(no subject)
Nov. 3rd, 2005 04:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beetigerThere really is no such thing as anonymity.
I've caught(now ex-)friends cheating on their spouses via the Internet, without even meaning to, just because various circles of friends weren't as far isolated as they'd perhaps hoped.
This case really caught my attention today -- a smart kid with a few little bits of information, a mouth swab and a few hundred dollars was able to find the "anonymous" sperm donor that is his genetic father.
In my view of the universe, we're all connected, and the history of the world is coded into our bodies and minds. It's fascinating to see that power released.
There's crap floating around Google that I posted back in Usenet in the late eighties on random newsgroups. I'm not going to point you to it, but it's not hard to find.
I've had things I'm not happy about written about me on LJ or mailing lists, with names changed to supposedly keep things a little more private. But writers have styles, and personal information gets around easily, and I'm pretty sure there are a few people who could figure all the details out from what they were reading and a few keystrokes, if they were curious enough to look.
There's a reason I'm not cagey about using real names on here, or at least not much. I think pretending that much of this information is private is really just a false comfort.
I may not be very proud of some of the things I do, and I certainly don't share everything that's on my mind, body, and soul here. But I try never to act as if the cloak of the Internet, or a pseudonym, or a fake email account is going to give me the cover to do something I wouldn't do with my name attached to it. Not only is that a crappy way to live life, but I think ultimately it just doesn't really work.
I've caught(now ex-)friends cheating on their spouses via the Internet, without even meaning to, just because various circles of friends weren't as far isolated as they'd perhaps hoped.
This case really caught my attention today -- a smart kid with a few little bits of information, a mouth swab and a few hundred dollars was able to find the "anonymous" sperm donor that is his genetic father.
In my view of the universe, we're all connected, and the history of the world is coded into our bodies and minds. It's fascinating to see that power released.
There's crap floating around Google that I posted back in Usenet in the late eighties on random newsgroups. I'm not going to point you to it, but it's not hard to find.
I've had things I'm not happy about written about me on LJ or mailing lists, with names changed to supposedly keep things a little more private. But writers have styles, and personal information gets around easily, and I'm pretty sure there are a few people who could figure all the details out from what they were reading and a few keystrokes, if they were curious enough to look.
There's a reason I'm not cagey about using real names on here, or at least not much. I think pretending that much of this information is private is really just a false comfort.
I may not be very proud of some of the things I do, and I certainly don't share everything that's on my mind, body, and soul here. But I try never to act as if the cloak of the Internet, or a pseudonym, or a fake email account is going to give me the cover to do something I wouldn't do with my name attached to it. Not only is that a crappy way to live life, but I think ultimately it just doesn't really work.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-11-04 05:33 pm (UTC)However, when someone openly posted my name, address, and phone number on Usenet as a smartass response to my saying something like "I change my handle periodically," I left that newsgroup -- and Usenet -- permanently, and I'm told the user who did it was roasted over the coals for it afterwards.
Information's out there, but not everyone knows how to get it. It still pays to be careful what you say in public formats.
I think people put too much faith in referring to people by letters or using nicknames, but if it makes them feel better, it makes them feel better. I've posted naked photographs with my face visible to unmoderated public forums, so it's not necessarily something I'm too concerned about.