Personal blogging and your information online

thejetset

In thinking about this post I looked at my ‘about’ section. Suddenly I realised what an idiot I had been. A complete stranger would know what I looked like, where I lived, where I go to school and even the name of my dog....

The above was from http://www.liz.viewfromthequad.com/?p=209

Having read the above blog post I got thinking about how much of my information is online. There is a lot of it. For example my name, address, telephone number and school could all be found out very very easily and probably in a short space of time. I run IrishStudentBlogs.com and it is for this reason a lot of that information goes online. For example my mobile phone number is public there so that if someone really does need to contact me they can. But what do you think of the amount of information I share? Is it too much, or it doesn't matter because eventually it could be found out anyway? Don't get me wrong, it's easy to be anonymous on the internet at a moment's notice, but in some respects perhaps that's a bad thing?

CuLT

I think it's entirely within your remit to have as much information out there as you like – I keep plenty of information about myself available – as long as you understand the nature of that information (which I think you do, more than most, Ben).

I'm not advocating a batten-down-the-hatches policy, but I do think it's important that people understand what the difference between "public" and "private" is online. Most people have many shades of grey that make up what they consider public and private, wheras in most cases the Internet has only two – black and white.

The more someone understands the underlying architecture of the Internet (and computers in general) the more they start to think and act in binary.

parmele

There is no privacy on the internet - and there shouldn't be. The problem is some people think there should be.

It's impossible to be truly anonymous anyway. Take a recent case in the U.S. where Google was forced to disclose the IP address of someone slandering another person anonymously. I agree with that. Other people may come on here and quote Franklin, and say those who sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither.

Here's another example: someone is using an internet cafe to send bomb threats. Should they be able to be anonymous? No. And I assure you there are 100 ways to figure out who that person is.

My personal stance is if you don't want the whole world to know it, then don't post it. Like you said, if someone is bent on getting your address or phone number...they don't need the internet to figure that out. Liz can rest assured I don't care what her dogs name is.

P.S. Cool idea with your site.

Sparks

There isn't any privacy (at least, not with regard to contact details) off the internet either. Names, phone numbers, addresses, photos, all of these are far less restricted than most people seem to believe they are. Hell, if you were born in 1984 or later, your DNA is on file (albiet from a rather underhanded programme). And how many of you shred your bank statements, phone bills, letters and everything else before they go in the rubbish (whereupon they're fair game for anyone looking to get detailed information on you)?

Personally, most of my information has been widely available for a long time on the net -- I was the contact point for my sport's national governing body for a while, so I didn't really have a choice. But it's not as bad as it would sound. Some things, you do keep confidential - passwords, bank records, etc -- and the rest you just accept as being public information that no-one is really all that interested in. We might live in a panopticon (though not to the same extent as in the UK), but it's one run by lazy guards

thejetset

Actually, the one thing I am really really conscious of is family photos. I'm really careful with them and I don't think there are many on the internet, if any. Now being enthusiastic about photography some of my best photos are of family, but I just can't put them up publicly or even privately online and be relaxed about it.