We have all heard about the recent clash between the U.S. Government and Wikileaks. Now the founder of Wikileaks, Julian Assange, is facing on-again off-again charges of rape and/or "molestation," depending on what day of the week it is. I have no idea of the veracity of these claims. Gawker has noticed that while Wikileaks is plum-happy to publish information it gets from and about others, it's fairly secretive itself. As such, it set up a competing site, Wikileakileaks, to post leaks about Wikileaks. FOCUS: What information has been out there on the Internet about you that you'd rather not be out there? Old Usenet posts? An ex's rant about you on DontDateHimGirl.com? What consequences has this had for you? Alternatively, have you ever posted something about someone ELSE online that they'd rather not have out there? ALTERNATE FOCUS: What steps do you take to keep your online reputation unsullied? How successful has it been?
Focus: Aside from my criminal record, there really isn't anything that I'm too ashamed of. If someone wants to find out something about me, they will. I try to be as open and honest about myself as possible, and really can't empathize with people who want display part of their life on the internet, but only to certain people. What are they so scared of? How are they in any more danger than they are at any other time? Those people remind me of the people Tony Montana ranted about in Scarface. I have been stalked/harassed, had my life threatened, caught a beating because of mistaken identity, and been thrown in jail with violent assholes, so that kind of puts things in perspective. Someone leaving mean messages on my Facebook/MySpace page is nothing compared to walking out to your car and finding a note describing what you were just doing and who you were doing it with. Something I especially don't get is people who will get all pissy and tell you "Stop sending me messages! If you don't I'll _______________!" It's a fucking email message! Just delete it! No one is forcing you to read it! It's not like a phone call where it is making a noise that annoys everyone around you. It's not like someone banging on your door or window at 3 AM because "They just need to talk to you."
There ain't all that much out there on the interpipes about me. Well, I did get a rep point the other day from someone saying that they thought I had married a girl from the old board. This was almost true - I did have a long-term (for me) relationship with an RMMB member, and we had talked about marriage - but let's just say I maybe should have listened to some (NOT ALL) of the rep I got from RMMB two years ago with regards to said member and said relationship. Ahem.
My old username on the TMMB was my real name, and I posted all my wildest and stupidest stories. I'm also applying for jobs that include background checks, and was wondering how I'd censor 1000+ posts on a forum that prided itself on not suffering idiots. Jesus, seeing that forum shut down was the best thing that ever happened to me.
Hello. My name on the old boards was Twinkletoez. Seeing that forum shut down was the best thing that ever happened to me, too! Until I was scrolling through posts on this site and saw an honorable mention in the memories thread. Oh well. At least I don't get death threats anymore.
Sharing a first name with a well known city and having one of the most common last names, you have to dig through pages and pages on Google to find anything about me. The last time I tried, the only thing I found was a file directory from my first year of college and it was only web graphics and temp html files. There are some naked pictures of me online but none of them include my face so I'm genuinely not worried about it.
If you were to Google my name directly, you'd hit a few about me on the first page. Without giving too much away: my car accident from 9 years ago (it was recently mentioned on the TV news here again), a national contest I won with a certain beer company, my DJ business, and one of my stand-up acts. Most people on here already know my first name (it's not Gus, Beefy), that's pretty much all I reveal. The internet is a scary and completely untrusting zone. It's frightening how much it's mortally wounded privacy in the last ten years. It's not paranoid to say that no one is safe these days.