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I feel like some people who claim they want privacy really don't value their privacy, but instead value something else (I hypothesize that it's just control) th

I feel like some people who claim they want privacy really don't value their privacy, but instead value something else (I hypothesize that it's just control) that seems like privacy. You can find this poster's name by using Google Image search to link to her Flickr then from there she has her domain registered with her full name and address. (this pattern is pretty common, by that, I mean, given some identifying information, you can find a lot more. Anonymity is only effective if you practice consistent inconsistency.) A pseudonym here, a handle there, these are all things that establish permanence and link together to make an identifiable entity. Putting your real name into YouTube isn't the problem here. This doesn't mean there isn't a problem, but it's not quite the problem being stated here.

AndiS 13y ago
Thanks for pointing out that security vulnerability -- blessedly, I didn't use current legal name/address info for the website (I do my best to be cagey about that stuff online -- that's similar to, but not identical to, my actual name), but I'll have to look into obscuring the WHOIS information further. Pisses me off to have to pay for privacy, when that information shouldn't be public for private individuals who own a domain. And, yes, I really do value my privacy -- but, since my own knowledge of trackback information is limited (and Google Image Search is much more recent than the creation of my personal site), it's less that I don't value my privacy, and more that I failed to foresee that using the same profile photo (not even name/nym) on more than one site would create a security vulnerability. I appreciate the heads-up, but, again, this only emphasizes the issues of Google (and the issue of requiring personal information to be visible on WHOIS to anyone other than government agencies) encroaching on personal privacy and the ability to compartmentalize profiles between different services. I'm a different person on G+, Flickr, FB, LJ, etc. -- I tailor my posts to the interest groups that I share in various locations (and my perception of my own privacy -- I realize that a subpoena would break the security of a friends-locked post on LJ, but it's at least a relatively private space to share more personal information, whereas my profile on G+ has been more deliberately forward-facing, because I was interested in engaging with people outside my existing trust circle. Putting my real name into YouTube actually was the problem that sparked my original post -- but it's symptomatic of a larger issue, the deliberate contraction of the ability to create persistent pseudonyms and personae that are consistent within the bounds of a single social network, but aren't necessarily easily trackable/connectible by a random stranger. (I will say -- finding this out did decrease my sense of safety, since it's obvious that my intent to compartmentalize by using different persistent nyms, and building reputation under each nym, which can vary based on platform, was insufficient to protect a casual observer from landing on what COULD have been my actual name and address, had I not deliberately decided to risk the loss of my domain by putting in information that was designed to trap spammers -- i.e., if I got something addressed to that specific name, I knew that it was coming from someone who had looked up the WHOIS info.)
AndiS 13y ago
BTW, nothing like a casual doxxing on a public forum to make my point about the need for real privacy controls, and how unsafe lack of anonymity/effective pseudonymity on the web can make women, in particular, feel. Congratulations, I've changed my G+ photo for the first time since I created the account. Until now, I never felt uncomfortable having a photo of myself there, even though it meant that I had to deal with some small amount of unwelcome comments, and plenty of not-unwelcome flirty comments (which I'm fine with, I'm a flirty person, and I enjoy good banter. I'm not interested in anything more than that, and crude come-ons got deleted immediately, but I didn't mind the occasional complimentary exchange. If I'd had a problem with it, I would have used a different photo, or an image that didn't show my face.) Google Image Search didn't exist at the time that I created my site, and my Flickr account also predated it. You say that "anonymity is only effective if you practice consistent inconsistency" -- but if your goal is a persistent pseudonym which allows for ongoing human interaction over years, you're almost inevitably going to let some type of identifying information slip. Your comment sounds suspiciously like victim-blaming in this case -- I never claimed to be an incredibly tech-savvy privacy specialist, I'm an an ordinary user of multiple online services and social platforms, and while my attempts to create walls between some of those identities may have been inadequate, they should have been respected. I present as the same persistent pseudonym in most places, so it's fairly easy to track me through that method -- but that was deliberate, so that people could recognize my username cross-platform. Since G+ was the one platform where I was doing a lot of public engagement with strangers, I chose a different nym, and deliberately didn't connect those identities. And, again, Google's products broke down those walls -- in this case, inspired by your actions rather than an automated merge, but still a privacy violation powered by Google. No, putting a user's real name into YouTube isn't the whole of the problem. But it's a symptom of the contraction of identity that Google's products are forcing, even if users have actually taken active steps (and many people have taken more steps than I have, including creating multiple Gmail accounts under different identities) to try to protect their identity privacy and to keep their various online identities from merging.

