Facebook warning!

[aspwatterson]

The Times headlines today :

"Facebook, the social networking site, risks provoking users' anger by opening up details of individuals to the Web at large. A new search feature will mean that basic user profiles are accessible through search engines such as Google and Yahoo!"


aw

[pd]

This is a bit of a non-story really. Facebook has been telling people for ages that this was going to happen, and anyone with a modicum of common sense has everything set so that the public profile only shows what they want people to see (in my case, just my name and a photo...).

[aspwatterson]

So when will I at least get into training panties and you trust me to sleep overnight and communicate the next day from my cot without making a mess or any more s*** coming out of my keyboard?

aw

[aspwatterson]

This is a bit of a non-story really. Facebook has been telling people for ages that this was going to happen, and anyone with a modicum of common sense has everything set so that the public profile only shows what they want people to see (in my case, just my name and a photo...).

But then you put Stormcock.net search in Domain search with hosts (eg LCN) and all your personal details come up. I know though you probably have nothing to hide and are advertising yourself as a business anyway? I'm thinking of doing a site for young writers soon and judging their contributions... encouraging them with competitions etc. and getting schools involved but would not have a clue what type of site would be best to accomodate such an enterprise. On lulu.com you can actually get your own stuff published cheaply and go round telling everyone you're a published author these days!


aw

[aspwatterson]

"More anonymity is good" Kevin Kelly extracts from What is your dangerous idea?

" More anonymity is good; that's a dangerous idea.
Fancy algorithms and cool technology make true anonymity in mediated environments more possible today than ever before. At the same time, this techo combo makes true anonymity in physical life much harder. For every step that masks us, we move two steps towards totally transparent unmasking. We have caller ID, but also caller ID Block, and then only caller ID-only filters. Coming up : biometric monitoring and little place to hide. A world where everything about a person can be found and archived is a world with no privacy, and therefore many technologists are eager to maintain the option of easy anonymity as a refuge for the private.

However, in every system I have seen where anonymity becomes common, the system fails. The recent taint in the honour of Wikipedia stems from the extreme ease with which anonymous declarations can be put into a highly visible public record. Communities infected with anonymity will either collapse or shift the anonymous to the psuedo-anonymous, as in e-Bay, where you a have a traceable identitiy behind an invented nickname. Or voting, where you can authenticate an identity without tagging it to a vote.

Anonymity is like a rare-earth metal. These elements are a necessary ingredient in keeping a cell alive, but the amount needed is a mere hard-to-measure trace. In larger doses, these heavy metals are some of the most toxic sustances known. They kill. Anonymity is the same. As a trace element in vanishingly small doses, it's good for the system by enabling the occasional whistleblower or persecuted fringe. But if anonymity is present in any significant quantity, it will poison the system.

There's a dangerous idea circulating that the option of anonymity should always be at hand, and that it is a noble antidote to technologies of control. This is like pumping up the levels of heavy metals in your body to make it stronger.

Privacy can be won only by trust, and trust requires persistent identity, if only psuedo-anonymously. In the end, the more trust the better. Like all toxins anonymity should be kept as close to zero as possible"

aw