I opened Facebook this morning and was confronted with this message from the site’s overlords (annotations in red are mine):
We all know that Facebook is stealing our data, privacy and capability for independent thought, but this is another level of creepy.
Tonight on Twitter, ABC Brisbane’s brekky host Spencer Howson posted a coy shot of himself in a calming bubble bath, ahead of his first 4AM start of the year.
*applause*
Good night, everyone! I’m here all week.
This has been a strange week. Some of it has been my own fault, but it is rant-worthy nonetheless.
I’ve never been under any illusions regarding my own anonymity on the internet, and scoffed at friends of mine who refused to join Facebook for fear of data mining and identity theft, or didn’t “get” Twitter. This isn’t 1996 - you can use credit cards on the Internet and spot scam emails a mile away, right? Right. Sort of.
I’m the sort of person who puts their mobile phone number and about 5 different URLs into their email signature. The nature of my work means it’s actually a good idea, but what about if that sort of information gets into the hands of the wrong kind of people?
That happened to me this week. This, combined with the hacking of my Facebook and multiple email accounts twice in the same week (resulting in the loss of my Gmail account) have really made me step back and examine my Internet usage, and not just because I couldn’t access any of my social media accounts.
I don’t want to be tagged anymore, I don’t want to be tracked. These are the things you do to felons on house arrest and wild animals in research experiments, not regular jack-offs like myself who schlep around and have more HTML skills than people skills. I’ve thought about using pseudonyms for my writing, I’ve thought about multiple phone numbers, cloaked IP addresses, post boxes and just straight-up giving up the internet altogether.
None of those are satisfactory for me. The internet isn’t going anywhere and you can’t take the positives of instant access to information without the negatives of potential misuse. We all just need to be a bit more careful.
I’m fully aware that I’m preaching to the choir here, but the Australian government’s proposed Internet filter is a horrendous idea. This country is swiftly becoming a sinister Nanny State and it both disgusts and terrifies me.
I’m just an idiot with access to a keyboard, so I’d better not mouth off any further. Here are some links for you to read and have a think about.
Official Government press release on the filter.
Anti-censorship/filter sites:
(picture by Natalie Perkins)
My Gmail account was hacked tonight, sending out spam emails to everyone I’ve emailed in the past five years. Since I couldn’t remember the exact dates that I began using each one of Google’s large portfolio of web-based applications (a key part of the account restoration questionnaire), they won’t give it back. Apparently not being a Google fan-girl means I don’t deserve the Gmail account I’ve had since it was in invite-only BETA testing.
FIVE FROCKING YEARS OF EMAILS GONE.
I’ve also lost access to that account’s Google Reader, Google Docs and Google Analytics and almost lost my YouTube account. I lost my Blogger account too, but who cares about Blogger? Blogger sucks.
My feelings at the moment are a mixture of this:
and this:
(alternative “English” version)
My Gmail hasn’t been my primary email for almost two years, but I still used it regularly; especially for all the peripheral services mentioned above.
I’m off to eat 5L of ice cream and practice my handwriting, since I’m never trusting the internet with my emotions and secrets ever again.
The album also contains CAT scans of the foetus. I don’t know about you, but there is something supremely creepy about photos of an unborn baby being uploaded to the internet for the world to see. Luckily they’re not tagged (yet)!
I think it’s pretty safe to say that the general populace is getting just a little too comfortable with online social networking.
DISCLAIMER: Not my photo.
Using a stack of physical phone directories to raise my laptop screen to eye level is probably the most useful thing I could have done with them. Now I can have good posture while I look up phone numbers on the Internet.
YouTube comments on a video of me playing guitar.
I like the high rating, the oddly high number of views, the obligatory “GRRLZ ROCKIN’ OUT” comment, and the fact that my messy room was not only commented on, but disagreed with.
