I've always been very aware of and interested in privacy issues on the web and the everywhere in general, and just never seem to stop thinking about them. One might call me paranoid to an extent. Things like Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft indefinitely archiving what we search for (AOL claims to delete search history records after thirty days, so it's a shame their search engine sucks) and Google indefinitely archiving our e-mail (I'm not sure if Yahoo! and Microsoft do this) irk me quite a bit.
It's not so much that these things are being archived somewhere, but the accessibility the authorities might have to such information, what they might use it for, and the willingness of companies like Yahoo! or Google to cooperate with them (e.g. Yahoo! giving the work address of a man in China to the Chinese authorities in order to arrest him on the suspicion that he was working with websites that advocated democracy in China).
I've also always been very wary of disclosing my full name in public forums or to sites that didn't require it for billing information, and have been torn on this issue lately. I make the effort to keep my accounts that I use asemisldkfj for and accounts that require use my full name separate by using separate e-mail addresses for them. Something like this seems futile in the sense that they're all still going to be logged to the same IP addresses and it will be pretty obvious to anyone who is watching (man, I sounded especially paranoid there :P) that they are probably the same person. On the other hand, I'd like to make it as difficult as I possibly can for someone to get personal information about me such as my full name or address.
Anywho, back to the authorities. Some people say you shouldn't have anything to worry about unless you're doing something wrong, and I resent this complacency and lack of value placed on personal privacy. No one should have the right to know what library books I'm checking out or what my address is because I'm suspected of looking at a certain website (I don't doubt that this could happen in the US similarly to how it happened in China, just replace "website advocating democracy in China" with "website advocating terrorism against the United States").
I guess these are just some of the coherent thoughts that usually pop into my head when I'm thinking about this. Sometimes I'd like to think privacy really is just an illusion, and it's futile to do things like I do and try to keep myself as anonymous as reasonably possible online, because not worrying would be a lot easier. But other times I think it is worthwhile to make it as difficult as I can for anyone to track what I'm doing, or have access to a wealth of information about me based on the correlation of my full name and my handle I use most places online.
Comments and thoughts please!
It's not so much that these things are being archived somewhere, but the accessibility the authorities might have to such information, what they might use it for, and the willingness of companies like Yahoo! or Google to cooperate with them (e.g. Yahoo! giving the work address of a man in China to the Chinese authorities in order to arrest him on the suspicion that he was working with websites that advocated democracy in China).
I've also always been very wary of disclosing my full name in public forums or to sites that didn't require it for billing information, and have been torn on this issue lately. I make the effort to keep my accounts that I use asemisldkfj for and accounts that require use my full name separate by using separate e-mail addresses for them. Something like this seems futile in the sense that they're all still going to be logged to the same IP addresses and it will be pretty obvious to anyone who is watching (man, I sounded especially paranoid there :P) that they are probably the same person. On the other hand, I'd like to make it as difficult as I possibly can for someone to get personal information about me such as my full name or address.
Anywho, back to the authorities. Some people say you shouldn't have anything to worry about unless you're doing something wrong, and I resent this complacency and lack of value placed on personal privacy. No one should have the right to know what library books I'm checking out or what my address is because I'm suspected of looking at a certain website (I don't doubt that this could happen in the US similarly to how it happened in China, just replace "website advocating democracy in China" with "website advocating terrorism against the United States").
I guess these are just some of the coherent thoughts that usually pop into my head when I'm thinking about this. Sometimes I'd like to think privacy really is just an illusion, and it's futile to do things like I do and try to keep myself as anonymous as reasonably possible online, because not worrying would be a lot easier. But other times I think it is worthwhile to make it as difficult as I can for anyone to track what I'm doing, or have access to a wealth of information about me based on the correlation of my full name and my handle I use most places online.
Comments and thoughts please!
s/"the everything"/"everything"
er, s/"s/"the everything"/"everything"/"s/"the everywhere"/"everywhere"
I don't think that would actually work, but you get the idea :P.
I don't think that would actually work, but you get the idea :P.
i can see where you're coming from, but from a personal standpoint i don't really have much to hide. anything i may want to hide sure doesn't make it's way online. i guess i agree with you in principal, i just don't consider it a practical concern for myself.
