Slashdot Mirror
The Man Who's Kept His Face Off the Internet for 20 Years
An anonymous reader writes: Jonathan Hirshon is a 48-year-old Silicon Valley PR guy. He was an adult when the internet went mainstream, and he went online with a unique bit of forethought: "I decided to play a game with myself: How long could I keep my picture off the Internet." He's managed to keep the internet free of his image for two decades, and he's expanding the game. Hirshon is rallying the troops to outsmart Facebook and Google facial recognition. He asked his friends, "If you're so inclined, take a moment and tag me in some random picture or image. A leaf on the wind, a howler monkey, geometry equations, George Clooney, a large steaming pile of excrement—select an image that you think best suits me or [is] based solely on your whim."
I'm just a few years younger and my face is not on the internet either, despite publishing youtube videos, etc..
"I decided to play a game with myself: How long could I keep my picture off the Internet."
A game which he will probably shortly lose, since the first rule about keeping your photo off the internet is not to brag about how you've kept your photo off the internet.
(ack: "Posted by Soulskill on 2015-08-08 0:03 from the good-luck-after-this-article dept.")
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
between the two greatest pasttimes of internet users: "laziness" and "being a dick". Which one will win?!
I've been using the internet since the late 90s and my face or real name aren't on the internet. I don't take pictures of myself, i don't use social media, i don't allow people to take my picture, i don't use my real name anywhere on the internet unless i'm buying products from it, e.g. amazon, and even then i don't leave comments on products to ensure my name isn't shown.
I can guarantee you won't find a single reference to my real name or a photo of me anywhere so can i have a slashdot article too?
Greg Egan claims there are no photos of him on the Internet either, although I wonder how you could possibly verify that.
I also don't have a single picture on the internet. Heck my real name isn't on the internet.
Warhol is turning un-gayishly in his grave.
This is my real face ---> :-)
Somebody posted it years ago and now it's everywhere! Maybe you've re-posted it and not known the harm you were doing. Please stop.
An easy claim to make, but to verify, we'll need a picture for comparison.
Really? I've kept my face off for over fourty years - and I'm somebody!
kids these days...
I can guarantee you won't find a single reference to my real name or a photo of me anywhere so can i have a slashdot article too?
Ok, deal!
Please state your real name and send us a photo so we can make a Slashdot article about how great you are for not having those on the Internet.
Seriously??? WTF is wrong with you to think this is news?
You won't find mine either. I've been on the net since before www, but you won't find a picture of me. Go ahead, please, try. You have my email address and from that you can get my last name and address. First person to send me a link to an image of my face I'll send you a bottle of nice Irish or an old Motorola HT, your choice.
-- I have a private email server in my basement.
That should be the standard pretty much.
The only people interested on your regular life are people wanting to wreck the hell out of it.
Actually I use an Anubis cartoon character that replaces me on the net, even in places like Google+, Facebook and twitter. I add the tag of "furry" to the images and the admin of these pages left me alone. I just don't upload any actual photo of online since 1995 (yes the old days of IRC, Gopher and the new! World Wide Web). I don't need to use silly masks or ask people to tag me in any photo they see. So far my face remains anonymous, while the cartoon anubis have like a dozen of hits.
So that guy play the game in Ninja Mode, YAY!
I am the same age. I was cognizant of privacy issues back then, and played the same game, though my goal was to always be a few pages back on search engines. I grew bored of it, but I think it was a couple of years ago I was 4-5 pages back on google and it had my address from almost that long ago. That was a choice, not a challenge, really.
A Few Points:
- No one cares "you/me" even existed, everyone ever alive has been or will be lost in the annals of time. So Woo Hoo!
- All your shit is archived somewhere, until.. see first point.
- What we *should* have done as a whole is to have used encryption for all correspondence back in '96 or so. Poof Alternate Reality.
Merry Christmas.
Buddy must be a robot.
Robot Daneel Olivaw carefully kept his image from the history books thoughout Asimov's Robot/Empire/Foundation series.
Hey dude! Look, I can sympathize with you. But after so many years it's time to, just for once, un-barricade your mom's basement door, go outside, and get some fresh air.