AndiS 13y ago

Thanks for pointing out that security vulnerability -- blessedly, I didn't use current legal name/address info for the website (I do my best to be cagey about that stuff online -- that's similar to, but not identical to, my actual name), but I'll have to look into obscuring the WHOIS information further. Pisses me off to have to pay for privacy, when that information shouldn't be public for private individuals who own a domain. And, yes, I really do value my privacy -- but, since my own knowledge of trackback information is limited (and Google Image Search is much more recent than the creation of my personal site), it's less that I don't value my privacy, and more that I failed to foresee that using the same profile photo (not even name/nym) on more than one site would create a security vulnerability. I appreciate the heads-up, but, again, this only emphasizes the issues of Google (and the issue of requiring personal information to be visible on WHOIS to anyone other than government agencies) encroaching on personal privacy and the ability to compartmentalize profiles between different services. I'm a different person on G+, Flickr, FB, LJ, etc. -- I tailor my posts to the interest groups that I share in various locations (and my perception of my own privacy -- I realize that a subpoena would break the security of a friends-locked post on LJ, but it's at least a relatively private space to share more personal information, whereas my profile on G+ has been more deliberately forward-facing, because I was interested in engaging with people outside my existing trust circle. Putting my real name into YouTube actually was the problem that sparked my original post -- but it's symptomatic of a larger issue, the deliberate contraction of the ability to create persistent pseudonyms and personae that are consistent within the bounds of a single social network, but aren't necessarily easily trackable/connectible by a random stranger. (I will say -- finding this out did decrease my sense of safety, since it's obvious that my intent to compartmentalize by using different persistent nyms, and building reputation under each nym, which can vary based on platform, was insufficient to protect a casual observer from landing on what COULD have been my actual name and address, had I not deliberately decided to risk the loss of my domain by putting in information that was designed to trap spammers -- i.e., if I got something addressed to that specific name, I knew that it was coming from someone who had looked up the WHOIS info.)

AndiS 13y ago

BTW, nothing like a casual doxxing on a public forum to make my point about the need for real privacy controls, and how unsafe lack of anonymity/effective pseudonymity on the web can make women, in particular, feel. Congratulations, I've changed my G+ photo for the first time since I created the account. Until now, I never felt uncomfortable having a photo of myself there, even though it meant that I had to deal with some small amount of unwelcome comments, and plenty of not-unwelcome flirty comments (which I'm fine with, I'm a flirty person, and I enjoy good banter. I'm not interested in anything more than that, and crude come-ons got deleted immediately, but I didn't mind the occasional complimentary exchange. If I'd had a problem with it, I would have used a different photo, or an image that didn't show my face.) Google Image Search didn't exist at the time that I created my site, and my Flickr account also predated it. You say that "anonymity is only effective if you practice consistent inconsistency" -- but if your goal is a persistent pseudonym which allows for ongoing human interaction over years, you're almost inevitably going to let some type of identifying information slip. Your comment sounds suspiciously like victim-blaming in this case -- I never claimed to be an incredibly tech-savvy privacy specialist, I'm an an ordinary user of multiple online services and social platforms, and while my attempts to create walls between some of those identities may have been inadequate, they should have been respected. I present as the same persistent pseudonym in most places, so it's fairly easy to track me through that method -- but that was deliberate, so that people could recognize my username cross-platform. Since G+ was the one platform where I was doing a lot of public engagement with strangers, I chose a different nym, and deliberately didn't connect those identities. And, again, Google's products broke down those walls -- in this case, inspired by your actions rather than an automated merge, but still a privacy violation powered by Google. No, putting a user's real name into YouTube isn't the whole of the problem. But it's a symptom of the contraction of identity that Google's products are forcing, even if users have actually taken active steps (and many people have taken more steps than I have, including creating multiple Gmail accounts under different identities) to try to protect their identity privacy and to keep their various online identities from merging.