As more and more people enter the blog world.. we are reminded that we live in a real world with some freaky weirdos. What to share on a personal blog and how to share that information is quite a challenge. We often are naive thinking "who would read this.." It's amazing how your reader list grows.
Those of us who are parents often think about the whole blogging issue. Putting pictures of your kid online and telling stories about your life online is like taking out an ad in the Globe saying "hey.. look at me.. i'm a sitting duck". Several of my friends have battled with this. I have some friends who blog entirely anonymously.. no pictures, no names.. That works. I have other friends who have CNN articles written about them using their full name, home address, telephone number and home security system access code.
In the grand scheme of things, half of my blog hits are from my mother.. another quarter are from my niece.. and the remaining few are a sprinkling of friends and family. I've made $8 in advertising on my page. Yeah.. time to quit the day job, man!
Anywho.. I was curious and decided to see how difficult it would be to find a person using only the information that was available in their blog. I know that I found the correct address and phone number, because I can check those against my address book. I'm pretty sure that this picture is correct too, although i'm a broke fool and have to admit that i haven't made it out to visit this blogger since the family's last move.
[image edited]
Of course, this was an easy test.. especially since I already knew the answer.. even so.. I think I'm going to go through my blog and change all of the "Ben"s to "Sven"..
Hey can you find me?
and please, don't post the answer on the comments w/my home address and phone number. :)
but scary... i will at the least be changing the blog name to remove some of the obvious details, and will have to think about changing my name too....it's too damn unique sometimes!
thanks for the eye opener hick!
you #1.. should start a blog
#2.. can user anonymous or "name/url" (you can write your name in.. that's what ash did) and no one can find you unless they can hack me enough to figure out who my parents are..
you risk more by going grocery shopping with your obama tshirt on.. :)