Safe Blogging
2005-04-09 09:35 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mdlbearFrom ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-syndicated.gif)
docbug_feed and the EFF mailing list, here's an article on How to Blog Safely (About Work or Anything Else) -- by which they really mean "How to Blog Anonymously".
I take a rather different approach, and simply assume that anything I put on a website is eventually going to become public, and that everything I write can pretty easily be traced back to me, so I may as well be open about it. Even if I were to set up a blog on invisiblog.com (and how do you know I haven't?), I might carelessly let something slip, or be betrayed by a turn of phrase or a reference to a secret only a handful of people know, or a minor fact that limits the possibilities. (Just as an example, I might mention the fact that the house I grew up in in Connecticut was torn down to make way for a freeway interchange.)
So I rarely use friends locking here on LJ, and don't hide the fact that the Mandelbear is really Steve Savitzky. Anyone who's sufficiently interested can hit Google and find out that I was using that handle on
If I were starting now, in a post-9/11 world, living in a country that's in grave danger of becoming a right-wing theocracy, I might be more careful. The net's not as safe as it once was. But for me, the open road is probably the only one left, so I might as well stay open and make the best of it.
docbug_feed and the EFF mailing list, here's an article on How to Blog Safely (About Work or Anything Else) -- by which they really mean "How to Blog Anonymously".I take a rather different approach, and simply assume that anything I put on a website is eventually going to become public, and that everything I write can pretty easily be traced back to me, so I may as well be open about it. Even if I were to set up a blog on invisiblog.com (and how do you know I haven't?), I might carelessly let something slip, or be betrayed by a turn of phrase or a reference to a secret only a handful of people know, or a minor fact that limits the possibilities. (Just as an example, I might mention the fact that the house I grew up in in Connecticut was torn down to make way for a freeway interchange.)
So I rarely use friends locking here on LJ, and don't hide the fact that the Mandelbear is really Steve Savitzky. Anyone who's sufficiently interested can hit Google and find out that I was using that handle on
alt.callahans more than a dozen years ago. I try hard to be polite and respectful in what I write (not always successfully), and simply don't mention certain things. I don't go out of my way to mention where I work, but anyone interested can find it out pretty quickly, so I don't worry too much if something slips, and I'm careful not to mention any trade secrets, or indeed anything that I wouldn't casually mention to somebody at a trade show. Even if they don't work for a competitor now, they might in the future.If I were starting now, in a post-9/11 world, living in a country that's in grave danger of becoming a right-wing theocracy, I might be more careful. The net's not as safe as it once was. But for me, the open road is probably the only one left, so I might as well stay open and make the best of it.
