Privacy II: The creation of a virtual Frankenstein

 

I've been seeing the following, and variations of it, for a couple of weeks now on Facebook (don't worry, it's not a link, you can't click on it):

Dan Davis likes OMG! This GUY went a LITTLE TOO far WITH REVENGE on HIS GIRLFRIEND Click HERE TO SEE 

Three guesses: spam, or no spam?

Yes, that was my guess too.

It's really making the rounds.  Some of my most sedate Facebook friends are falling for it, so it must be very cleverly packed inside a game or something innocuous-looking.

I've fallen prey to this kind of thing myself, especially when I was new to Facebook.  I thought the questionnaires and surveys and games were great. Then I began to notice the amount of spam I was getting, and some of the peculiar things that were happening on my computer (I run a complete virus scan weekly, and it was turning up all kinds of nastiness). Then I put two and two together.  I still use Facebook, but I'm much more selective about where I click, and whenever the "ALLOW APPLICATION TO ACCESS FACEBOOK DATA?" query comes up, I count one, two, three, and usually I hit "cancel."

But in those early days, I was actually doing it to myself.  I was innocently (read: thoughtlessly) linking to all kinds of websites.  I was certain, as are many of my friends still, that Facebook is a protected space and nothing bad can happen there.

I still do stupid things.  I'm no genius.  A few months ago I accessed a very harmless-looking website I'd seen featured on a TV show; when I got there, it turned out that you had to pay something like $10 for access; I clicked the wrong button in my haste to get out of there, and I ended up subscribing to this verkakte service for a couple of months, at $10/month (charged direct to my cellphone), with no visible means of unsubscribing.  (I think I finally managed to unsubscribe a few weeks ago, but I'm still holding my breath.  If you hear screaming, you will know I failed.)

Most of the security breaches I've experienced have been, ultimately, my own fault.  I'm not terribly creative with passwords sometimes, and I still click where I shouldn't click.  The only really authentic outside hack I've ever experienced was to my eBay account; someone was trying to sell bogus sports tickets, and was using my vendor name (and, ahem, immaculate rating) to drum up business.  Luckily someone notified me, and I got the bogus item cancelled, and I changed my eBay password to an alphanumeric nightmare.   But at least I'm pretty sure I didn't do that one to myself. 

(Side note: there was recently an interesting Times article about password security.  Turns out that all those fancy rules aren't so great after all.  The best and most effective website security measure is to allow a user three tries, and then to shut you out for a period of time.  Mind you, those are the websites I hate the most, because I am a rapid and incoherent typist and invariably type the wrong thing several times in succession.)

I try not to deceive myself about these things; I can usually acknowledge that I've done something stupid, and try to correct it, and turn the page.  I know people, however, who appear to be happy in their fools' paradise.  One acquaintance has burned through three computers (by my count) in ten years.  They keep breaking down, you see.  She uses them for a while, and they get slower and slower, and then all of a sudden she can't use them anymore, and then she gets a new computer.  

 

Essay question: why do you suppose her computers run slower and slower?  Do you suppose it has anything to do with the stuff she's doing online?

In my earlier blog about online identity and privacy, I talked about the creation of an online persona.  I think we largely create our own public images.  Most of us (with the exception of Mike the Situation from Jersey Shore) don't have a marketing plan; we create our personae step by step, click by click, often unthinkingly, unaware of the mosaic of information and images we're creating.  

But not entirely unaware.

Remember Marley's ghost?  "I wear the chain I forged in life.  I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it."

Be careful, children.  Be careful.

Private I

 

     

 

If you've never Googled yourself, you really should.

 

I know, I know, the ultimate narcissism.  But if, like me, you've fallen prey to the temptation, you'll understand what I mean.

 

My name, incidentally, is Loren Williams.  Very common last name, relatively uncommon first name.  How many of us could there be?

 

There are quite a few of us, actually.  There's a professor at Georgia Tech; a guy in upstate New York who is apparently one of the great authorities on tying fishing flies; a volunteer fire chief in Cosmopolis, Washington; a car enthusiast in Florida; a pharmacist in Montreal (this one's a woman); and my personal favorite, a linebacker (to be fair, this one is "Lorenzo," not "Loren.").  And a host of others.  (Sadly, the only one who shares my middle initial is a real-estate con man in Maryland who's in jail for a pretty nasty crime.)

 

I'm in there too, but only peripherally, though my place of business.  I don't come up until about the fourth or fifth page of Google results.  Same for Google Images; lots of other people (the Georgia Tech guy shows up a lot, he's very photogenic), and you'll see a lot of closeups of trout flies (see previous paragraph).  My photo - the one that I use for my profile, the dark jacket and plastic fruit necklace - doesn't come up until Page Nine.

 

My point here is that all of us have a life on the Web, whether we know it or not.  Websites like Facebook and Twitter allow us to create personae; we choose images, salient details about ourselves, and we present ourselves to the world.  (Not for nothing, the word "persona" originally meant a mask worn by an actor during performance.)  There was a great piece in the Times a few weeks ago about how Twitter allows us to construct a kind of photomosaic of ourselves, by dropping fine-tuned comments about ourselves throughout the day.  I'm at my kid's school play: see, I'm a good parent.  I'm reading the Aeneid for the fifth time: my, I'm smart!  I'm weeping while watching the Glee finale: I'm terribly sensitive, but in tune with pop culture.  And so on.

 

But there's all kinds of stuff seeping around the edges.  There are the items you've bought and sold on eBay, using the same old username.  The unflattering party photo someone shared on Flickr.  The political argument you had on some forgotten discussion board.  It survives, and it can reappear at the oddest times.  And you can't really control it.

 

(Side story: an old friend just joined Facebook two weeks ago.  It was great to see him there.  Then, one morning, I noticed one of those ugly misspelled postings under his name and thought Uh-oh, he got hacked.  He was pretty upset by it, and quit Facebook on the spot.  I don't blame him, but I sort of wish I'd warned him not to click on every shiny button in the Facebook galaxy.  But then again, I thought he knew . . . )

 

Katie, a reader of this blog, suggested "privacy" as a topic, and the way our public and private lives are blending together.  I think it's a great topic.  Sometimes I think my most private moments are when I'm walking down the street in downtown Providence, completely out in the open, but completely anonymous.  No one looks at me twice.  When I'm online, on the other hands, I'm not private at all; I may as well be painted red and jumping up and down.

 

I actually thought twice about telling all of you my full name above, but decided that all you nice folks would be able to handle the info.  Then I thought: What does it matter?  Who cares?

 

When we're online, we make these decisions all the time: sharing personal info, phone number, name, employer, images, all kinds of stuff.  And we generally shrug and keep typing.

 

For all you know, maybe I am that guy who ties trout flies.