patrick.net
An Antidote to Corporate Media
1,260,476 comments by 15,051 users - Al_Sharpton_for_President, Ceffer, Karloff online now
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TPB
2011 Nov 28, 3:20am
That's why I only post information about my self on Servers I control. And am a fictitious moniker everywhere else.
Meanwhile searching for relevant information on a given topic, especially topics where a purchase possibility would be impossible, returns more useless information than ever before.
Google has jumped the shark and is turning into the KGB ministry of domestic intelligence.
I don't think it's so much the internet is capable of finding this info as much as people are willing livestock registering for every social media site they can. There is nothing relevant about me, that I can find with in 12 pages of a Google result. I also have many childhood friends that have managed to use the internet in relative incognito.
Patrick
2011 Nov 28, 12:41pm
Scott McNealy had a great summary of the situation:
"You have no privacy. Get over it. The only issue now is equality of exposure."
Also relevant:
http://www.theonion.com/video/cias-facebook-program-dramatically-cut-agencys-cos,19753/
As for Patrick.net, all I know about users is the email address you registered with and your IP address, which all web servers automatically log.
Who is watching you? The internet is a powerful tool. With the smallest amount information you could find out quite a lot about someone. Try it, Type in your name to a search engine and see what the results are. You might be surprised to see how many hits your name gets even an image search on google can bring up quite a number of hits. While many of these hits are not you, with the smallest amount of information, it's easy enough to identify people. While people who post there whole lives on Facebook, open for all to see, even the most private people often how quite a bit of information about themselves online and they don't even know it.
Let look at a patrick.net user, let's pick, oh I don't know, TechGromit. if you were to type Techgromit into google Picture search you would see my avatar, but quite a lot of other avatars and photos as well. They are my digital foot steps, places I've been and posted to using TechGromit identifying me. Scrolling over each photo will tell you where it's from. Patrick.net and Mytractorforum.com are two of the top hits. Clicking on some of the photos displayed will yield more information about other things I posted about. Doing a web search will give you a list of websites I've visited. A visit to a Amazon review i wrote will give you my real name, see I wasn't even aware that was there. A search of my name and Egg Harbor City, NJ then gives my address in Wildwood NJ. and so on. (Not that I ever lived in Wildwood,NJ, but since they are so close geographically, it's a reasonable assumption hat they are the same person)
So with a little information, you could be telling the world everything about you. The internet never forgets. stuff I posted 10 years ago still shows up on search engines.