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."

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[Anonymous Coward]

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.