On privacy etc.
Jul. 9th, 2003 09:39 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lederhosen[Edited 5/8/03]
Decided to answer this as a post rather than a comment.
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mordwen asked:
How do you handle issues of privacy in your journal? Do you just write or are you hyper-aware of your audience?
It's a compromise. When I started this journal I was very cautious, because I had somebody sending me anonymous death threats at the time (because I wouldn't let him post images to a text-only mailing list I was running, that's how much of a bastard I am) and I'd previously had trouble with a cyberstalker. This is why I picked a non-obvious username and checked the 'no robots' privacy option.
Since then I've relaxed a bit. If the alternative is censoring/locking everything I write, I'd rather just take the occasional knock.
I still use the friends-only setting now and then to reduce the risk of random loonies causing problems, but if anybody with half-decent computer skills really wants to embarrass me they can do it without going near my LJ. (Although, thank God, Google seems to have lost the bad break-up poetry I posted on alt.vampyres back in 1995...) Easier just to trust people and accept that very occasionally somebody will abuse that trust. It might be embarrassing if my parents or employer found this journal, but I'd live.
(Oh, and be aware that a lot of my posts are written for my benefit, this being my journal. If I give somebody access to a particular post, it means that I don't mind them reading it, but it doesn't guarantee that it will be of any interest to them.)
Looking through my last 20 posts, half of them are open and half of them are friends-only. I view friends-locking more as an expression of my wishes and expectations of discretion ("please don't rebroadcast this to all and sundry") rather than a form of security per se.
Main categories of things that get friends-locked:
- Posts relating to a certain Nigerian 'business partner' of mine, who is currently under the impression that I'm about to give him access to my bank account. These are locked against the remote chance that he should come across them and spoil the joke. When that particular amusement is over, I'll probably unlock them.
- Almost all work-related stuff, and a lot of stuff related to my PhD. This is for two reasons: #1 is that I sometimes need to vent, since I'm far from happy with certain aspects of my PhD experience, and while I'm happy to do this in front of friends and even a few almost-strangers it seems unprofessional to do this "in public".
#2 is that I deal with quite a bit of commercially sensitive information in my job. I don't post such information to LJ in ANY form, at any level of filtering (the closest I get is probably in a couple of my usericons) but I'd like to avoid even the impression of indiscretion.
- Things involving sex. Rule #1 of the universe, which applies to just about everybody including myself, is that the world is not as interested in your sex life as you think. But there are occasional exceptions, some of them unpleasant, which is why I lock this stuff.
- Things that I *don't* want read by specific people on LJ. Either because it would spoil surprises, or because those people might take it amiss. Or, on occasion, because what I want is to vent rather than to get embroiled in an argument.
I used to make a lot more use of custom filters - I have about half a dozen different subgroups set up for one reason or another. But I barely ever use these now. In general, I use the Friends setting for anything I want to be discreet about, and there's very little in my life that I need to keep more secret than "discreet".
Decided to answer this as a post rather than a comment.
mordwen asked:How do you handle issues of privacy in your journal? Do you just write or are you hyper-aware of your audience?
It's a compromise. When I started this journal I was very cautious, because I had somebody sending me anonymous death threats at the time (because I wouldn't let him post images to a text-only mailing list I was running, that's how much of a bastard I am) and I'd previously had trouble with a cyberstalker. This is why I picked a non-obvious username and checked the 'no robots' privacy option.
Since then I've relaxed a bit. If the alternative is censoring/locking everything I write, I'd rather just take the occasional knock.
I still use the friends-only setting now and then to reduce the risk of random loonies causing problems, but if anybody with half-decent computer skills really wants to embarrass me they can do it without going near my LJ. (Although, thank God, Google seems to have lost the bad break-up poetry I posted on alt.vampyres back in 1995...) Easier just to trust people and accept that very occasionally somebody will abuse that trust. It might be embarrassing if my parents or employer found this journal, but I'd live.
(Oh, and be aware that a lot of my posts are written for my benefit, this being my journal. If I give somebody access to a particular post, it means that I don't mind them reading it, but it doesn't guarantee that it will be of any interest to them.)
Looking through my last 20 posts, half of them are open and half of them are friends-only. I view friends-locking more as an expression of my wishes and expectations of discretion ("please don't rebroadcast this to all and sundry") rather than a form of security per se.
Main categories of things that get friends-locked:
- Posts relating to a certain Nigerian 'business partner' of mine, who is currently under the impression that I'm about to give him access to my bank account. These are locked against the remote chance that he should come across them and spoil the joke. When that particular amusement is over, I'll probably unlock them.
- Almost all work-related stuff, and a lot of stuff related to my PhD. This is for two reasons: #1 is that I sometimes need to vent, since I'm far from happy with certain aspects of my PhD experience, and while I'm happy to do this in front of friends and even a few almost-strangers it seems unprofessional to do this "in public".
#2 is that I deal with quite a bit of commercially sensitive information in my job. I don't post such information to LJ in ANY form, at any level of filtering (the closest I get is probably in a couple of my usericons) but I'd like to avoid even the impression of indiscretion.
- Things involving sex. Rule #1 of the universe, which applies to just about everybody including myself, is that the world is not as interested in your sex life as you think. But there are occasional exceptions, some of them unpleasant, which is why I lock this stuff.
- Things that I *don't* want read by specific people on LJ. Either because it would spoil surprises, or because those people might take it amiss. Or, on occasion, because what I want is to vent rather than to get embroiled in an argument.
I used to make a lot more use of custom filters - I have about half a dozen different subgroups set up for one reason or another. But I barely ever use these now. In general, I use the Friends setting for anything I want to be discreet about, and there's very little in my life that I need to keep more secret than "discreet".
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About that :)
Date: 2003-07-08 06:36 pm (UTC)THough I tend to lock posts depending on mood...Even if there is nothing 'sensitive' as such, I might lock it to friends because I'm feeling itnroverted, and it gives the illusion of some sort of security blanket.
Often it is so that particular people can't read it rather than the general public. Just the way it goes.
Any personal venting tends to be locked down to a custom list that I trust to (a) not pass on the information, and (b) keep an open mind.
I wouldn't say I'm hyeraware, but I am cautious, and if I'm feeling at all unsettled before I start writing, I tend to 'friends only' it before I start, jsut in case something spills out while I write that I may not want the general public to see.
So, a fairly similar approach, with some differences.
no subject
Date: 2003-07-08 08:15 pm (UTC)these days most of my posts are locked, anything that's remotely personal gets limited as I'm very aware of that fact that you really don't know who is reading and what they might do with the information. I've seen too many fall foul of things.
Anything that I'm not happy confiding to a roomful of friends gets restricted to personal irl chats.
no subject
Date: 2003-07-08 08:52 pm (UTC)I could probably protect myself a little more by being fussier with filters, but... the last person who abused my trust did more damage to his own reputation than to mine. If the cost of speaking openly and knowing who I can trust is a very occasional let-down of that sort, I'm willing to pay it.
no subject
Date: 2003-07-08 08:27 pm (UTC)Heck, anyone can find out anything about me if they really want to. Like an uncle who shares my name that was the Libertarian candidate for county clerk back in Michigan. The same uncle who thought a copy of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights was an acceptable birthday gift this year. Gee, thanks Uncle Rick. Umm...yeah.
[shudder] To think, I have one of those people in my family. Gah.
no subject
Date: 2004-01-05 04:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-05 01:37 pm (UTC)