Arekibo Blog

As I discussed in the first part of this investigation (which was over a month ago! Apologies, how time flies!) we give away far too much about ourselves online. While we are often told about managing things like our passwords on our accounts, we rarely consider the general collation of information that can be made of our details across various sites on the web.

One of the tricks I have discovered came from a simple realisation. I realised that certain sites I used did not rely on my providing true information. As long as my email address/username and password were real, the rest of the information was irrelevant. It is often required by websites for accounts but more often times, it doesn’t really matter. Think of YouTube, Vimeo, etc. What you need for these is quite simple. Any super-hero worth their salt had one and the reasons they did was the same reasons we should have them. Alter-egos allow us to protect our true identity online.

I have created an alter-ego from of my ancestors names. I have used it now for Vimeo, Twitter, YouTube and any unimportant blogs or forums I may contribute to or comment on. I am still trying to work out exactly how my wife has managed to make her Facebook account completely invisible, but once I have worked out, I’ll be applying the same. I have also deleted all unimportant social networking accounts (Bebo and MySpace). I am contemplating setting up a LinkedIn account based on the current indications that many business users source and contact new partners through it, but I need to investigate further the privacy settings of it before that. 

In short, where possible, I have removed any information that I don’t want anyone to even accidentally gain access to. A quick search shows that a number of friends have open Bebo, Facebook and MySpace accounts, through which my name pops-up, which justifies this decision.

One thing to understand is I am approaching this retrospectively. There are things I have put my name to over my 13 years online that now, I really wish I could remove. Many of you out there will be in a similar position so this is a project you can approach over a period of time. Set yourself a target that by a certain date in 2010 you will have removed as much of your online identity as you possibly can and stick to it. Make it a New Year’s resolution!

Being vigilant, regards being aware of the information you are giving out, as well as searching to ensure that your information is still safe. New sites pop-up all the time which make efforts to gather information about users. In conversation with an old friend from school he pointed out two recent events which had given him cause for concern. Based in Cambridge, his girlfriend had added her CV to the “Cambridge Network” in the hope of finding work. As a result, a quick search of Google with her name brings up a first page listing which gives her full home address and phone number. The second event occured when he did a “whois” of his domain name. To his surprise, his full contact details were available within the “whois.” Most domain services allow the user to turn this off, but many domain owners fail to do this. Again, the information maintained within the domain lookup information is not really pertinent (unless you’ve stolen the domain!) so if it’s your’s, make it up! He made the point that often, especially where billing is concerned, we see this address as a billing address and feel that we should provide the correct information. Check this type of thing carefully and don’t believe everything that you read.

(I was going to link “an old friend from school” to my friend’s site, but after writing the following points, I thought that might give too much away about him! It is also our responsibility to protect the identity of others. Think about the fact that if the information you are going to put online about someone else is not information you would like someone to put up about you, then don’t do it.)

In the final part of this investigation, I’ll look at how we should think about these factors in the future and what they mean to us. I promise it won’t be as long for the last part!

Check out Part III here.