Ok so there's this:
It's been all over the internet, and pouring over into regular media for the past few days - once again there's a shocking (shocking I say!) story about privacy on the internet.
I have always said that people will give up any privacy in droves, and take any risk, if they want the service. The use of credit card for online shopping proves this (it was once something it was thought people would not do), as do many other services and toys online. But lately I've been suspecting that, as we begin to understand that the internet can be just as secure as it needs to be to provide services, the very notion of what private information actually is may be shifting to accommodate fear and hype.
I think this Facebook "issue" clinches it.
I've read very little about this since I don't use Facebook, and don't care. But the other night there was a story on the News Hour about this matter. The token expert on the panel explained what these Facebook apps have been found to be doing. They share a user ID with interested parties (advertisers). The expert was sheepish about explaining this because it's really, in reality, not much of an issue, and he knew it. The user ID he explained can be tied back to a user's real name. That's it. Your name.
Ah, okay... When did my *name* become some sort of secret information? I use my name all the time. A great many people know my name. When I meet a new person, or interact with a business, I give my name without hesitation - even to strangers! Is it just that Facebook users aren't old enough to know what a phone book is?
Ok, to get philosophical about this... It isn't just that the scope of what is thought to be "protected" on line has crept. A name is a more interesting concept. My Social Security number or bank number can be used to steal from me, but my *name* is an identity. It is me, as I stand before you, living proof of my existence, and freely giving my name. Hello, nice to meet you.
People put their names on their mailboxes. They're not secrets. A name is not private information. Hello, nice to meet you, I won't give you may name because you might then believe that I exist as a person.
If you talk to anyone older than about 75, you get a very different take on identity. Americans that remember when Social Security was created have a different mind set about identification. They didn't like the idea of a special identifier standing in for them. But now it seems we can't live without it. In days long gone, a person just standing there was incontrovertible physical proof of their existence. Apparently, among today's Facebook users, that existence is just another piece of abstract information that we worry about encoding into bits.
Check your ID each morning. Make sure you exist.
Here's a couple other interesting stories.
To be fair it is probably the case that a name can be correlated with other info from other sources - but that true regardless of what Facebook does. All that is saying is that "I" can be correlated with "information about me" - information which I have voluntarily put "out there" for my own purposes, like for example, my name, which I use all the time.
Why would someone use Facebook if they consider their very existence was a "secret?"
I was floored when I heard what this latest story was really about - someone might find out a user's name. Wow. If you don't want anyone to know your name staying off Facebook is only the tip of the iceberg of what you'd need to do.
People are stupid.
