact information. And some of these providers actually emphasize that they're privacy friendly! But I suspect that it's just that they're using stock software that needs contact information to create accounts. Also, Bitcoin is just one payment option, and credit/debit card payments do require contact information.
Consider Tor. Each circuit involves three relays aka ORs aka nodes: entry guard, middle relay and exit relay. An adversary could deanonymize a user by combining information obtained from the three relays used by one of their circuits to some honeypot.
One cannot trust any particular Tor relay to refrain from logging and cooperating with adversaries. However, the Tor design mitigates those risks by using three relays in a chain. An adversary would need logs from all three relays in a circuit.
One can also use nested chains of VPN services. That's far less anonymous than Tor, for many reasons. Tor creates circuits more-or-less randomly, and by default they change at ten-minute intervals. VPN chains, conversely, are typically static. But the bandwidth is much greater.
And then one can use Tor via VPN chains, and route VPNs through Tor. Also, although routing Tor through Tor doesn't work well or do much good, one can proxy through remote desktops on VPS. Latency sucks, but you get used to it.
If I were building a system that required addresses, I would validate them. Why bother asking, otherwise?
I'm guessing that OP's system is designed for systems that require validated addresses.
Edit: Once or twice, using gift cards, it's been necessary to speak with customer service before they'd accept the payment. That required a VoIP account. I only did that because I needed a VPS in a particular IP range.
There's still real people working there, but they've been dealing with this for 35 years now I suspect: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080455/quotes?item=qt0320055
This could be used to generate test data. I hope nobody would be tempted to use it for dubious purposes of any kind.
Edit: Oooo, another legitimate use occurs to me - help generate story ideas (or at least flesh out fringe characters) for authors.
Someone was testing one part of a new ecommerce system, at precisely the same time someone else was testing another part. No-one noticed until DHL returned a package that was addressed to the Death Star.
They still charged us shipping, but atleast we didn't have to swallow product cost too. But it did make me look at "random test data" quite differently.
In the interest of client-friendliness I also use Disney addresses, with names such as Ms. Sleeping Beauty. So with my test data stuff would get delivered by DHL to fictional people in these places with people signing parcels.
I use real addresses so I can check postage rates are correct. It would be really useful for me if there was a standardised list of test addresses used across industry and in the media. Doubly so if you had test code that worked on such a known list of test cases, adding address records for 'customers' without having to enter one's own test data.
I thought at first this would generate real looking addresses that would pass automatic validation, but not actually be anywhere.
This is quite different!
Since the whole point of an address is that it resolves to a particular geographical location then I would have expected a "Random Valid US Address" to be able to be geocoded.
https://github.com/mindcrime/DummyDataGenerator
Generates names, addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, etc. But the addresses are not guaranteed to be valid, although many of them will be by happenstance. Same for phone numbers.. some will be valid by chance, but may will not. The emails generated by this program, OTOH, are most definitely guaranteed to not be valid, since they all use @example.com to prevent accidental spamming.
2nd hit: some normal-looking house
3rd hit: a church
Are there more churches than homes in the US? :)
C/o Wlrk 51 West 52nd Street
New York, NY 10019-0000
Even licensed vendors don't get the full list, they get an encrypted database of the address and a C library with which to query it. (Source: I worked for such a vendor and wrote code to interface with said C library.)
For example, all the registered voter databases are for sale or free (though generally only allowed to be used for "political purposes", and not "commercial purposes", if you get them from the state themselves).
Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz would disagree with you: http://www.wlrk.com/
But perhaps you were referring to the fact that there should be a newline between the care-of and the street address?
c/o WLRK
51 West 52nd Street
New York, NY 10019Would not use.
1) The physical address provided is an address at which you can receive correspondence or packages.
and
2) The information supplied is -to the best of your knowledge- correct.
and
3) You agree if you have knowingly supplied false or incorrect information, you will be subject to penalties or damages claims.
you'll be just fine.