It doesn’t happen in India to the extent that it happens in,
say, America. But it makes us look at the possibilities and the
precautions. Why exactly should you bother about what you say, post, or
upload online – whether words, quoted messages, video, or audio?
Here are three reasons, in a good amount of detail. (If you're fully aware of all this, you’re paranoid… and
only the paranoid survive!
#1: The past backfires.
Online
digital records are forever. Even when a privacy policy says you can
erase the digital past, the small print will say that the records remain
for a few months. In some cases they just won’t get deleted.
Try
something silly: Post something on Yahoo Answers. In a couple of months,
your Question and/or Answer will be pasted, out of context, on a
hundred sites --
with your username, and with
no possibility of your deleting your name from those hundred sites.
#2: You think you can use different usernames?
You
can’t. A friend of mine called, say, “manmohan123,” wanted to vanish
from the Internet in 2009 for reasons only he knows. Here’s all I did to
trace him: I googled “manmohan123,” along with a few words he said
online. The results showed similar nicknames, along with what was said.
From the language usage, I could see that my friend was now calling
himself “mnmhn13” (as an imaginary example). I’ve been following his
Twitter feeds ever since, knowing who he is… and he thinks he’s
incognito!
(Or maybe he followed my tracing... but that becomes too complex.)
It took me no knowledge and no time to find my friend who tried to become anonymous.
Many
people believe that simply by having different usernames, your persona
as, say, an online retailer will be separate from your persona as a
literary critic. That doesn’t cut it.
But your online comments, posts, and shared photos are under different usernames. Right?
No, really. Have you tried registering two Google accounts in a day? Within an hour?
It all gets linked. If someone wants to find out who’s who, they can. The clear message is, “we’re watching you.”
#3: You can get fired.
You’ve most probably read stories about people who have gotten fired for posting something to Facebook. Here’s
a short page
that lists numerous bad things that have happened to good people. The
article gets interesting close to the end, from where I quote: “Don’t
think employers aren’t looking at this information. They are, they are
using it to make decisions, and more and more will be using it in the
future.”
There you go: I’ve said all this on Techtree, and you know how long it’s going to be there on some hard disk or the other:
For the foreseeable future.
Even if I’d been using a nickname, it can be traced (by anyone who
wants to do it, not necessarily an “evil hacker”) to who I am and where I
live.
Is that paranoia? Well, this writer was once almost barred
from an education programme because his official Statement of Purpose
was very different from what his blog said about him. (That was in the
early years of the Internet; you can imagine what’s possible now.)
There are a few simple steps to avoid bad situations: First, don’t be evil. (That
used to be
Google’s thing.) Second, don’t post or share stuff you might regret
later, neither stuff that contradicts what you want your online persona
to be. Third, and very important: Don’t put up true but negative details
of your personal life – for example, a diabetic condition.
Last
but not least, segregate to the extent possible: Let your mother see
what she should, and let your girlfriend read what she should – with
different accounts and usernames.
But I did say that different usernames won’t help...? Yes, there are plenty of tricks and getarounds.
A Hyderabad-based tech company called Edutor Technologies has launched Edutor Augmented Classroom Solution (ACS), which is designed to be used with Android-based touchscreen devices, reports IANS.
The learning solution claims to integrate learning material as per
school syllabus within these said touchscreen devices. These solutions
include digitised textbooks, multi-media material, interactive
concept-maps, and assessment modules. CEO of Edutor Technologies Ram Gollamudi said that around 800 students from the Meridian and Delhi Public School will be using the solution for this academic year. They also have also roped in coaching institutes such as Aakash and Hyderabad-based PAGE Institute to introduce Edutor ACS as a part of their training modules.
