Green Room - Week 22 - Day 5

[clauderainsrm]

We've made it to the finale without anything fraying, until a little bit last night! But that's still really good!
https://therealljidol.dreamwidth.org/1064830.html

Or bad, maybe the people WANT drama - there were more comments yesterday than almost anything else this season. :)

One of the things brought up though got me thinking - what degree of privacy do you expect from the internet?

Most folks have different filters set up via different sites. But sometimes though filters fail.

When they do - is it the fault of the server provider for changing something or the fault of the person putting it out there knowing the risk?

Is the latter just victim blaming? It got me curious because every time I think I know "the rules" of internet privacy, it turns out that something has shifted in internet culture.

I know that *I personally* expect that my settings with stay in place as the default. I've always seen it as part of the social contract between myself and the provider. But in researching, I ran across others who thought my position was naïve and overly trusting - and that if I didn't want the information out there, I should never put it out there, even behind a filter.

Thoughts?

Comments

[sonreir]

Oof. I've gotten a lot of flack for choosing to stay "anonymous", so this feels a little, well...

I've been doxxed in the past. If you don't know what doxxing is, I envy you. Imagine someone digging through everything you have ever put online, connecting the dots to figure out your real identity, and putting that information online, including your real name, address, and phone number, as well as where you work.

It happened to me. I'm sensitive about privacy as a result of it. I don't state where I live publicly or discuss where I work. I don't disclose my first name publicly online.

I realize that it's probably come off as standoffish or as though I have something to hide, when I dodge basic questions like, "so where are you from, because you mention familiarity with certain places", but I work in a public facing field, I'm looking for a new job now, and I just...don't care to take any chances.

To answer your question, Gary, I feel it's the fault of the service provider for not making the privacy settings clearer, but I don't trust them or put anything identifying online now.

In case it wasn't clear, either: you can comb through Season 8 and try to connect the dots to figure out who I played as, but please don't tell me about it. It makes me deeply uncomfortable, because I used to be a lot more open with where I worked and who I was, and I know that you can easily find my full name and place of work from it, if you try. :(

[clauderainsrm]

I've been doxxed, complete with death threats! But I guess the "good thing" is that it was so long ago at this point that the people it was distributed to wasn't as big as it is now.

I definitely wouldn't wish on that on anyone. Not even people I hate. I'd wish other things on them. :D

[sonreir]

Oh yeah, the death threats were sort of "meh, whatever, I highly doubt you're going to do what you say."

But they posted my address, where I worked, where my parents lived...

It was terrifying. I've been stalked in the past, too, and it doesn't come to quite the same level.

When I got doxxed, they managed to get photos that I would really rather did not exist on the internet, posted them, and said they were going to send them to my boss. I'm pretty lucky inasmuch as my boss at that point was technologically illiterate and didn't "believe" in emails with attachments (she said they were "all viruses" and deleted them without reading, which made our parent company extremely unhappy, but saved MY ass), but...good gravy.

I'm really, truly grateful that Google Reviews weren't really a "thing" at that point. They tried to bomb Yelp, but Yelp hadn't taken off in our city yet, and what I did wasn't customer-facing, so that helped, too...

It fundamentally changed how I think about the Internet and what I put out there. I stopped using that website and completely divorced myself from that identity. I managed to file DMCA takedowns for the photos. I don't really share photos of myself online anymore, even on 'safe' or 'locked' places like Facebook and Instagram.

I don't give out my real name online. I go by a nickname just about everywhere. I have separate email accounts for everything that I do. I have 2FA turned on that's not tied to my phone number. I'm paranoid. I probably don't have to be, because I don't think I've done anything quite as public as what you do, Gary, and no one is going to get pissed at me and post where I work again, let alone try to send photos from when I was 20 and stupid to my boss, but I'm still paranoid.

All it takes is once, and you never want to have to deal with it again.

[halfshellvenus]

Oh gosh, that's jut awful!

I try to keep my actual identity pretty private, and that's mainly because I've written so much fanfic.

You've been through the kind of hell that we're all paranoid about, so I can really understand why you would want to stay RL anonymous.

[sonreir]

I've more or less given up on having any sort of online identity that uses my real name or identifying information. I've stopped using Facebook and whatnot too. I work in a very public industry and it's way too easy to find me if you search my name, so I guess I've got to be paranoid? It's no fun, certainly, but at least it only took happening once to learn that lesson... :/