Please Close My Account

I don’t think we share any sensible information registering on CCS… and surely our email or name wouldn’t be stolen here

 

opps sorry I havnt been watching the sidebars well enough. The point though was that these days people expect to know how and if their data is used. Google was probably a bad example because google drops its own cookies etc on everyones pcs and uses them instead of the host sites policy. The result is that Google ads often appear to breach a sites privacy rules even though no info came from the site. Its certainly a minefield to get right especially on an international site where the laws of many countries have to be considered

 

What’s this “info” folks keep talking about?

 

I see it as his name and location. That is enough to do an internet search.

Possibly, he also thought his shipping information was included, from buying a kit.

Ed, I know you are probably the one that cares the least, but most of us care about that, to some degree.

Signed,
John Doe

 

It is interesting how the concept of 'privacy' has changed over the last 25 years; that is to say, in the internet era.

Used to be that one's identity and residence were not considered private at all, except in rare circumstances. We were all, literally, in the phonebook. My name, residence address, and telephone number were listed in the 'white pages', followed by my law firm address and phone number. Just below my dad's similar listings, in turn below my granddads. In the yellow pages would be found your name, business address, and business phone.

If you were in business or the professions, you wanted people to know who you were and how you could be found and contacted-- that was a big part of how you made your living.

In the 80s we began to see that strange thing, seemingly brought here by Californians....the unlisted phone number. An oddity that gradually became more common. I never could see the sense of it, myself.

 

Well, the world has changed. I used to side with you, Ed, and a couple of decades ago "information wants to be free" was my motto.

Sweden has a tradition of very open records. Any record of living adress, birthday, full name, income, place of enployment, owned vehicles etc used to be public stuff. Most communication with official functions like building permits are open to the public.

These days all that info is mined and automatically put together in online services and apps. Get a hold of a phone number, or a licence plate number, and most of that info is a click away.

Consequences are:

Criminals do wide data searches and filter out citizens according to their preference.
-Are you elderly and well off? You're a target for fake invoices and fraud telemarketing. If you sound like a target on the phone, you may get visitors dressed up as cableguys, out to con you in person.

-Are you middle aged, well off, and single? Some young 'honey' on Tinder, who sais she lives close to you wants to hook up, but is in reality one of many paid baits in honeytraps. Extortion or coersion ensues

A lot of these operations are run by organized crime. You don't want to pop up on their radar at all, but if you're low hanging fruit, chances are you will.

-If you piss someone off in traffic, they know where you live at a click of a button. Have you filed a building permit the last decade? A few clicks more, and they know the layout of your house.

(I won't go into the gang war problem we have right now. 13yo hitmen, contracted on snapchat running amok on scooters with handguns and bombs. Innocent people have had their houses bombed because they are listed in the phonebook, while the real target, with the same name, is not.)

All weighed in, I don't want to give too much additional info connected to my name freely searchable online. I understand if others are even more cautious.

 

A couple of years ago someone and although Im not sure I believe is part of this discussion asked how they might be able to go totally incognito ie invisible from the powers that be and society itself. My answer was pretty much you cant. The only way would be sneak into some wasteland noone cares about or visits and set up a totally self sufficient operation. Even then sooner or later you will pop up on google maps. You cant ever use a phone or go to a shop or doctor you cant walk down the main street of most towns etc or you will be on a camera somewhere

 

I don't have a 'side' really, and my responses in this thread were more about the particular comments of the gent who began it.

In my own case when my office put a computer with an internet connection on my desk in 1999 I went on a search about an author I admired, found an early website about his work, and participated as I always had in my life: I made contributions in my own name, as I had done in all personal and professional circumstances. That's all. It never occured to me to do otherwise. I continued to do so in the very few (three or four) places that I've made regular postings down the years, including CCS.

I have no arguments with those who do otherwise.

I will comment, though (and it doesn't pertain to the participants here), that the widespread practice of anonymous postings on the internet, in their countless millions, has had many seriously deleterious social effects.

 

@geeves no adverts should show here outside of the official banners embedded. If they do its likely malware on users device serving ads. My mother is bad for inadvertently adding browser add ons that do this.

 

I switched browsers on my phone. DuckDuckGo. Happy.

 

In hindsight it is sort of interesting to see how the online or retail accounts came along. Having watched at least a little bit as it happened, in real time I don’t believe there was anything particularly nefarious about it maybe, except that user accounts evolved under a

1. Choose a password and user name. Later, avatars or photographs etc. This ended up being the model, and everybody had to come up with a unique identifier, without being assigned a “license” or official internet ID.

There wasn’t much standardization of any sort. Imagine though, if every internet poster or commenter left his comments with a government issued ID photograph and legally given name. And hell, why not your home address? Would people still act insane on discussion boards? Maybe.

In other words, how much does anonymity factor into online interaction? Some politicians naturally want this kind of thing not possible. I might even agree with them, though probably not for the same reasons.

We don’t let people drive around without a license (well stay with me here anyway…) in a car because in part it is dangerous. Need to know who is behind the wheel. This is especially true for business or drivers for hire. We’re not even factoring in “bots” and other fakery. There are bad actors on the internet “highway” as well. And no cops or State Patrol.

 

Absolutely 90% of the time I dont even look at the posters name unless there is a reason to do so but anon if I see it instantly muddies the quality of the posts content. Same applies even more to fake names except its often hard to identify a fake. Even that is fraught with difficulty as here for instance encourages the use of non de plumes. My name on a nz auction site is mad butler etc but in places where a real name is expected one has to ask what is being hidden and why.

Well the quality of some govt issued ids probably means some would see no difference. Government sponsored misinformation is almost as rife as anti government misdirection although the governments normally try to conceal their identity. If you cant trust a government agency to post under their real identity how can you trust ids issued by that same government. Ive never noticed a post by the sis cia kgb etc but Im sure Ive read some somewhere

 

Not government under discussion per se.

Government issued ID. Try and open a bank account or rent a car or sell things on auction sites. They want to firmly tie a person’s identity in “meatspace” to a known identifiable individual.

See the difference? The internet can be dangerous, no question about it. I understand how “anonymity” on the internet came into being, but it is not necessarily a good development.

 

Been there done that now bald

 

Meatspace-- love it! And it suggests a pivot, the great Terry Bisson short short story, "They're made out of meat."

A great read-- it's not a short story, it's a short, short, short story:

They’re Made Out of Meat - TERRY BISSON of the UNIVERSE

 

Once you connect your PC to the internet you're known to the collective.
Changing browser etc. is only for the peace inside your head. Like normal post you want to get your own email back to you, your chat to your inbox. So there is always a way back.

Do you really think that any government will allow anonymous messages and traffic roam inside their digital borders?

 

Ah, the delusion of anonymity.
Signed,
snwcmpr

 

@Spiritburner
This site seems safe enough, from my point of view!
could be better could be worse, I'm a happy man it exists! Many knowledgeable good people willing to help out those with less knowledge but interested to fix/make work a liquid fuel stove or other type!

 

Things change I remember my old Social Security card saying
“Not for Identification “
Now it seems everyone thinks they need it.

 

One word to answer that TOR. More correctly known as the onion router. You may know it as the dark web. Used by all manner of criminals including Al Qaida to plan 9/11 drug dealers etc and designed to send you messages anywhere and everywhere in little pieces so the only places a complete message exists is at the sender and the receiver. It is as close to impossible to listen in on as it is possible to be. Its makers rely on as many nodes as possible and as much traffic as possible in order to hide their own transmissions. It was created by the US Navy. So here we have a government agency creating a system specifically designed for anonymous messaging.