Author: Paul Richards
Date: 15:42:23 06/07/99
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On June 07, 1999 at 17:16:48, Will Singleton wrote: >Everybody else knows who he is. You must not have read too carefully. :) Well, from certain snippets I read I got the impression that he was "known" to many, but I don't claim to have been following this stuff long enough to be one of the cognoscenti. But any unique handle answers the purpose. :) Back in the old days of the net [using Grandpa Simpson voice] when the academics were all there was, the online culture was completely different. Of course you would sign your name. But nowadays the unwashed masses have taken to the net, and seeing people unable to construct a proper sentence in their native language is commonplace (at least where Americans are concerned). ;) Many academics have long since fled public areas of the net as a result. It would be great to have Hsu or someone else from the DB team around for discussions, but I certainly would not advise them to use their real names and certainly not their real addresses. "Mr. ComputerGuy" would be just fine. I know a number of oldtimers who insist on behaving as if the old culture were intact, and much like people who believe they don't have to lock their cars and homes because they didn't have to in the distant past, they suffer the indignities of the modern reality. That's not for me. There is already too much information about all of us available online for the asking. A home address and phone number plus a map to your house takes a few minutes online. For a few bucks at Lexis-Nexus or a similar site I can tell you how much alimony you pay your ex-wife. Or maybe your current wife would like an email from your current girlfriend? Sure, she'll believe it's an anonymous net prankster. ;) Not interested in gardening you say? Well, every time you get another seed catalog in your mailbox for the next fifteen years you can think of me laughing at you. It's all relatively easy, from mild pranks all the way to screwing with your credit to physical mayhem, if I'm enough of a screwball. Personally I think that there is a growing demand for online privacy, and anonymity online will increase over time. Even if your interactions are all benign, why help marketers profile you? The net is now a major economic venue with all the attendant special interests and motivations to learn about what you are willing to spend your money on. Also, you never know how such information will be used. I read a recent case where somebody sued a supermarket, probably slipping on a waxed floor or something, and the market checked the customer's purchasing history (logged by that little supermarket club card they blackmail you into using) to see whether there was a pattern of buying alcohol or some other bit of data that might have a negative use in court. (Fortunately the clerks aren't really into checking IDs for those cards, so I think my purchases get logged in the name of Lester Peabody, or Otis Spunkmeyer, or some such.) ;) The point is that the odds of any such collected information being used in a way that benefits YOU are virtually nil. In any case I don't have to have a brick drop on my head before I agree a hardhat is a good idea. ;) Thus endeth my rant on privacy.
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