Yeah I know it's scary. But we've all been there. It'll make you a man. And remember: there's girls out there. Yes, some in hot grits too. Perhaps if you have a few stiff drinks before going out there, you might even work up the courage to talk to one. If you do, you'll be our hero believe me! Once returned to the safety of your man-cave, you'll notice you have a fresh stride, that your head is upright while you pace up & down your basement. I'm sure your mom will notice.
Now come on, go do it! What you're waiting for? Who's the man? You're the man! Show 'em how bad-ass you are!
you have a driver's license and they got a photo and Name & address on record, think of all the electronic and paper trails the system has on you, about the only place that dont have your info is facebook which dont really matter anyway
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
He is far from alone to have done that, think about all those poor people that don't have access to the internet.
what happened to /.? Who the f... care about that f...ing guy who claims to be an Anonymous Coward? We don't give a shit. Next!
Achille Talon
Hop!
I have very unique last name. Add a simple first name and you will find 3 people withthe combo in the US. One my father, he is not in the internet, but is brother is. My nephew is out there, buy my brother is not.
No, it is easy to stay off the internet. so big wow!
The Goatse Guy also kept his face off the Internet. However, the other end was not so fortunate.
Table-ized A.I.
Guitarrist Buckethead did the same while actually being famous, doing shows, interviews, etc. We had some commentaries from people who knew him here and there but not visual, confirmed evidence. Until recently.
I've never published or had published pictures of me either. It's not really all that hard, just don't participate.
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
This isn't like taking your first dive into the deep end. The strategy to reduce one's internet identification vector to a minimum is not equal to diving into the deep end. Risks and rewards. You've confused the two.
--
It may be true that he didn't put his picture up on the Web for 20 years. However, especially in the last five years, given the parties and events that he probably has to attend for his job I'm sure that someone has captured him in a photo and posted it onto the Internet. He may not be the primary person of interest in the picture but I'm sure that he's on there.
Of course to verify that there are no pictures of him on the Web then he would have to upload a picture of himself onto the Web.
And technically he's talking about the WWW. If he's ever e-mailed a picture, sent a fax of his picture over a VOIP line, or transferred some files of FTP then he's had his picture on the Internet.
If you were a member of selfies anonymous. Personally, I would like to be able to keep my email address between myself and those I give it to. But that's a whole other kettle of fish.
No one took his picture and put it on their Facebook/whatever?
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
No reputation is worse than a bad reputation. What you did isn't as bad as what my imagination uses to fill empty spaces.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
I once had a UK police officer officer call me in Holland (on my mobile phone) to ask why my car was parked too long in the UK, had I abandoned it? The owner, of the house it was parked outside, was complaining.
I explained to the police officer that the woman thinks she owns the road outside, and my car is a taxed and legally parked car on the street and the woman uses the police to harass me, because she doesn't like a dirty car outside her house.
The rozzer got from my car plate to home address and from my home address to my mobile phone records to my telephone number, all without a warrant or good reason.
They simply assume all people in uniform as the good guys and all purposes they ask for records are good purposes. Instead I had this repeated telephone call from different police to harrass me about the car I'd legally parked on the street, and each one had a hefty roaming charge.
When I returned to move the car and stop the calls, the woman came out to gloat at her victory.
So much for the right to privacy. It struck me that the police had my location (from the cell phone location record), my call history and photograph and no checks on how it was used. And we found out Murdochs papers pay policemen to give them these records, so the leaks are just the tip of the iceberg.
Way to throw down the gauntlet, Mr Hirshon.
I've got $10 that says this guy's dick pix will be all over the Internet by Sunday. Or, we'll find out that he's the subject of the most famous ass pic ever.
You are welcome on my lawn.
I'll bet he's the Goatse guy.
Left MS Windows for Linux Mint and never looked back!
Vote for Bernie in 2016!
I've been on the Internet since 1978.
I wasn't called "Internet" then.
No pictures of me, anywhere.