Yeah, that's what I'm starting to think. It's both impractical, and usually unnecessary, for me to go to such lengths to conceal my identity, and probably more practical to make people aware of privacy concerns.
so I've been thinking about a different aspect of privacy lately. I got a supposed pre-approved credit card mailed to my mom's house. I looked up the company on the web and found a bunch of stuff about how it's a scam, etc. the weird thing is that my name was on the card and I just started thinking about how this company got my information.
it's kind of scary giving so much info to companies like banks whose computer security practices you know little to nothing about. I should pay more attention to privacy policies.
it's kind of scary giving so much info to companies like banks whose computer security practices you know little to nothing about. I should pay more attention to privacy policies.
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this post has been archived.
bruce says it much better than i could...
excerpt from http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2006/05 … of_pr.html :
"Last week, revelation of yet another NSA surveillance effort against the American people has rekindled the privacy debate. Those in favor of these programs have trotted out the same rhetorical question we hear every time privacy advocates oppose ID checks, video cameras, massive databases, data mining, and other wholesale surveillance measures: "If you aren't doing anything wrong, what do you have to hide?"
Some clever answers: "If I'm not doing anything wrong, then you have no cause to watch me." "Because the government gets to define what's wrong, and they keep changing the definition." "Because you might do something wrong with my information." My problem with quips like these -- as right as they are -- is that they accept the premise that privacy is about hiding a wrong. It's not. Privacy is an inherent human right, and a requirement for maintaining the human condition with dignity and respect.
...
Too many wrongly characterize the debate as "security versus privacy." The real choice is liberty versus control. Tyranny, whether it arises under threat of foreign physical attack or under constant domestic authoritative scrutiny, is still tyranny. Liberty requires security without intrusion, security plus privacy. Widespread police surveillance is the very definition of a police state. And that's why we should champion privacy even when we have nothing to hide."
excerpt from http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2006/05 … of_pr.html :
"Last week, revelation of yet another NSA surveillance effort against the American people has rekindled the privacy debate. Those in favor of these programs have trotted out the same rhetorical question we hear every time privacy advocates oppose ID checks, video cameras, massive databases, data mining, and other wholesale surveillance measures: "If you aren't doing anything wrong, what do you have to hide?"
Some clever answers: "If I'm not doing anything wrong, then you have no cause to watch me." "Because the government gets to define what's wrong, and they keep changing the definition." "Because you might do something wrong with my information." My problem with quips like these -- as right as they are -- is that they accept the premise that privacy is about hiding a wrong. It's not. Privacy is an inherent human right, and a requirement for maintaining the human condition with dignity and respect.
...
Too many wrongly characterize the debate as "security versus privacy." The real choice is liberty versus control. Tyranny, whether it arises under threat of foreign physical attack or under constant domestic authoritative scrutiny, is still tyranny. Liberty requires security without intrusion, security plus privacy. Widespread police surveillance is the very definition of a police state. And that's why we should champion privacy even when we have nothing to hide."
oh and s/principal/principle/ within my first post
i wish i could add something, but i can't.
shit scares me.
i'd just stop using email, then.
search engines too?
well, i guess i'd just stop using them to converse about illegal activities
that's not the point though. I mean, as a practical measure of course I'd do that (not that I really search for anything illegal or suspicious anyway), but the point is that no one should feel apprehensive about searching the web for something like information about terrorism because the government—or some agency of the government that is not directly accountable to that person as a voter—has the means to spy on him or her.
yeah, probably
Asemi,
The credit card company most likely bought your name from some 3rd party. I believe you can opt-out of these types of solicitations with an opt-out form, but that still brings you to your dilemma. Everything on the internet is traceable. I feel like I lead a double life now because there is only so much you wish to disclose about yourself on the internet.
Let me ask you a question. What happens if you do hit it big(referencing your Life decision post) and want your name to be fully accessible to the world wide web? I'm pretty sure you are going to want such a work attached to your full name and not your handle. All someone has to do is search and eventually, they will find the trail. I understand where you are coming from. I'm pretty sure my profile has a lot of red flags because I say shit like I want to kill George Bush and I'm extremely liberal. I also gamble openly and I'm pretty sure that is illegal in my jurisdiction. However, you can't live life with this fear.
This brings me to my 3rd point ... hire a good civil rights lawyer. No miranda rights were read to me when I was arrested. bullshit. I've always been interested in civil rights litigation and if you want, I'll go into this field so I can protect you.
The credit card company most likely bought your name from some 3rd party. I believe you can opt-out of these types of solicitations with an opt-out form, but that still brings you to your dilemma. Everything on the internet is traceable. I feel like I lead a double life now because there is only so much you wish to disclose about yourself on the internet.
