On Internet Anonymity
05 Aug 09 by jeff
In reply to a topic on Aspies for Freedom:
Give it up. It doesn’t take a forensics expert to track you down. All it takes is for you to start feeling safe. You’ll drop enough data as the time goes by to make you pretty easy to track. I found that out years ago, when someone announced their upcoming suicide in a usenet newsgroup. I managed to get the cops to their door within the hour. And they assumed they were anonymous, too. That’s when I gave up the illusion of privacy on the net.
Live publicly. I do. You may find out about my piercings, tattoos, that I hate fundamentalists of all types, or even the fact that I’m autistic, but what the hell. I’d never be happy working for someone who searched out and used such things against me.
If there is someone else you fear, or if you intend to say things that would embarrass you if they were overheard, you may want to take time offline to deal with those issues before saying them online.
Not being critical, just telling you what I’ve learned during 25 years online.
Why do you assume that your experience is appropriate for everyone? I’ve been online for about 15 years, and I still don’t use my real name. I have no illusions about someone being able to find out exactly who I am if they’re willing to work at it, but it’s not fear. or shame about what I’m writing that keeps me anonymous. I’m a very private person. Nothing more complicated than that. I don’t discuss my private life online, don’t post my picture, and except for sites that need accurate personal information, my profiles have a false location or none, a false birth date or none, etc. My opinions are public; my personal life is private.
Probably not wise for me to say so but because I once owned a business, googling on me would give my address.
Now as for suicide and all the recent debates apart, don’t you ever go sending the cops round to my door, because this much is certain, if I go that last mile, I AM NOT GOING TO DO IT ANYWHERE NEAR MY DWELLING PLACE.
In fact if you know me well enough you will know what country I will do it in, indeed because that is where I would wish to die.
I am going there in a few weeks, and if I die there, then that will be a great summation of my life, though of course I do actually expect to come back, but why for the life of me, I don’t know :)
I am probably one of the most public people on the interenet, there are few things you would not know about me, my three nipples you know all that jazz :)
What you will not know is my grandads nickname for me, nor my dads there is now only one person left I think who would remember them and his tattoos are still unmapped :)
Mind you all this internet presence, I think in a decades time it will be gone and in fragments so enjoy it while you can.
I don’t favor pseudonymity in order to prevent people who know me online from finding out who I am IRL. That part’s easy enough if you want to bother. The reason I do it is to prevent people who know me IRL not to connect my IRL identity (especially professionally) to my online identity, which is much harder to do if you are pseudonymous online. If they did find out? Who knows. Maybe they wouldn’t care. But for the time being, making myself unemployable would be such a disaster for me that I’d just as soon not risk it.