December 20, 2004

• We live in a kind of panopticon. Better get used to it.
• In fact, if you don't want your mom to find out about your blog, you better keep it private. Basically, you should set up one or two blogs: all gossip goes to your friends, and only your friends, and the public stuff goes to, well, your public blog. In fact, one of the most disturbing aspect of the modern internet is messageboard such as this one. Someone out to stalk me or any monkey could easily do so. And this is pre-AskMe/Curious George. The quantity of info on our lives available on MoFi is staggering.
• If you don't want people to have access to your information, don't put it on the Internet. The number of people who labour under the delusion that "private" LJ entries are private is astonishing.
• They aren't? I must admit I don't have a LiveJournal. Sure, anyone you give access to your private stuff could easily cut & paste it in revenge, but hey, don't piss off your private readers. They could also break in LJ's servers, but then, they could steal your paper diary and photocopy it.
• rodgerd how are private LJ posts not private?
• Well, all it takes is someone leaving their LJ account logged into a shared PC (eg in a flat), have their LJ with a guessable password, etc. And, of course, you've got all your "private" data on a system run by a bunch of people you don't know. To be honest, I'm thinking more of the social, rather than technical side, though.
• (To clarify: I know a few people who've gotten really upset that their LJ-friends-only LJ entries aren't always treated as confidential face to face conversations would be). And, of course, things like putting nekkid pics of yourself in close LJ entries is just begging for cut and paste abuse...
• Maybe it's an age thing, but I find disturbing the possible repercusions of young people having some much info and details on-line. Forget about sensitive info, the simple logging of dates and activities seeems to me a minefield a few years down the road... imagine the lawsuits, the unearthing of old skeletons, prime material for blackmail or PR nightmares. In a few years, all those people running for office, fighting in court, suing their employers, might find their old blogs workign against them. That, and all the amateur tapes around, seem like timebombs to me. Or I might be too paranoid, don't know...
• Or maybe, possibly, it'll get everyone to finally realize that everyone's got skeletons in the closet, even if some are worse than others. I doubt it, but there's always hope.
• "LarimdaME, are you aware that from March 3, 2004 to June 6, 2004, you detailed no less then 5 acts of dressing your cat in bunny costumes on your Xanga ... which earned you a total of 41,832 eprops? Would you care to explain your actions to the committee?" "Senator, at this time I respectfully withdraw my nomination as Homeland Security Director. But I stand by my eprops."
• e-props? What kind of sick, twisted website would allow such things as e-props?!
• I'd be relieved to find some of my secrets out there in the blogosphere. They're itching to come out, I tell you, and no one will be able to stop them.
• it's happened to me. I have been both named and accused of some pretty bad things that weren't true, and also referred to about those same bad things. In each case, the blog was used as a tool to libel, not as just a funny way of telling a cutesy fun time story. In cases like that, I feel like suing, but in Hong Kong, it takes a lot of money to sue for libel. It was eventually worked out, but occasionally it makes me feel very bad about myself. It sucks.
• I had a woman who shares my first name look my blog up on Google after a mixup at the ophthalmologist's office. She sent me a bizarre and vaguely scary note. I filed it under "the net is full of weird people" and went on. The thing I would be the most worried about is having a record of how much I goofed off on company time.
• I admit to having a livejournal and I don't put anything on there that I wouldn't tell pretty much anyone anyway. The chief reason for that is that multiple members of my family read it, and if it's not suitable for them, then I won't mention it. If people want to write about every little detail of their life in the interweb, more fool them. I change the names of friends generally even if it's only about minor details, because it would be like talking about them behind their backs. I can say that because I'm too boring to be stalked. I'll willingly give out my address, although not my phone number, to pretty much anyone I've established a friendly relationship with online - although admittedly I'm talking over a period of months, like here on MoFi. :)
• I used to be a regular on a support forum, where, due to the nature of said forum (and no, I won't disclose it, but it's nothing that bad, or even unusual or bizarre - this is me, scarily vanilla as always) people were regularly getting cyberstalked and harassed, and the troll infestations were unreal. It got so bad that there was another site set up by a particularly lovely group who actually tracked our comments, kept charts, and figured out who we were in r/l, then threatened us with all kinds of fun stuff. I know of two cases where they took their vendetta to r/l, actually going after and outing some people. I left the forum, mostly due to just time, and my life changing - but not before they had outed me on their board. The whole thing was chilling in the extreme, particularly for newbies. So I am pretty well aware of how unpleasant people can be. . . However, since it has happened to me without huge repercussions, I find I don't much care if I get outed. And, of course, I am pretty blameless these days, have little or nothing to hide! (damn) Although, like Immlass, I worry about my boss finding out about my online activities at work. I don't usually update my blog at work. And I don't advertise it or link to it or anything, and I have no idea if anyone but me and a couple of my friends have ever read it. I doubt it, so that's okay - but I am still trying to come up with code names for my friends, since all their names begin with J!
• i've had a lot of run ins personally and with other people who've had problems with being associated to someone's site. my problems personally have had more to do with old stalkers using newer better technology or weird supposition of random people than anything else, but i'd also realized what could happen before using any online presence, so it's hurt things with any online associations (work) but few in-my-face-with-a-gun problems. people i know have had more personal problems with people writing things that could negatively effect their children, and not in a kinky way, but a "that's my dead wife they're talking about" way.