Let me ask you a question. What happens if you do hit it big(referencing your Life decision post) and want your name to be fully accessible to the world wide web? I'm pretty sure you are going to want such a work attached to your full name and not your handle. All someone has to do is search and eventually, they will find the trail. I understand where you are coming from. I'm pretty sure my profile has a lot of red flags because I say shit like I want to kill George Bush and I'm extremely liberal. I also gamble openly and I'm pretty sure that is illegal in my jurisdiction. However, you can't live life with this fear.
This brings me to my 3rd point ... hire a good civil rights lawyer. No miranda rights were read to me when I was arrested. bullshit. I've always been interested in civil rights litigation and if you want, I'll go into this field so I can protect you.
I definitely feel you on the double life feeling. I kind of hate it, but what're you gonna do? I don't think there's a viable alternative that I'd be OK with.
if I ever get anything published or do anything like that, I will definitely have a site separate from thehomerow.net with that stuff available. probably myname.name or something. this kind of sucks though because how would I promote that site somewhere like ttf? would I just say fuck it and promote it with my asemi username? or would I make a whole new username just to prevent the casual observer or stalker from making the pretty-obvious-to-everyone-who-posts-regularly connection between asemi and myrealname?
unless they're gonna use some stuff you said against you in court, I'm pretty sure they don't really care about your Miranda rights. I've always been interested in that aspect of law as well. privacy, specifically on the internet, is another area of law that I'm really interested in. I don't know if I could ever handle law school, but being a lawyer for the EFF or something would be so badass.
if I ever get anything published or do anything like that, I will definitely have a site separate from thehomerow.net with that stuff available. probably myname.name or something. this kind of sucks though because how would I promote that site somewhere like ttf? would I just say fuck it and promote it with my asemi username? or would I make a whole new username just to prevent the casual observer or stalker from making the pretty-obvious-to-everyone-who-posts-regularly connection between asemi and myrealname?
unless they're gonna use some stuff you said against you in court, I'm pretty sure they don't really care about your Miranda rights. I've always been interested in that aspect of law as well. privacy, specifically on the internet, is another area of law that I'm really interested in. I don't know if I could ever handle law school, but being a lawyer for the EFF or something would be so badass.
cave
I've been thinking about going all-full-name on the web. using fistnamemiddleinitiallastname for every username on every site. this kind of brings up issues of Google-ability by prospective employers or schools, though. ugh, I guess I'll stick with asemi. but would an employer really care about me saying whatever I say on ttf? I guess it depends on the employer? am I being too concerned about this?
I still hate this whole double life thing. fucking search engines!
this is also being fueled by my desire to set up a site dedicated to resume-ish stuff like papers I write.
nestor: why are you going anonymous? what's your decision based on?
I still hate this whole double life thing. fucking search engines!
this is also being fueled by my desire to set up a site dedicated to resume-ish stuff like papers I write.
nestor: why are you going anonymous? what's your decision based on?
when you are talking about academics you can't hide... you should just get a lame-o academic page like this guy
http://post.queensu.ca/~mozersky/
my metaphysics prof.
i'm going anonymous because i like the idea of the web as an anonymous medium. and it is a pain to have to keep a smile on all the time
i think my real name is floating around here in ttf though in the form of my gmail address. annoying.
http://post.queensu.ca/~mozersky/
my metaphysics prof.
i'm going anonymous because i like the idea of the web as an anonymous medium. and it is a pain to have to keep a smile on all the time
i think my real name is floating around here in ttf though in the form of my gmail address. annoying.
> am I being too concerned about this?
yes. they just want to hire someone who will be valuable to them.
yes. they just want to hire someone who will be valuable to them.
so it turns out my web host had something in the contract (which i should have read, admittedly) that renews my hosting plan if i don't explicitly cancel it.
so i have web space for another year and no domain. hmmm.
so i have web space for another year and no domain. hmmm.
start slinging fecal matter?
there is basically two camps... the camp that believe that hillary clintons secretary of state address on the necessity of a free and open internet being the bedrock of democracy is correct, and there is a small but vocal group of politicians and defense nutbags who think absolute accountability on the internet is necessary to secure our nations cyber infrastructure.
I very much so dislike the position of the folks in the latter camp.
I very much so dislike the position of the folks in the latter camp.
this is scary, especially riding the wings of an "anti-child porn law."
Yeah, usually I just laugh this sort of thing off ... but now I dunno.
Maybe Freenet, I2P, et al aren't such terible ideas after all. :p
Maybe Freenet, I2P, et al aren't such terible ideas after all. :p