Posted by Timne on July 2, 2009, at 18:19:16
In reply to Your online PRIVACY + SAFETY, posted by garnet71 on July 2, 2009, at 2:04:02
One could compose a sizable book on issues related to online safety, privacy and forensics. Linguistic forensics can be as powerful as technical Web forensics. Word patterns can easily be tracked using Google. You might be surprised how many unique misspellings, word-order-patterns or little-used slang phrases you routinely use. Coupled with actual details (married, spouse's line of work, city of residence, etc.) these details can be a real giveaway.
Thing is, a person might not even have an "enemy" at the time of a posting, and thus can't anticipate that, later, some government/employer/spouse/future-spouse's-ex/political-enemy/meth-addled-identity-thief might later have reason to take a forensic interest in one's online activities.
Now here's the sweet part. You might not even know. Let's make an example. You're an outspoken anti-hunger advocate who sometimes suffers "Depression" but declines Big Pharma approaches. You're employed by a small, mom-and-pop shop that lets you bring your dog to work, frown all day and take days off to attend rallies when you want. You're employment position allows you time to become an influential figure in your local democratic party, where you are beginning to make headway toward convincing other dems that "health reform" Wall Street's "First (1/2) Black President" is selling is really just a binding contract with Big Pharma. You are winning support at the state level for land reform that will let farmers regain lost land, where you believe they will grow healthy food in a healthy way that discourages social and dietary situations you believe to be related to depression. Activists from surrounding states are starting to call you for advice and direction. You are a threat to national democrats agenda.
Then one day you notice a job ad on Craigslist. It couldn't fit you better. In fact, an occasional acquaintance e-mailed you just to make sure you saw it. You can't help but apply - it's like they wrote this job description with you in mind. And the PAY! Almost double what you were making. Granted it's 40 hours and no less, but they do offer personal days, right?
The interview is a breeze. It's like they already hired you, and the HR staff is just going through the motions.
Six months later, your dream job turns out to be a dead end. You're mostly sitting in a booth forwarding e-mails about last weeks meetings. The pay is great though. Just no time for politics. And lots of pressure to get to bed on time so you can be at work on time, which means no more late night brainstorming with political allies. And the depression is getting worse. Company insurance pays for pills, though, and you can't get talk therapy without taking the pills, so you bite the bullet, swallow the pill and hope the therapist is a good one.
What happened here? See, it just happens that attorney Got Bucks is also a member of the local Democrat central committee. Remember that one letter you submitted to the local newspaper? It seems you used a phrase in there that's not all that common. And, by the way, you used that same phrase on a mental health discussion board. Along the way, you dropped a few clues about your whereabouts, your politics and your vulnerabilities. Attny. Got Bucks Esq. paid Joe OutofWork Investigator. In return, he got OutofWork Joe's loyalty and the dish on your vulnerabilities -- that post where you said you love you job at a mom-and-pop that gives you time off for politics, but that everybody has their price.
That's just one scenario. We can escalate to a more esoteric version, with international agencies using dubious access to global-scale infotracking systems ostensibly built to protect the world from nuclear terrorists. Use the same overlay of covert political manipulation. Change the facts a bit -- lets make it about a soldier discussing wartime activities. Hmmmm... don't see a lot of those on PB. What's up with that. Why does that particularly security conscious market segment likely to represent the highest incidence-per-capita of recent mental health injuries avoid venues such as this? And by the way, did you notice that Iraq/Afghanistan vets sponsored the free presentation on HULU.com of the expose of how world financial institutions (along with Big Pharma and the fertilizer companies cum munitions -makers that own Big Phara) are consolidating power, led by America's first 1/2 black president -- a man whose first employer was none other than Henry Kissenger?
Okay, the examples drift, but this is about PB. My preference, and what I believe to be the most responsible course of action would be for Robert Hsuing to remove any post at the request of the poster. Instead, he has adopted a "good for the group" philosophy that presumes his ownership of your words once you post. He rarely removes posts, and defends his position at professional gatherings. Mercy is the only real medicine. A more merciful position to managing PB archives would adopt a YouTube approach -- an approach proven workable on a much larger scale than this little corner of Web world. At YouTube, the working orders are "when in doubt, take it out."
Who's to lose? Would you really be harmed worse by someone claiming to be you asking for one of your posts -- under some other name - to be removed, or by information you posted in a weak, depressed moment falling into the hands of employers, political operators, scam artists or sexual predators?
poster:Timne
thread:904428
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/admin/20090529/msgs/904573.html