Like Hansel and Gretel’s trail of breadcrumbs, we all leave a trail of personal information as we navigate the internet.

Your friend sent you a birthday drink! A post about taxes in your hamlet, another about your toddler’s eating habits, a flight or hotel reservation, your Netflix queue… I think every internet user has a bit of a creeping bit of nervousness about what the web collective “knows” about their lives.

Ars Technica has an interesting post on this very subject today, summed up in a slightly jarring quote here:

“For almost every person on earth, there is at least one fact about them stored in a computer database that an adversary could use to blackmail, discriminate against, harass, or steal the identity of him or her. I mean more than mere embarrassment or inconvenience; I mean legally cognizable harm. Perhaps it is a fact about past conduct, health, or family shame. For almost every one of us, then, we can assume a hypothetical ‘database of ruin,’ the one containing this fact but until now splintered across dozens of databases on computers around the world, and thus disconnected from our identity. Reidentification has formed the database of ruin and given access to it to our worst enemies.”

Luckily for all of us, we’re Joe Average. The majority of us will never run for office or be in the headlines, but woe betide those of us who do. Google knows who you are, and it doesn’t keep secrets. Everyone laughed at Caribou Barbie Sarah Palin when some enterprising /b/tards youths hacked her e-mail account. But how secure are your security questions?

We all think we’re careful, not spilling an awful lot in public space and hey, my Facebook profile is set to private! (But as the ACLU pointed out not too long ago, our random FB tidbits also leak out through the profiles of our friends, of which I have over 150. I haven’t even met 150 people, in my life.) The linked Ars Technica article points out that even the benign stuff is not necessarily benign, when combined with other data that’s readily available. For instance, 87% of Americans are identifiable by birth date, zip code, and gender alone. How many places on the internet is that information readily available about you?

Perhaps the most worrying part is that information leakage seems to be trending toward being perpetuated forward but becoming relevant backwards. Let me explain with another anecdote from the article. In the mid-90s, a grad student in Massachusetts took an admittedly dopey initiative to study “anonymized” medical records data for all state employees to try to identify one. She was quickly successful in finding and delivering the Governor’s personal data to him:

Only six people in Cambridge shared his birth date, only three of them men, and of them, only he lived in his ZIP code. In a theatrical flourish, Dr. Sweeney sent the Governor’s health records (which included diagnoses and prescriptions) to his office.

So while you may be anonymous for now, bear in mind that almost unlike the fairly recent past, most of the information you release is leaving a trail. Could a forum post made in haste about a chronic cough affect your health coverage in 15 years? Could an old Netflix queue be used against you in court?

Related posts:

1. Your data safe from prying company eyes? Think again
2. Google Launches New Health Initiative
3. Kaspersky site hacked to exposed sensitive data

From the very first time almost when people communicate with each other via some form on computer link up nicknames have been an integral part of that communication. In the beginning days with bulletin board services right though to today’s Web 2.0 and social media the old adage of on the Internet no-one knows you’re a dog has held true.

Even though one of the basic tenets of Web 2.0 and social media is transparency and openness nicknames have persevered. For a lot of people there is still that need to either be anonymous or to create some new kind of identity for themselves. With the Internet this is so easy to do as regardless of how open you may appear no-one for the large part knows who you are. Sure in the Web 2.0 world with it’s continuing onslaught of conferences that anyone wanting to be anyone in the business of Social Media identities are easy to confirm.

However anonymity still seems to be the rule rather than the exception in the larger web experience. For some it is primarily a way to protect their offline lives. For others it also seems to be a way for them to behave in ways that their mother’s would wash their mouths out with soap.

Interestingly enough Alan Patrick at Broadstuff had a post today where he was comparing the types of conversations around some web conference in France called Le Web. He points out that there is a big difference in the types of back channel conversations be had. On the one side there is the Twitter based conversation and then there is the IRC like conversation happening on the Le Web uStream channel.

The thing that struck Alan was the quality of the conversation on each of the channels

The difference was this – one was sharp, irreverent, funny, cruel, anarchic and a hoot to watch. The other was on Twitter.
One had a go at the piousness, pomposity, posturing , product pimping and peccadilloes of the presenters and promoters, argued the rights and wrongs of the arguments, pimped and flamed various speakers, and was the olde altnet at its best (and worst). The other was respectful, simpering, careful what it said and, well, mostly lame. Thousand, and thousands of bytes of blanc tweetmange.

In his opinion the difference between the two boiled down to a single factor – anonymity.

Now as one who started out his online communication experience being fully behind using things like nicknames I think there is a problem with this anonymity. As I have grown in this online world I gradually became more comfortable with using my real identity but I don’t believe my way of communicating has changed. For me it has always been a case of calling a spade a spade and if you didn’t like it too bad.

With anonymity though I find a lot of people talk and treat others in ways that they wouldn’t have the guts to in real life. I willingly accept the responsibility for my words – good or bad. Being anonymous removes this responsibility and I personally don’t think that is right. Regardless of where I might be having conversation – online or offline – I have always believe that you are accountable for what you say and trying to hide behind some facade belittle the worth of what you have to say.

I can understand where in some cases this anonymity is needed especially in cases like whistleblowers and should be protected with all our might but in general conversation – I don’t think so. If you aren’t willing to stand in front of your words and be willing to accept any repercussion of them then what value do those words have?

Related posts:

1. For all the good of social media is it fixing the root problems
2. Jane Fonda Gets Into Social Media
3. Say goodbye to anonymity on the web