Aren’t I Worried About Privacy Online?

posted at 12:44 pm
on May. 11, 2007

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So, a friend told me yesterday I must be brave to post my phone number online like that.

I think perhaps “brave” in this context meant “foolish” or perhaps “naive.” Maybe even “boneheaded.”

He raises a good point—is a blog a good place to post personal information?  I mean, you could find my address, my birthday, my phone number, my wife’s name and more here. 

But this doesn’t bother me, possibly because I attended journalism school.  I know that all that personal detail, and way more, is available online.  I can look up the military record of my friend George, the divorce records of my parents, and the business license of any one of my entrepreneurial friends.  Blogging it doesn’t make it much easier to find—and in this case, my phone number will be in the phone book and therefore also online anyway.

A close reader could also tell that I’ve bought good stuff worth stealing (like the Wii!)

But at the same time, I’m certain that of the significant robberies that occur in Vancouver this year, a very very very small percentage of them will be from people who are specifically targeting someone.  Most crimes are crimes of opportunity, and frankly, my place isn’t that easy to get into, plus we have an alarm system.

What else can you tell from my blog? My cat’s name, my first car’s name, my weight, my height, my first girlfriend… the list goes on and on.

But that information, despite being fairly personal, isn’t particularly useful.  I’m careful to use security questions that can’t be answered by anyone else correctly, and I can’t think of any other reason you’d be able to use my cat’s name against me somehow.

There are actually plenty of private things that don’t make it into the blog.  That’s one of my defining characteristics, I think—I try not to have varying levels of exposure and secrecy from different groups of people.  I have basically stuff that’s just for me to know, stuff that’s for Susie and I to know, and stuff that pretty much everyone can know, if they want.  I don’t blurt everything else, but I don’t make it hard to ask, either.

I guess Popeye says it best: “I yam whats I yam and that’s all whats I yam.” And if others think differently, that’s fine. I don’t think this is the “rightest” way to be, it’s just the way I .... yam.

ps. My Wii number is 6315 5764 4929 7982

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