on discarding on-line anonymity

Since the advent of web search, by which I mean Google, I've prided myself on having a nearly minimal internet footprint. I considered my virtual anonymity a precious thing, hiding behind pseudonyms and generally keeping a low profile. As of a month or so ago, searching on my name would have yielded little more than a joke I sent to rec.humor.funny some decades ago and some observations I had made on the ACM Forum On Risks to the Public in Computers and Related Systems (also known as comp.risks). It is perhaps worth noting that those links actually point to websites because the Usenet news system has been effectively dead for some years with some more stalwart groups migrating to the web.

For those who have never heard of Usenet, think of something like a World Wide Web which looks like plain-text email and has no hypertext links and you'll have some vague idea of the hot technology of 1980. The ironic bit is that the joke that comes up in most searches isn't even mine, I was just recounting someone else's. The other major Google hit for my name regards an author of non-fiction to whom I have no connection.

But as the sandcastle of Usenet falls into the ocean, so too identity doth suffer a sea-change into something rich and strange: a shift in sentiment regarding what is suitable for public consumption. Most of the new sensibility I have learned from my teen daughter who occupies the connected world and has challenged my old predilections and vanities. Thus this blog, and the post to come elaborating on those vanities.