What's My Name?

I unlike many many others, even in this class, I do not depend on the Internet as means of a social network or community. I try to keep it old school and restrict my time to communication to strictly emails and this lovely blog. I represent myself as Jen and was pretty careful about what type of information I divulge. For instance, under my limited profile, which is limited for a reason, the only snippet of information you can get is that I live in Boston. I chose that because I wanted to give everyone an idea of who I am but not spill my life onto the Internet.

Once upon a time, when AOL first became popular I had many pseudonyms that I used & often misrepresented myself as an older teen and was dumb enough to post pictures and give information that was too close too home. Now knowing what I know about the dangerous territory of Internet usage, predators, identity theft, etc. I would have never put that information on the Internet. What really scares me is where did it go and who in fact received it.

According to Identity and the Virtual Community, many people use the Internet for dual purposes based on their intentions. There are those who want to build a legitimate reputation and gain credibility; then there are those who want to completely misrepresent themselves. I suppose the determining factor of how you represent yourself on the Internet greatly depends on your motivations themselves.

Falsifying your identity can be a cause for concern, regardless of motivation or intent. Some who are interpreting the information seek a reputable source. In order to trust the source at all it is important to identify who you are - your identity creates a link between validity (Donath 1).

The reassuring thing is, well at least to me anyways, is that I am not concerned with an Internet based reputation at all. I may have created a very modest rep. on this website, whatever that may be, but I do not maintain a my space account or talk in chat's IMs or any other means of communication on the Internet. I think that it is creepy if people can find out information or even build a basis to make an assumption about you. I would rather keep my thoughts and feelings, triumphs, failures and opinions limited to my friends, family, co workers and people I identify with. I am sure there are millions out there who can identify with me too, but why the hell do I care? I don't know them.

And that leads my to stealing my identity- there is non for the average user to steal! I love that, but it also scares me to death that my really private information like banking information is floating around in cyber space. I try to be careful and watch my software to make sure I'm protected, but that is the only type of identity theft I think I am vulnerable to. Wow, I probably sound really naive right now! But it's true I watch my actions and what I put online more than any spy ware does, I can assure you that.

technorati

Technorati Profile

Internet Privacy week #4

Privacy- (Internet) the ability to control and limit the amount of personal information that is published or obtained via the Internet & that ability to limit the access to that information at your discretion.



Not only are there major problems with overall computer security, but the Internet provides never ending and constantly changing technology to allow hackers, spy ware, etc. to view everything that you do. I believe that the biggest issue of Internet security is in fact the endless options and changing environment that the Internet provides. On one hand it is a world of information and human interaction, but it also can open the flood gates to personal information no matter how up to date your software is. In the tech. world it is nearly impossible to always be up to date, as soon as you have it there is something better available & the software that you have already has a glitch that someone out there in cyberspace has bypassed.

Personally my privacy online is important to me & to be honest, I am not even comfortable posting this fabulous blog. It isn't that I don't want to share my ideas; I don't even like the fact that people can gather little tid-bits of information about my life (name, town, school I go to etc.) I also have problems with doing any sort of banking or bill pay online. I feel as though it is the most convenient, but really anyone could be watching my every move or every password I type. To me, that is terrifying.

I, being the "shut in" that I am, do not have a personal story where my information was stolen, but the biggest breach that did effect a friend was when TJmax's information from a credit card data base was stolen just after Christmas. My friend, who was obviously concerned, did what everyone would to and changed her credit numbers and account information, however who knows what other personal information was also leaked. What if it was her social security number? Well maybe it was. She won't be able to tell if there are more issues with the stolen information probably until it is too late. Unfortunately the only thing that you can do is change your information and hope for the best.

My re-first posting

Turning over a new leaf.

Well not really, I have been bogged down and I'm back. I'm sure it isn't a big deal to anyone but me. I have been out of the loop with a lot of things going on in my life.

I live in ski country and needless to say the weather is pleasant and sunny-Ha! Whatever I like the snow. If anyone watched the news and they refer to the 219, that is where I live. It is crazy out here. On Sunday there were eleven cars in the ditch or abandoned on one road.

I think the weather is clearing though, it hasn't snowed this evening at all.

Well onto another topic, I have had trouble blogging and I hope at least a few others have had trouble too! It makes me feel better about my technological deficiencies.
I have two unsuccessful blogs, I couldn't re-enter after I had signed off.

If you want to check out my sweet other blank sites I will post the links after I finally attempt it instead of reading about it. And eventually I hope to eliminate those empty sites once I figure out how to do that! I have a lot to do.

Well I will keep everyone up to date as I begin to develop my blogging skills!