internet dirt digging

roid · Post by **roid** » Wed Apr 14, 2004 1:24 am

i keep a lifelike presense on the net under my nick "roid". my real name is Jordan Press.

i use the alias roid everywhere because i want people to recognize me and be able to track me down if they need to. as a result my nick "roid" has a lot of exposure on the net, i can google for it, look around irc logs, newsgroups, and find a lot of stuff that i said and was involved in.

if websites go down that i have been involved in, you can still check the internet archive. it's like everything you do on the internet is recorded, written in stone.

now, i'm not particularly scared, i don't care that ppl can look me up and see some possibly embarasing stuff i've said. we've always known of this "feature" of the internet and sometimes it's pretty handy. sure sometimes ppl can quote something you regret saying, but it's not really done too much on the net.

with this huge online exposure we're all kindof internet citizens, most of us have something of ourselves invested in the internet. i am very good at finding information on "internet citizens", i often have to do it in my research. it's not really hard. and more often than not you will be able to find enough pieces of information, one leading the the next, all clues, you'l find enough to form a good dosier on anyone who has a lot of web presence. nicknames can be easily tracked to REAL names, it's seriously not hard.

now think of this:

what if you were running for president?

people can easily dig stuff up in real life, and with the kindof archiving abilitys of the internet: absolutely ANYTHING you have said online could be dug up, analysed, and used against you.

take the porn thread in this forum as an example.

seriously, i don't really care what people could dig up on me if they wanted to. we all accept that anything could be dug up on us, so luckily we all accept that things could be dug up on other people online. in otherwords, we give people slack, because we know that one day it could be US that someone is vomiting slander on.

but again... what if you were running for president?
we all know how stupid and gullable most people are.
you just KNOW that every one of us, with the help of our eternal internet ghosts, can be painted.
no-one's clean.
and in the world of politics it doesn't take much to spin an otherwise harmless quoted joke into powerful character slander.

what say you

Lothar · Post by **Lothar** » Wed Apr 14, 2004 1:44 am

It's funny the stupid things you can find me saying on internet archives. For example, once I misread a 30-meg file as a 300-meg file and thought my kernel had been corrupted (badly!) and filled up an entire server partition. It turned out the real culprit was a 300-meg core dump -- apparently, a user tried to vi some absurdly large executable, rather than the associated config file. But there's an archive of me on some BSD mailing list asking if anyone had ever seen a kernel explode to 300 megs, and what I should do about it...

Anyway... I think anyone with enough time on their hands to search the web for info on me would have an easier time just asking people who know me. If you want dirt, you don't have to look for a webarchive of the DBB -- just ask some of the old-school members about me.

Tyranny · Post by **Tyranny** » Wed Apr 14, 2004 1:46 am

Teehee, likewise about me. *nudges Lothar*

roid · Post by **roid** » Wed Apr 14, 2004 1:51 am

Lothar wrote:Anyway... I think anyone with enough time on their hands to search the web for info on me would have an easier time just asking people who know me. If you want dirt, you don't have to look for a webarchive of the DBB -- just ask some of the old-school members about me.

but a written EXACT QUOTE has so much more credability.
the internet is prettymuch PUBLIC RECORD.

everyone knows a person cannot really be trusted to give an exact quote. but a public record, you can't just say "that's a lie, i didn't say that". it written down. it's history.
sure things could be electronically tampered with, and i guess we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. (things are pretty secure generally)

roid · Post by **roid** » Wed Apr 14, 2004 1:59 am

how about this:

imagine if your current president's pre-ellection chatlogs were on display for all to see.

i mean, i'm 23yrs old. do any of you know what any president has said when he was my age? yet, (for sake of argument) if i ran for office in 30years time. people could probably quote anything i had said in the past on the internet (imagine the spin opertunities, you simply CAN'T defend against that sheer amount of slander). i say some pretty screwed stuff as you've know doubt seen, heh.
that could be dug up in 30years, easy as.

personally, i think if things go on the way they are with internet records, we would all have to be more accepting of other people's past lives and quotes. because anything you say "can and will be used in evidence". know what i mean?

Tyranny · Post by **Tyranny** » Wed Apr 14, 2004 2:07 am

It's "Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law". This is only after the fact you've been arrested though.

Having internet chat logs of me saying dumb things when I was 15-20 something and I'm running for a public office at 40 something used against me would be completely idiotic IMO and really not worth it. Actions roid, its what you do, not what you say that really counts

roid · Post by **roid** » Wed Apr 14, 2004 2:31 am

It's "Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law". This is only after the fact you've been arrested though.

yeah but there are no such rules in politics

. where anything you have said or done in the past, that can be found and dug up, will be used against you.

i have a feeling i'll still have an internet presense when i'm 40. and that i'll still be weird

what i mean is watch someone for long enough, and they'll slip up. even when they're 40.

Tricord · Post by **Tricord** » Wed Apr 14, 2004 5:44 am

I wouldn't worry too much about that, roid. As a president (or aspiring president) you can cheat your wife and lie about it or get pulled over while driving drunk, and still get away with it.

woodchip · Post by **woodchip** » Wed Apr 14, 2004 6:19 am

Well after entering "woodchip" in google, lotsa luck coming up with anything pertaining to me.

Will Robinson · Post by **Will Robinson** » Wed Apr 14, 2004 6:49 am

I learned long time ago, if you tell the truth you don't have to worry or keep track of your story.
If you gain wisdom from age twenty something to age forty something and change your view I'd say that's a good thing.
No worries....unless your Nirvana, some of his poetry would get him elected to an asylum long before he could get elected dogcatcher!

roid · Post by **roid** » Wed Apr 14, 2004 7:23 am

but that's the thing. i WOULD ellect someone (within reason) FROM a mental health ward to run a country. they'd prolly be all honourable and stuff.
they would often be the most idealistic ppl on the planet.

also "the thin line between" and all that too

haha, i ahve radiohead lyrics in my head now:
"we don't want the crazies... taking over"

anyway before i was hinting at a possible future with more transparent government officials because everyone has a public record.

and it would be hard to hide your true self when your every word, and your entire history! (i'm talking easy pickings for psychoanalysis) is written down.

surely eventually EVERYONE would have an internet presence. to be absolutely clean, you'd have to be a technology recluse.

bah, with our luck a more likly reality would be that as liers come onto the internet in more force, ppl on the internet will become more private and tunneled with non-public chatrooms and exclusive access domains becomming more the norm.

"we fear change"

Dedman · Post by **Dedman** » Wed Apr 14, 2004 11:17 am

Wierd. I did a google search for [NuB]Dedman and toward the bottom of the second page there is my PlanetDescent profile complete with my real name. Yay! I'm famous!!