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29 Jun 01 - 01:56 AM (#494534) Subject: Internet and privacy From: Deni Seems to me that if someone took a look at my mailbox and saved sites and favourites section, they'd know all about my obsessions and in fact, all about me, without too much effort at all. my obsession may be only folk music, but for some this could be more worrying. We look upon our computers as private, but I know of cases where dumped computers have been found ot contain private hospital records etc... are we exposing ourselves too much here? Deni |
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29 Jun 01 - 02:01 AM (#494537) Subject: RE: BS: Internet and privacy From: Liz the Squeak Well as long as you remember to strip your computer before you dump it, there shouldn't be a problem. My biggest worry is that at work, my personal folder in my Email has gone missing. Now I know it's in the system somewhere.... but where? Now THAT could be embarassing if it turned up on the wrong person's terminal..... I think we just have to trust. And we had this problem before we had computers. Whilst cycling around my home county, about 30 miles from home I found an invoice in a hedge (sat down for a rest at the top of a hill)... the invoice was for a TV my parents had had repaired and delivered, it gave their address, phone number and when they were not available for delivery..... dated that same day. Scary eh?? LTS |
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29 Jun 01 - 05:33 AM (#494571) Subject: RE: BS: Internet and privacy From: Clinton Hammond No security system is 100%... Don't do anything online that yer not willing to own up to in real life... What has anyone got to hide, if yer not breaking laws? |
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29 Jun 01 - 08:33 AM (#494675) Subject: RE: BS: Internet and privacy From: Midchuck There are so many goddam laws, we're all breaking them all the time, and most of the time we don't even know it. That's the problem. The cops like it that way. They can haul in anyone they don't approve of. Peter. |
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29 Jun 01 - 11:31 AM (#494827) Subject: RE: BS: Internet and privacy From: Jim Dixon Most of us are not prepared to defend everything we do, even when we know we're not doing anything wrong. Sometimes we're just doing things we would find it difficult to explain. That's where privacy is most valuable. When I was a kid, I wasn't allowed any privacy. My father, who was kind of obsessive about such things, wouldn't even allow me to close my bedroom door. He even threatened to take it off its hinges because I closed it too often. He claimed to believe that closing doors was bad for air circulation and damaging to the furnace blower! He also claimed to believe that there is no reason any honest person would WANT privacy - that the only thing privacy was good for was covering up something bad. When HE wanted to cover something up, he simply lied. (He was a secret drinker, for one thing.) But he never admitted to having lied, ever, in his life. Consequently, I grew up having no respect for my own privacy or anyone else's. This lasted considerably into my adult life. To make a long story short, I eventually learned that having no privacy had given me a rather rigid, unforgiving personality. Once you accept the idea that you have to be able to rationally defend and justify everything you do, and subject it to public scrutiny, it makes you awfully afraid to try anything new. You can't change your mind about anything. You can't give up old habits or learn new ones. Whatever shortcomings you have, you have to rationalize them. You can't forgive people, or ask for forgiveness. You can't be creative. Privacy is the nest in which we nurture our creative vulnerable selves. It is where we defend ourselves from the over-critical, censoring, controlling, rationalizing, spiteful world. Just as a political revolution can't occur without secrecy, a revolution in the way we look at things can't occur without privacy either. |
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29 Jun 01 - 12:25 PM (#494854) Subject: RE: BS: Internet and privacy From: Mrrzy MY OPIONION, not intended as a tirade, but it seems to have come out that way, upon rereading. I'm posting anyway, but with this caveat. Nobody should be thinking of computers as private. They are more like bulletin boards - they don't give anything away unless you look at them, at which point they reveal--everything. Anything I post anywhere, here or elsewhere, if it's on the Internet I assume it's PUBLIC KNOWLEDGE. That includes my personal emails to my personal friends. Don't put anything into your keystrokes you wouldn't want to come back to haunt you, is my motto. But I also believe privacy to be a fad and unnecessary to a great degree, but then again I grew up in the Third World. Privacy is a luxury, and as such seems precious and worthwhile, but it's a question of supply and demand. I think privacy has good marketing, but not necessarily a good product. Which is not to say that there aren't things I'd rather everyone not know, and I do make efforts to have those boundaries respected, and I mind when they are crossed. But that's a 3D thing to me - if I put it on the Net somewhere, and it got out, I would be upset, but I'd blame myself, not the Net. |
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29 Jun 01 - 06:59 PM (#495083) Subject: RE: BS: Internet and privacy From: Deni I wish I hadn'e told Rick F that story now! |
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29 Jun 01 - 08:03 PM (#495110) Subject: RE: BS: Internet and privacy From: GUEST,petr well considering that you can look at all the posts by any individual Im sure you can tell quite a lot about a person from that. |
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29 Jun 01 - 08:27 PM (#495116) Subject: RE: BS: Internet and privacy From: Bill D well, the internet and your computer can be 'almost' totally private and anonymous...you just need to learn the tricks & rules...(yeah, if the CIA wants to confisticate your computer & trace your movements, and is willing to spend the time & money, it is hard to prevent, but simple privacy just takes a little planning. |
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30 Jun 01 - 09:24 AM (#495350) Subject: RE: BS: Internet and privacy From: Mike Byers I wouldn't keep anything I wanted to keep secret on a networked computer (including one connected to the internet). But while it's sometimes possible to reconstruct deleted data from a hard drive, this does take some fairly sophisticated forensic software and quite a bit of time. For me, and I'd guess it's the same for most people, this isn't really a problem. I'd just as soon avoid the spyware programs that some software can run without your knowledge, and Ad Aware (a freeware program) is pretty good for this. If I had a machine connected to the net at all times, I'd use a firewall such as Zone Alarm. |