Privacy Online and the Last Word

Well, I am back after a long multi-year absence. I was really never into this blogger posting thing, nor the current obsession with Facebook, You Tube, Twitter, and all the other social media stuff. I am basically a person who likes to keep to myself, let others take the credit, and keep out of the public eye. I'm the one who stands in the rear of public group photos and never sits in the front row. Although there have been many times in my past that this was not possible, and, as my children can attest, I can be as loud and overbearing as anybody, I do not actively seek attention. It has always bothered me that something I might written in an e-mail, a blog, or something I did on the job could appear on the internet and stay on it forever. The issue is privacy. I value mine.

Every year or so I google myself to see what turns up. Over the past few years I have sighed with relief that much of what I had done that was accessible on the internet is no longer searchable because my former employer, which contained much of my writings, articles, and newsletters, locked their servers away from public view. But not everything. This blog for example. I was surprised that after 5 years it was still available. 'The Last Word on Everything' was one of 3 blogs I wrote over 5 year ago. After I re-discovered it and re-read it, I thought that I might as well transfer it to this server and try to re-start it.

I also found myself referenced by another blogger critical of a negative review I gave a book that he apparently liked. The funny thing was that he referenced my real name even though I did not write the article under my real name. In fact I had written it along with other internet entries and a fake website for a class I was teaching on internet credibility and how to tell the authoritative source from the lame ones. Even though I had deleted all entries after the class ended, my book review was still there years after I wrote it under a pseudonym specifically for this class. I also discovered that it was very easy to find out what my actual real name was on this website despite my use of the fake moniker.

Further searches revealed that I could find all sorts of neat stuff about myself. And If I really wanted to dig out the dirt, I only needed to pay $29.95 here and $39.95 there and I could do a deep cover search that would make the FBI proud. Fortunately I did not have to pay for the information I found but I was still surprised at the quantity of information available. My property tax bills, the property I owned, my credit ratings, who owned my used car before I did, my family history, some e-mails, membership lists, and so on. After I took advantage of a free credit report, I hit the info jackpot. So much for privacy. For a person who valued his invisibility, it was disturbing to learn just how visible I really was. Of course there is a plus side to all this. My visibility on the internet meant that everyone else was as visible as well, and since I am very skilled in research and computer use, it was a part of my professional life to find information for colleagues, I decided to do some snooping on my own.

I had only one rule for my venture into online nosiness - Do not pay a fee for anything, free public and business records only.

Needless to say, I was amazed how much information I could quickly find on the web, and by extending my search to other off-web sources based on what I learned, I was surprised about how much more additional information I could gather. Here are only a few examples:

1. The value and construction details of the homes of all my neighbors.

2. The nearest sex offender and felon to my house.

3. The address, phone number, job history and current photo of a friend I lost track of.

4. My ex-wife's e-mail address, phone #, and residence (photo included).

5. My Facebook page, Classmates page and my Amazon wish list.

6. Letters I wrote to periodicals, some more than 5 years old.

7. An article written by my youngest daughter while in high school with a photograph of her.

and lastly,

8. Although I expected to find a lot on the web about my journalist oldest daughter, I did not think that I would find a decade old copy of her resume being used as a sample of superior resume writing (since removed after being discovered)

Many years ago, comics used to joke that you could use the web and no one would know that you were a dog. That has obviously changed. Not only would they know you were a dog, but everyone would also know your breed and if you were neutered. There is no real privacy in our information overloaded world. If you exist, if you work, if you use credit cards, if you send e-mails, if you subscribe to newspapers and magazines, if you buy groceries, you can be found. My admiration for those who manage to keep a low profile has increased after I discovered how easy it is to get basic personal information. It was once was difficult to do so. In the pre-web era, researchers has to use foot power, the telephone, and the mails to find information. In those days, I would often use false identities to make product inquiries, using coded names so that I tell who was selling mail and subscriber lists. The results were often amusing. Under one pseudonym, I received free magazine subscriptions for years. And under another, well, I still get biannual coupons for free panties from Victoria Secrets.

But now in the era of social webbing, people give up personal information willingly to corporations. I am amazed at what people reveal about themselves on sites such as Flicker, Facebook, Myspace, etc. It is a information junkie's gold mine. It actually must make choosing people to target for scamming very difficult for unscrupulous people. There is so many folks to choose from, how do you limit your targets? Yet, we have become so accustom to social webbing, how can we make use of its many acknowledged benefits and still maintain personal privacy of factual information? Even I have a Facebook, Flickr and my Space account (I draw the line at Twittering).

