Anonymity

[jolest]

After listening to some points made at the LiveJournal panel at WisCon, I've dropped my name in my personal info down to something less likely to be findable by anyone (uninvited) snooping for info on me. I'd appreciate comments on if you think this is/isn't a good idea and why

Comments

[cybercerberus]

This ultimately comes down to a few things about your life and your sense of "risk". For example, do you plan to post potentially offensive or controversial things in your journal? If not, then you really have little reason to hide your identity.

If you do, or might, then you may benefit from keeping the "real you" sort of difficult to figure out.

That said, I don't really believe in "online privacy". I think it's an illusion. Anybody with sophisticated enough searching talents and Google can pretty much figure out who anybody is. So my personal view is "who cares, put everything out there". Many people disagree with me on this though, so it really does come down to your own personal boundaries.

A quick look at my userinfo will illustrate my view of privacy.

[wombat_socho]

I agree with most of what cybercerberus says, but most people aren't that energetic. They won't go to the effort of trying to figure out who you are if they can't tell right off from the user info. Most people who know me can figure out who I am from my user info page, and as for the rest, well, let them dig around a little bit. The practice'll do 'em good. ^^

[cakmpls]

Personal choice. My real name has been on my info page from the beginning.

[sraun]

My on-line persona has been closely associated with my real-life persona ever since I started using the 'net. "sraun@" was my first non-FidoNet e-mail address, and I've been keeping some variation on it going ever since.

I've figured it is not worth worrying about. I wouldn't put my SSN or DL on-line, but name / address / phone is easy to associate with me.

[skylarker]

My real name is with my info; if I have anything particularly sensitive to say I put a Friends filter on it, so at least I know who has access to it.

I don't add very many people to my Friends list if I don't have some idea of who they are in the flesh - I wouldn't have known who 'jolest' was if your picture wasn't on your icon!

[dsgood]

Anyone looking up "Dan Goodman" is going to find a lot of people who aren't me.

Of people who've found me through Internet and gotten in touch with me, most were people I wanted to be back in touch with. The exceptions were people looking for someone else with my name. One, in Latin America, was looking for her father.

I don't put sensitive information on the Web. Not in LiveJournal, or anywhere.