So I was interviewed today for this CBC blog article entitled “Cellphones, social media and privacy: what are you really sharing?”, by Robert Ballantyne . I was chosen because I am the “mayor” of the CBC on Foursquare. If you have never seen foursquare it essentially a way of telling your friends where you are at, at any given time. This done through geo-tagging and social networking.
The “Mayor” is Dave H. He has an identifying photo and you can access his full Twitter and Facebook accounts. From that, I discover he’s a colleague, what he does, who he’s in a relationship with, his email address, his dot-com, how old he is, who his friends are, what made him cry recently on CNN, and freely browse through detailed photos of his house — both interior and exterior.
What Robert and other people are missing is that I am not giving away anything that anyone couldn’t figure out with a walk by my house and a little sleuthing. For example if you have a full time job, and I’m going to assume that you don’t work from home, chances are that between the hours of 9 to 5 you are not home. And so it is with most people.
My dot com is named after me, not really original but I had intended it to be for business purposes. I will also tell you that Robert Ballantyne has done the same thing so it is not that big of a discovery.
If you want to know what I do for a living just look in the top left of this blog. (which by the way, Robert got wrong.) If you want to know about my relationship without using a computer ask a neighbor. If you want to know what CNN article made my cry it is a story about a dying girl who left notes behind for her parents sandwiched in the pages of children’s books. (They left one unopened so there would always be one more letter from their daughter which is totally heartbreaking) look at my Facebook page. I don’t hide these things for two reasons: 1, they are not especially sensitive. 2, chances are if your reading this, you already know me…and if you didn’t, you do now!
More people have their identities stolen from paper statements and e-statements. Most identity thieves still stick to old fashioned practices like dumpster diving and stealing files from their places of employment. Collecting information I freely and willingly expose is not impressive. If you want to impress me, break into my bank account and pay my mortgage!
I am not trying to pick on Robert, I think its a great article and many people might not be aware they are exposing this information. But if you really want to hear something scary regarding privacy, look up the US Patriot Act. I am more scared of the government than I am of criminals. Besides, everywhere you go, you leave little electronic footprints which means they are leaving the same footprints.
In this day and age if you want to remain anonymous, stay off the internet.