DaiTsi rebuked me via Squee because I mentioned that he’s part of a band and also wrote which instrument he plays. What annoys him is that now anybody may find out who he really is, cause there are pictures of him at the webpage of the band. Hearing this, my first thoughts were that I’m not responsible for keeping anyone else’s anonymity. After all: If you don’t want to be identified you shouldn’t post pix of yourself online. Although you should write your blog where no one knows you or at least in a way that no one recognizes you.
On second thought I’m not really sure. Was I too careless? What do the other g-bloggers think about these issue? Do you worry about giving away someones identity or ask permission to post pictures of - let’s say - the last plough?
Edited on Feb 26th 2004, 05:20 by jeck
I’m a big fan of pseudonymity. Works quite well. In any case, almost everybody that’s mentioned in everything I post online is assigned a fitting nickname that only I know about.
Personally, (or I should say perversely?) I’d be amazed if someone took the effort to track down anybody mentioned in my blog. They’d have to match pic with post and go from there. “I’ve been stalkered!” would be kinda cool. Wouldn’t it?
Pardon my awful sense of humor.
Related: If someone hasn’t mentioned their real name on their own blog, I’ll take care to go by their moniker and refer to them only by that. In some cases where blog authors use their real name (or what I’d like to call “government-issued name”), I conveniently forget about it and assign them a nickname too.
At any rate, if you care about apologising to your pal for blowing his cover - I suggest taking him to the pub for a drink or two. And start calling him Sam, short for “Secret Agent Man”. Hehe. (:
What petrol said pretty much.
If youre going to post pics online, and anyone would recognise you and “blow your cover” and that would be a big deal to you, then DONT post pics online! DOH!
Changing names to protect the guilty/innocent, and not posting personal details/pics is going to make it harder to be recognised but people in the know could still infer who you are from tales of deeds in your blog. And then of course, Gossip’s got your IP, so he could find out who you are.
The best plan is to wrap your mate in kitchen foil, then put him in a small brick room with no windows and only communicate by carrier pigeon (one trained in evasion techniques). :)
If you want to be complete anonymous, behave in a way such that you are I guess is the morale of the story.
“Grey Squirrel” aka Effendi aka Dr Robert Hume aka Professor Stephen Falken
Very nice to meet you, Grey Squirrel. I mean Effendi. …I mean Dr. Hume. …I mean Professor Falken.
Been watching reruns of The Saint, have we? (:
From what little I remember of the nature of Magick, it’s not entirely a good idea to give out one’s True Name. Probably the reason why Magi and their ilk have all these funky-cool nicknames: Bizzaro the Magnificent, Dr. Strange, John Constantine et. al. That’s clearly elucidated in the Hermetic Arts. Or was it Thaumaturgy?
Nevermind. My midday senility’s kicked in.
How about a nice game of chess?
Hume = Falken is from Wargames.
I cant use “aka” without remembering the computer generated voice of the WOPR :)
For the game of kings, I’ll refer you to my alter-ego the Veritech Pilot. Otherwise, the reference to Hume/Falken is almost entirely lost on me.
Chess was a minor dalliance in my youth, and I was none too good. Maybe I’ll pick it up again instead of the modded PS2 I’ve been lusting after.
You’ve never seen Wargames? “Hacker” (and I mean in the original sense of the word) culture flick extrordinaire circa 1986. Kid with computer finds a back door modem into the military after sequentially dialing all the numbers in an area code (hence the term “wardialler”), and runs a nuclear war simulation written by Prof Stephen Falken, except the AI running the game doesnt distinguish between fantasy and reality. Classic, if a little dated. Theres even a page on imsai.com who supplied the computer used in the film (albeit just as a dummy with the actuall screen display generated from an 8088).
I had a chess computer, but I took it apart after it went a bit nuts, and never got it fixed properly. :/
I see it the same way petrol does… if I wanted anyone to see the connection between DaiTsi and the band I would have a link on my blog to the page.
Not that it does really matter, but I just wanted to make the decision myself if or when to reveal the connection.