Jul 05 2007
My 2 cents on anon blogging / Internet Security
This post is just my view on this topic and is open for debate.
Just couple of days before poppin’s amma posted on anon blogging, I was debating if I should put my daughters pictures on the site. The sheer number of comments explains this is something that has crossed peoples minds at some point or the other.
Decided to write a post as the comments would be too long. Hope poppins amma and utbtkids don’t mind.
Folks who are able to publish pictures on the net are probably pure at heart and trust others easily. Maybe not so easily, but I can trust people as well. What I am scared of is todays technology and the speed at which it is advancing. For example, Like.com uses image recognition technology to find items of your interest sold on the net. How would this technology emerge in 10 years from now? What could it do with a simple innocent image that google has indexed and archived forever? Only time will tell.
Roll back 9 years, when I created my yahoo ID, I very sincerely gave all the correct profile information. Just few days after that I started getting lots of emails from “real” people from my community who would want to be friends/ take the relationship further kind of crap. To the extent that they would give out their company name and phone number. After a really long time, did I realise it was because of my public profile combined with yahoo’s person search. ok, agreed I might have been naive at that time. The point I am making is that new technologies emerge every day. And at the speed that we simply cannot imagine/catch up. I wouldn’t be surprised if some kid writes a software “for fun” which can scan through blog posts, gather enough keywords from various posts and give a history of my life long dwellings/personality etc. Combine that with a picture and the possibilities are endless.
To add oil to this flame, the p—r-n industry is a billion dollar market. What does it take for somebody to start a site, use software to take pictures from the net, combine, massage them with ther images? ok, I don’t want to go there. But this kind of thoghts gives me sleepless nights.
The other thing which scare me is the camera on cell phones. I might be scratching my butt in my backyard thinking nobody’s watching and next thing I know is this dude having a 10x zoom camera phone takes a picture from his upstairs windows and uploads in youtube.
That said, how far and how long can you protect yourself? Here is a picture of google’s street view, an afternoon snapshot of our office parking lot.
If you zoom within the street view, you can clearly see the name plate of the car. It changes a lot of things we take for granted. Imagine a combination of the like.com’s image recognition technology and google’s search technology. You can pretty much search for my car number plate and find out where all I go. I do not have a control over this, as of now that is.
My personal view is that we cannot do much about google indexing and archiving content without our consent. But I could blog anon to give me peace of mind.
Again, this post is just my view point.
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I agree with you – and am just as paranoid abt posting pictures. but I also want to liven the post with pictures. so I take great pains to edit it – hoping it will make a difference…not sure if my paranoia is valid or if anything changes by posting sketches versus pics…but like you said I do it more for peace of mind.
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RBDANS, you said it. I didn’t want to open my mouth and say bad thinsg about google for the fear or persecution.
Don’t get me wrong, I am all for technology and improvement of life style. But Google’s street view gives me the creeps. Now I have to think twice about picking my nose too close to a window in my house..in MY OWN HOUSE. What is the purpose of street view, I still cannot phantom. They say that they are freezing time for eternity. Oh what a crappy explanation, I am pretty sure, street view is just a stepping stone for something more intrusive thats along the way. For a company that diggs its nose in to other people’s business, Google is as anonymous as it can get.
Infact that is becoming an alarming trend in all internet based companies. I, no longer can find a customer service phone number in websites like Netflix. They just have a bunch of email ids with generic lables like customerservice@x.com. Isn’t this trend scary, the individual being stripped in public and the companies and corporation getting as nameless and as faceless as possible?
I just hope Google gets sued for street view(Sorry I feel this strongly about this). And may a law be passed that every company is required to provide a telephone number with a live human and a decent wait time to get through on the other end in case you need to talk to a person.
Sorry mini post.
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Very Very nice post. Youve gotten some very valid points !
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Kodis mom: I agree, not sure if the paranoia is valid or not, why take the risk? Its a crazy world we live in!
utbtkids: may a law be passed that every company is required to provide a telephone number – 100% with you!
poppin’s mom: thanks.
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>> Folks who are able to publish pictures on the net are probably pure at heart and trust others easily < <
NO. But I dont get scared that easily. As I left a comment at UTBT, I started posting baby pictures and then I could nt stop. May be I ll gradually stop in a while but that ll be only because she ll be growing older.
Agree with you on the big bad world of internet. I just choose not to dwell on it too much. Denial is my mantra!
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Precisely my thinking for not posting any pics …
It would sure make it a lot personal by posting pics … but then, I fear about the emerging technology …
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boo: Agreed with you on the first comment.
’ – I wish I could be like you, it would make life so much simpler.
‘Denial is my mantra!
ca: Pics would sure make it personal and I would love to showcase mine as well, If only for the technology.
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