He was PR manager for Sony, and he worked at Apple. He didn't spend that time stumbling around with a paper bag on his head - he had lots of photos taken (cough*Internet Archive*cough). Same with his school years.
tl;dr? He's a spin doctor. He tells huge lies and people buy them. There's a big difference between asking that people mis-tag photos with your name and not having any photos of you on the internet - to do that he'd have needed to avoid ever being photographed. Hint: if you ever had a school year photo taken - it's on a reunion site somewhere, and you have been tagged. If you hold a prominent position in a large company - you will have your photo taken and it will be posted. If, as he is, are "active" in the Jewish community (a self-promoter) then you should avoid posing for photos in the Jewish News - too late Johnboy! (man of the year and member of a board of trustees).
Obscurity != Security
I won't send you the links... but I personally am aware of at least 5 pictures of Greg Egan on the Internet, since I have met the author at a convention, and the author is quite recognizable in the photos.
I am aware of a good 30 of them... but then I used to work at Whistle with Julian, and know what you look like; in other words, the same "cheat" I used to make the same response about Greg Egan... ;^)
I was free and clear until I decided I wanted a Linked In. I knew that would put a picture of me up, but I figured the dubious loss of that would be made up for by the dubious gain of having a Linked In.
to upload or "tag" false images on Facebook or Google. Why should we have the right to keep our face off the Internet, if Facebook and Google have anything to say about it?
thats no amazing, my face isnt even on regular pictures outside of the internets
im so ugly my parents would not take pictures of me, only the school did once, and they regreted it and now their grounds are cursed, mwahahahahhahaha
My face is off-line too, I'm 26 yo. Did I win a cookie?
I love how people thought he was brilliant for coming up with tagging himself with random images. I and others having been doing that for a decade at least. Nothing brilliant there. I'm sure I got the idea from someone else, but it is a pretty simple and effective way to get your picture not to show up. Everyone in my family does this, we never tag correctly. But you can tell he is a PR person from all the bullshit.
I've successfully kept my face off Facebook for about 6 years so far. I signed up there to help promote the porn fiction I write, but I work in a conservative industry in the South, so I used a fake name, obfuscated my personal details, and resolved never to show an actual photo of my face. The only "friends" I've connected with there are people who only know me online, so there's very little chance that my employer (or a future would-be employer) would find me there, and discover what I do in my spare time. So far it's worked.
You never go on vacation? Because if you do, your picture is bound to be on someone's vacation pictures online. But even close to home, you have to stay away from anything anyone might find remotely interesting. Live in a big city? Better stay away from the cathedral, library, train station, etc...
Yawn - I've gotten my face OFF the internet over the last 7 years. Before that time, I wasn't careful enough and had someone show up outside my home at 11pm. I didn't know this person and definitely did not invite her.
I have a unique last name. 1 other person in the world has my FN + LN. We are related, somehow.
Anyway, I stopped using my real name online. I lied to twitter, facebook, google, and everyone else what my first and last name are. They didn't seem to mind. Sure, it was close to my real name, but not THAT close. Friends would recognize it, but others wouldn't.
I do not post photos online for all to see any more. I do have a webserver with family photos behind a trivial password to stop keep the riff-raff out - like google and other web search tools. The family and friends can get in easily.
I just did a search for myself online with my real name. The only hit was that I attended my mother's funeral a few yrs ago. No photos. I can live with that. There were a few hits for the other guy.
In short, people who want to find me don't seem to have any issue doing that. I'm contacted every year or two by old friends from HS or college. People I don't know only get my fake name.
Oh - and I'm a vocal online personality and volunteer inside the F/LOSS community in my part of the world - so it isn't like I'm hiding. I give technical talks at conferences around the world - 4 continents so far the last 2 yrs. - London, Cape Town, Singapore, Kathmandu, Seoul, LA, NY, ATL, HOU, CHT, RDU, BNA, MCO.
My point is this isn't THAT hard. Just takes a little effort, ongoing.
My company did many, many jobs for the government. It is fair that the government is known to the people and, by extension, I am as were many of my employees. It was usually just newspaper articles or some quick blurb on local television but the pictures are out there. As I am now running for office my picture is going to be more prevalent. I do not like it but I have no means or real desire to curtail it. Anyone involved in working for the people must be known to the people (unless it is some secret shit - and then it should only be for a limited scope).
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Have we finally found +ORC ?
Hard for computers to tell a lie from truth.