Anatomy of a Privacy Nightmare

itwbennett writes "Gennette Cordova knows first-hand how impossible it is to erase yourself from the Internet. The 21-year-old college student was the hapless recipient of a photo of a Congressman Anthony Weiner bulging in his boxers. Ms. Cordova then 'watched in sheer disbelief as my name, age, location, links to any social networking site I've ever used, my old phone numbers and pictures have been passed along from stranger to stranger.' She then tried to remove her personal information from the web, one social network at a time. But the fact is, 'until a site's Webmaster removes the offending content, it will remain accessible via search engines like Google,' says blogger Dan Tynan."

Comments

Oh the Drivel You Will Spew

[eldavojohn]

It happened to her. Just like one day it could happen to you.

No, it won't. But that's just because I am one boring person and I don't share much online. But hats off to your ridiculous fear mongering. While Gennette Cordova herself wasn't a celebrity or public figure, she worked for one and probably should have been careful about broadcasting that to the world.

I don't care if I work at goddamn McDonalds, I'm not going to associate my employer with anything online. One day I'm going to get done with work, get on twitter/facebook/slashdot and paraphrase Fight Club:

Because one of these days some manatee is going to come into the restaurant demanding his slaw and this button-down, Oxford-cloth psycho might just snap, and then stalk from drive-thru to drive-thru with an Armalite AR-10 carbine gas-powered semi-automatic weapon, pumping round after round into customers and co-workers. This might be someone you've known for years. Someone very, very close to you.

And I'm not going to be fired for venting.

In 1568 if you used a Gutenberg press to print off everything about you and you distributed it by hand to all the other serfs in your kingdom would you be surprised that they know it!? No? You grasp that concept?! Well what is so hard to grasp about putting your freaking life story on the internet only to be shocked when it's fed back to you by everyone on the goddamn planet?! It was true then and it's true now. Keep what you want to remain private as private. What changed after she got the photo that suddenly made her aware that everyone can see her profiles? What changed? Now other people are posting that same information? Because it was publicly available to anyone and any search engine? Ridiculous. Hoisted by her own petard.

Re:Oh the Drivel You Will Spew

[RazzleFrog]

Did she work for him? Everything I read said she was just a student and had never met him. I haven't read that much, though, so I could be wrong.

And a lot of these things she didn't even put on the internet. Go to a site like Spokeo.com and put in your name. I know I didn't put my house value on the internet but yet there it is.

Re:Oh the Drivel You Will Spew

[david_thornley]

Then you used a bad example, since the settlement company was your lawfully paid agent. If you did not know what you were hiring someone to do on your behalf, then you should have read some of those papers you were signing. That is my point.

Except that that's not a useful reply.

I've done numerous things that are matters of public record, including buying a house. This means that there is, perforce, a lot of information available to others about me. If I didn't want that, I couldn't buy a house, marry, divorce, reproduce, or do many other things people rather want to do with their lives. If you want to rent a decent apartment, it helps to have a good credit record, which means having a credit record. Basically, if I want to live a halfway normal life, I leave a large public trail.

Also, the meaning of public information has changed over the years. Back in the 1980s, if I wanted to access assorted public records, I'd go to the main County office building, look up the ID number of the record in the microfiche room, take that to the records room, and wait several minutes and pay a small fee. It was certainly possible to build up a dossier of publicly available information about me, but it took time and expense. Nobody would do it unless I, personally, was of interest to them. Nowadays, it's possible to get that stuff on the Web interface quickly, easily, and without charge.

Similarly, the extent of private information turned public is much greater. If my father did something in public that was stupid but legal, and wound up being reported in the local newspaper, he could live it down or move away. In order to find that article, an investigator would have to go somewhere where they kept all the issues (such as the newspaper itself or a historical society), which would be local, and dig through them. If my son does something equivalent, it will be searchable to everybody on the internet pretty much forever.

Alleged picture

[Anonymous Coward]

There is significant evidence that Weinergate was a frame set-up from the beginng. I do feel sorry for this girl, as she is as much a victim of this mess as Rep. Anthony Weiner, but please don't accuse the representative of actually sending the photo directly to her - she was the vehicle of a hack-job, not the target.

Re:Alleged picture

[twmcneil]

Soon as I saw that Breitbart had something to do with this, I figured it was a hatchet job. Breitbart has a real credibility problem IMHO. I'd sooner believe the headline "Elvis has Alien's Baby" in the Star than anything Breitbart says.

Re:It wasn't his Tweet

[Purpleslog]

Well...that is the Congressman's current explanation. Looking at all the facts...it may or not be his. The tweet is most likely from him or from somebody screwing with him who know his secret Yfrog email id. His actions seem more like those of a person covering up an "oh shit ooops" than like a victim who got hacked. He does seem to not want to involve the vendors or law enforcement in investigating.

Re:It wasn't his Tweet

[Anonymous Coward]

OMG! Someone can't categorically deny that there may be a picture of him in his underwear. STRING HIM UP!!!
 
I think he's just being overly-cautious in his denial because he's one of those idiots who tries to be accurate in what he says while still being a politician. It's amazing how much shit you get for that; journalists may as well wear buttons saying "Please lie to us! It'll be easier for everyone."

Try buying a house.

[Kenja]

Forget about crotch shot pics and twitter, try buying a house sometime. Suddenly just about everything about you is in the public records for web sites to mine and resell.

Re:Life gives you ilemons?

[gman003]

Lemons are apparently the new cake. Great. I know the jokes were funny in the game, but referencing it constantly whenever someone so much as mentions lemons, moon rock, crushers, or potatoes just kills the joke. I would much prefer that we make our own jokes.

Or at least do something inventive with it. I'm sure there's some funny Monty Python/Portal combination jokes just waiting to be made.

Re:What?

[Lehk228]

Because she ran to the media as an un|willing participant in breitbart's ongoing bullshit.

entirely caused by her actions

Frame set-up? BULLSHIT!!!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Weiner seems totally unconcerned that someone was able to hack multiple private accounts of a US Congressman, doesn't want a federal investigation into such a crime even though he's on record as sa, and has already all but admitted it's his weiner in the photo.

What?!?!?! This guy can't rule out that it's a picture of his boner on the internet?

How many damned photoes of Weiner's raging weiner are available, anyway, so that he "can't rule out" that's HIS BONER?

There's got to be something WRONG with him to even get to THAT point.

AND he doesn't want the feds investigating even given that if any of his variable stories really are true how someone must have hacked multiple accounts of a sitting US Congressman?

AND his stories keep changing.

And you think it's a "frame set-up"?

Dude, I got this wonderful bridge between Brooklyn and Manhattan for sale - cheap. And some beee-yoo-teee-full swampland in Florida for sale - cheap, too.

You credulous fool.