Slashdot Mirror
Give Up the Fight For Personal Privacy?
KlaymenDK writes "Over the last decade or so, I have strived to maintain my privacy. I have uninstalled Windows, told my friends 'sorry' when they wanted me to join Facebook, had a fight with my brother when he wanted to move the family email hosting to Gmail, and generally held back on my personal information online. But since, amongst all of my friends, I am the only one doing this, it may well be that my battle is lost already. Worse, I'm really putting myself out of the loop, and it is starting to look like self-flagellation. Indeed, it is a common occurrence that my wife or friends will strike up a conversation based on something from their Facebook 'wall' (whatever that is). Becoming ever more unconnected with my friends, live or online, is ultimately harming my social relations. I am seriously considering throwing in the towel and signing up for Gmail, Facebook, the lot. If 'they' have my soul already, I might as well reap the benefits of this newfangled, privacy-less, AJAX-2.0 world. It doesn't really matter if it was me or my friends selling me out. Or does it? I'd love to hear your thoughts on the matter. How many Windows-eschewing users are not also eschewing the social networking services and all the other 2.0 supersites with their dubious end-user license agreements?"
but we must never give up the fight for bald pussy!
appropriate to this topic:
cat and girl
More music, fewer hits
Goddammit, we have to remember what matters!
Add photos that you aren't in and tag them as you.
Then add backstory for them.
This photo was taken at my sister's friend's cousin's lesbian wedding in Monaco. That's me on lead guitar.
Since you cannot always hide information. You can always try to obscure the facts with the fallacies.
I have removed my fingerprints with acid and have had facial reconstruction surgery. I dye my hair. I uninstalled windows and then burned my computer. I cancelled my phone then dug up the phone line on my property. I cancelled all other utilities and dug up the mains on my property. I moved my mailbox and house number to the neighbor's property. I pay the neighbor to act as my mail/home address firewall. I regularly kill my neighbor and take back the money. Inside my exterior house is another tinier house in which I live. Inside that house is another even smaller house in which I actually live. I also never agree to EULAs.
Well there's at least two other people who don't use facebook, the parent post and the moderator who gave it an insightful.
You'd think so, but actually the moderator is a regular Facebook user who just didn't know what the word "Insightful" meant.
You won't give close friends the ability to post on your wall, yet you have no problem letting the whole world know that you were listening to elvis 2 hours ago?
I decided quite a while ago that resistance was futile. Most details don't really matter, but it might be prudent to think about what would happen if you ever wanted to run for office or if the political winds shifted further to the right.
As for me, though, this is not a problem, because I love my country and especially that wonderful President of ours. God has truly blessed us to give us such intelligent, caring, and well-groomed leaders. My goal in life is to someday meet one of them so that I can adore him in person.
"Not an actor, but he plays one on TV."
Actually, KlaymenDK, the hardcore privacy nut that posted this Your Rights Online submission, prefers 80s music, as you can see by browsing thousands of songs he has listened to recently.
Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
80's music seems appropriate for a 34y/o, but I wonder if it distracts him when he's concentrating on a board game or working on his 2004 VW Golf in his Copenhagen, Denmark, garage.
You sound like a lot of fun and someone with plenty of friends.
Don't you know? If you run Windows, Bill Gates sneaks into your house at night and reads your e-mail!
"Whenever I've ever heard anybody say anything like "their Facebook 'wall' (whatever that is), it's always been with a condescending "I'm too good for crap like that" tone."
i'll fix that for you. I don't give a crap about facebook because i'm anti-social and have a mental illness that makes me extremely happy to have as little human contact as possible. When i play video games online vs human opponents i avoid the in game chat capabilities. talk? to my allies or opponents? no thanks. even when there are strategic advantages to communication i STILL avoid it.
yeah, i post to slashdot, yeah, i even journal here, but the way people post here is almost like not interacting with fellow human beings. i write what i write here, mostly to read it myself.
i mean the mind does need to have things to think about, but one does not need real human contact.
i realize that for some isolation from other human beings can cause their minds to fail with mental illness. for the others like me it's a nice break from having to interact with people.
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
What are these friends you talk about? I send my mom messages too, but I usually use the dumbwaiter. It's better than walking up the stairs to ask for a snack.
21st Century Renaissance Man
it is sorta fun to make contact with old classmates and to laugh at ex-girlfriends who've really let themselves go.
But what if I never liked my old classmates and have no ex-girlfriends (yic)?
Then you fit right in on slashdot.
It's the electronic equivalent of the hermit who lives in a decrepit house... filled with 1x10^32 empty beer cans carefully washed and sorted according to color.
Find me. You can only use my ""anonymous" screenname" as a starter.
You get $200 as soon as you call me. You have 5 hours.
You have a voicemail from me (I don't know if the caller ID will work. If so, it's a UK number, beginning +44 560nnnnnnn).
I'll email you to discuss the $200 ;-).
Don't use your personal details on line. The nom-de-plume is a long and honourable tradition. As a consultant it also gives me the freedom to be a little more, ah, technically honest than if I put my business name at the bottom of every email.
My friends and associates know who I am and how to find me (and I'm sure the appropriate three-letter-agencies do too).
But I certainly am not going to make it easy for every {insert-malfeasant-here} on the planet to get info on me. That's for my credit card and insurance companies to do :-(
-- Butlerian Jihad NOW!
...But privacy temporarily set aside, a good reason NOT to sign up for Facebook is to retain some control over your time
;-)
Most people I know who "do" Facebook (including my wife, as it happens) seem to end up having their lives swallowed up by it. I waste enough time here on Slashdot, I don't need to make it worse...
> An empty aluminum can weighs approximately a half-ounce (15 g).
10^32 of those cans weigh 1.5 * 10^30 kg
Let's put that in perspective: Weight of the sun: 1.9891 * 10^30 kg
That is one very impressive collection of beer cans.