It was the realization that much has changed in my 5 year absence, that sealed my decision to restart this blog. I have wanted to write my viewpoint on a multitude of subjects over the past half decade: The increasingly hazard of doing nothing about global warming, the rise and fall of the reactionary right in America, the blessing of finally having a U.S. President who has a brain, the best places to eat for foodies. And so forth. I have not made any blog entries for years because I valued the privacy of my thoughts and views and felt uncomfortable about making my thoughts available to everyone throughout eternity. However I have come to realize that in this internet obsessed world, there is no privacy anymore. Anyone can make a comment, even dogs, and it quickly can become international news. How else do you explain how idiots like Rush Limbaugh, Michael Moore, cable news channels, blogger commentary, and tweeter's 140 character abbreviated phrases can become nationally newsworthy. What does it say about us that the most reliable source of information today is the Daily Show and the Colbert Report ( I am a fan of both by the way). In the absence of moderation and real journalism over the past decades, the power of the far-right and the far-left to spread dumb ideas around the world has gone unabated and unchallenged by actual factual reporting and thoughtful analysis. So why not, I thought, join the discussion. It cannot get any worse.

This blog actually is not for the few readers who might find it anyway. Personal blogs such as this one are a method of sorting out one's own thoughts, and any response given by online readers merely helps we writers adjust our thinking . We used to call this 'journaling' , except that journals were either private or shared with an instructor, not put out to the whole world to see. It is how we learned to write in the olden days - before the internet. And as I have said previously in 'The Last Word', I hope by writing about a subject, I can get t out of my head and be done with it.

In this post internet world, folks need to be vigilant with their thoughts because what they reveal might someday come back to bite them in the ass. Some blogs I have read are truly painful to read. They reveal too much about the writer. Material that rightly should be in a private diary accessible only to the writer are open to the whole world. I wonder if the meaning and value of personal privacy is beyond the comprehension of some individuals. Why so little concern by the public of the easy availability f personal information? Are the teen writers of blogs aware that the intimate details of their lives are available for anyone to read? Why the lack of supervision by parents of their children on the internet? Why are so many into social webbing and ignorant about the dangers of privacy violations? Why has gossip replaced 'fact' in journalism? Has this nation turned into a society of narcissists who have this need to state "Hey look at me, here I am'?

The issue of privacy is not merely about the threat of the violation of the right to privacy, nor the misuse of personal data. It is also the question of why so many people have the need to share their daily lives with everyone. The lack of privacy and the invasion of personal space is a fact of life on the internet whether we like it or not. Social webbing does have intrinsic value, and professional bloggers perform a great service by adding to reasoned discussions on topics of current interest, but why do so many people feel the need add to this nation's information overload with useless bits of personal data? Do they not realize that they are also adding to the data that can be collected on their likes, dislikes, behaviors, financial status, and so on? Oh, well. I might as well re-join the online parade. Perhaps some good can come of it, and anyway, I'm too old to care about revealing too much information.

I am very concerned that so much of myself and my family can be made available with a simple internet search by anyone. I am a person who tries to keep a low profile yet there is a lot of information out there about me that can be retrieved. There are millions of people who don't seem to mind and actively invite inspection.

In these ramblings about internet privacy, I have actually barely touched on the subject of privacy. I have not even mentioned the continuing fight between businesses and individuals to protect online anonymity. Recently, for example, bills were introduced in Canada that would dramatically change the Internet in that nation. It would require Internet service providers to install new surveillance capabilities and force them to disclose subscriber information such as name, address, and e-mail addresses without a court order, and grant police new powers to obtain Internet transmission data. Scared yet?

I am thankful that in this age of no privacy, that my real identity is not revealed worldwide by this blog. Or is It? As I re-read my blog entries, I realized that a skilled researcher (and what is a researcher if not a PI), can discover my true identity easily. Now that's scary. And that is the last word on the subject, For now.

For more information about internet privacy visit:

http://www.netatty.com/privacy/privacy.html

http://www.privacyrights.org/fs/fs18-cyb.htm

http://www.pcworld.com/article/159743/facebooks_privacy_flap_what_really_went_down_and_whats_next.html

http://www.aclu.org/privacy/internet/index.html

http://www.scambusters.org/identitytheft/collegestudentsguide.html

NOTE: I will be posting some of the older blog entries here. Please excuse any dated information, misspellings and grammatical awkwardness. I've been able to recover some of my old blogs. Others apparently are lost forever.