pseudonyms

[kay]

Chris asked a year or two back whether anyone had any real life example as an excuse for paranoia. I had a run in with a person on a newsgroup who proceeded to deliberately post dozens of offensive and vulgar posts using an email address about one letter different from mine. I was exceedingly glad that this particular operator is not known to take his campaigns into the real world.

So to my mind, sad as it may be, keeping your internet identity separate from your real life identity is a sensible precaution.

 

[cucc Paul]

I recently changed my email adress from my real name to a meaningless phrase as i was picking up 300 emials worth of spam a day and that was with a filter turned on... spamers seem to pick up on real names alot quicker...

 

[darkplaces]

pseudonyms are fun and protect our growingly targetted asset, our idenity. I dont want all and sundry apart from those who have got to know me over time to know my full name and all my details.

In anycase, whats the difference in a virtual world I am virtually c**tplaces. I havent changed, only my label has changed and whats in a name... Nothing, atleast a pseudonyms actually describes something about you.

If you post your real name which is publicly known its more likly to be copied and more likly someone else will use your real name. In this day and age your ID is your ticket to everything and soon you will have to prove your ID even for healthcare or benifits or anything when these ID cards have been forced on the public.

Also I have to be sensative about who knows what I do as I am the public face of my company and the last thing I want is to get on customer site for the customer to say "Oh your on that forum, I disaggree with you, I dont want you working on my network". It might not happen that way but the influence behind closed doors will have the same effect.

Remember bloggers are being targetted and being asked to sign wavers and non-disclosure aggreements by the company they work for. If your anonymous then your more free. Its wrongly percived we are free in this country, we are not free. We do not have full freedom of speech. Thats a fact.

 

[Dave H]

I know of at least 3 companies that Google search on every prospective employee to try and find out as much background information about them as they can.
Do you really want a prospective employer to discount you because of a posting you made to some idiot, when you had a hangover, 20 years ago?
If your name is associated with your business and that is associated to the forums subject (such as Andy's) then it's free advertising to use your real name, but I can't see it being a good thing for the rest of us.

PS. I try never to put peoples names in postings, but when I have to I always place a space after each initial to obsficate the name to the name gathering web-crawlers (e.g. D avid H erbert)

 

[AndyF]

Do you really want a prospective employer to discount you because of a posting you made to some idiot, when you had a hangover, 20 years ago?

Yes I would. If a company has that devious and prying mentality, you can bet it isn't a company you want to work for... Life is too short to work for people like that...

Mind you, now I'm an employer, I would probably do the same :shock:

 

[darkplaces]

I dont want to change the topic too much but;

These people who think having an ID card is ok because they have 'nothing to fear being honest folk' are living in a dreamland. Information is power & money these days and so thinking its ok to give out personal information on the internet is asking for trouble. Bit by bit, tiny amounts of information are released oneday enabling someone to use your ident to ilegally visit the country and work or worse. Its your name today, your birthday tomorrow, your county the next, next month you might give out something else...

Some would say all our personal information is in databases and can be got legally anyway, well maybe its time to claw YOUR PERSONAL information back and it's right to be worried about how much others know about you. ID theft is growing at a staggering amount.

 

[darkplaces]

Do you really want a prospective employer to discount you because of a posting you made to some idiot, when you had a hangover, 20 years ago?

Yes I would. If a company has that devious and prying mentality, you can bet it isn't a company you want to work for... Life is too short to work for people like that...

Mind you, now I'm an employer, I would probably do the same :shock:

The person doing the dragging for dirt job isnt always going to be the person emplying you. A lot of companys outsource checks on people. All the company wants is a YES/NO and the company doing the checking will use every resource they have. So a perfectly good company, nice to work for who might have to deal in sensative information might by law have to have people checked. I suspect a lot of money is involved in one company providing a personal audit, clearing you with CRB, working with children, MOD clearance etc etc.

 

[cap n chris]

You could always create a load of b*ll*cks information about yourself - I've regularly filled in those consumer surveys asking what you earn, where you go on holiday, what car you drive etc. and you get a load of vouchers for crap in return with brochures etc.. - it's the old "rubbish in = rubbish out" database problem and the more people create false nonsense to fill these computers, the better our world will become since as long as it's considered unwise to rely on the information computers pump out, the better. Obviously you might want to consider using a false name like I always have done. There's load of non-people out there, made up for fun; I hope other people do similar stuff when you're filling in questionnaires, surveys etc..

I suppose it could count as low level hacking.

 

[tiggs]

I hate the "whats your mothers maiden name" thing for security it must be dead easy to find someones mothers maiden name, so now i give a password instead as i am v worried about ID fraud etc.

I agree with that liking to remain annonymus thing, I like hiding behind my sue-denim (its too late to use correct english spelin :wink - although those of you who i have PM know my real name as i find it hard to sign off as Tiggs dunno why


The other thing that REALLY bugs me about Internet use (its completely self inflicted) and that is that I have that many different email adds and passwords i can never remember which one i use for which website (gah!!) and i refuse point blank to write em all down in a nice list too

and i dont see anything wrong with google-searching people, half the time it doesnt pull anything up apart from "Sell Joe Bloggs on ebay" - if i was interviewing/ choosing prospective employees, i would like to find out as much info about em as i could prior to wasting my time interviewing em too.

 

[tubby two]

Wow, this is a bit off topic, but i'd never thought of google searching people- but google searching yourself is well interesting... although i never actually found myself i did find loads of others... which was pretty interesting. Threr goes another reason for a pseudonym- you can google that too..., brilliant!

tt.

yes, bored.

 

[Cave_Troll]

I appear at number 7 when you google me.
One of my photos on the Matienzo website is number 2 on the images search page in google, The first image on my website appears at number 8.
Robbie Shone (NAMRFS) gets a better score than me due to him having more photos on the Hitch'n'Hike website (www.peakdistrictcaving.info)

 

[George North]

I just tried google image searching my name and the first image on there is....

... A gravestone with my name on it - great! There is a pic of me at number nine though - I just hope any prospective emlpoyers don't see it.

GN.

 

[tiggs]

great you do a google search on me and you come up with several pics of a woman who is topless with scar tissue, a naked ladies football team (or something) a pic of an audio tape, another interesting pic which i has already appeared on this forum, oh and a collection of ferrets. woopee!

 

[kay]

I hate the "whats your mothers maiden name" thing for security it must be dead easy to find someones mothers maiden name,

Especially given the current enthusiasm for genealogy and the number of family trees plastered over the internet

 

[kay]

I googled on my father, and came up with someone with the same name, same academic and professional qualifications, and writing a letter which could have come straight from my father. They went to different universities though. I out them in touch with each other - the internet is great for meeting people you otherwise would never have met.

 

[Louis]

I wonder how many results people get using only first names? I don't really care if people want to use pseudonyms. It doesn't really matter who people are, it's about what they write. But potential employers are never going to find you on google if you post using your first name. Even using my full name I apparently have a Ph.D in Applied Physics, from Stanford University.

I.D. cards suck. Give the money to Africa.

 

[kay]

Employers are going to find several people with your name even if they google on your full name. I wonder if anyone has been refused a job because one of their namesakes has been doing something questionable on the internet?

 

[bubba]

I've heard of people being refused jobs after a potential employer has checked out their Friends Reunited info.

 

[tiggs]

That IS bad Bubba - most people are very imaginative and creative when writing their F.R. info, so as to appear that they have done something with their lives, or to prove they are sucessful, happy etc when half the time they are in dead end jobs (if they have one!) and are totally miserable in reality. I dont believe in much thats written on F.R.

Like peoples job descriptions get all hyped up on FR dont they? no one admits to being a housewife or a dustbinman, or a cleaner etc, they are all household management consultants, recycling facilitators, and cleanliness operatives etc :wink:

 

[graham]

I apparently have a Ph.D in Applied Physics, from Stanford University.

Well Done