Very off-topic - internet privacy

[FamilyWiggs]

The other person in the country with my name is a morris dancer....

I can't decide if this is a good thing or a bad thing...

Depends if you mean morris dancer or Morris Dancer. Or in an amazing coincidence, I suppose, both!

 

[Penners]

But if your name was Morris Dancer, you'd be under something of an obligation, wouldn't you?

 

[Wren]

Have been slightly paranoid about spreading personal details all over the place ever since I saw Helen Baxendale, John Hannah etc in "Truth or Dare" back in 1996 (several subsequent movies have used the same name which is confusing). The film pre-dated a lot of the whole Facebook/internet thing, but it certainly made me think that being low-profile-ish probably isn't a bad idea. Annoying that using an agent's name still doesn't get round the need to include your name on public planning permission documents. I bet some people mess around with spelling and or maiden/family names for exactly this reason.

 

[biffvernon]

Whereas other people try to get as much attention as possible.

I mean just look at me

Hmm, not as many hits as "zaphod beeblebrox".

 

[DaveBrigg]

As long as you are not committing fraud, it is legal to call yourself by any name you choose, at any time. In some circumstances you might also need to list previous aliases, or birth name, but if you wanted to make up a name to use on your planning permission, I don't think the council can object.
I am lucky enough to share my name with a bloke five miles away, and a national rugby coach, but a search for our address online quickly brought up a sci-fi forum dispute with a previous owner, where one party had listed our address and invited animal rights activists to visit.

 

[worms]

The really scary bit is when you do the search on Google Images!

I also quite like the "tag cloud" that you get on the 123people.co.uk site which I think normally comes up as the first return when you enter a name on Google. The cloud is much more accurate than the google search would suggest!

 

[biffvernon]

Hmm...I just tried me on the 123people and it came up with three faces that, as far as I know, have no connection with me and a lot of pictures that I have posted in places where the URL includes my name. They are a small and apparently random samples of the hundreds of my pics that exist in cyberspace. So, no, I don't think the top line of 123people worked usefully for me. Further down the page, however, there are a lot of good links to stuff that is connected to me. Interesting (to me). The tag cloud is nice. Unfortunately it does not seem to be date sensitive, so has no bias towards recent stuff, giving equal weight to stuff I was involved in several years ago.

 

[worms]

Biff, most of the 123people stuff is off-beam for me, too. It is only the tag cloud that works well. I really don't understand why most of the tags are related to me when the rest of the stuff isn't.

Your tag cloud shows Louth, Lincolnshire, Climate change and carbon which I would imagine links to you, not sure about the rest, though!

 

[biffvernon]

Actually, almost all of it is me, though a bit tenuous in places. The only other biff vernon in cyberspace is a fictional character in a 1957 film from Hollywood, The Careless Years.

 

[Gervase]

The system is also open to abuse - the ninth hit on Google when I search for my name is a fake profile set up by the BNP on a social networking site in a rather pathetic smear attempt. It did fool an ex girlfriend who emailed me out of the blue to say, "So you've come out as gay - that explains everything!"
I wouldn't mind so much, but the fake profile is almost illiterate.

 

[worms]

I guess it is the out-dated tenuous stuff I like in my tag cloud alongside the large-font, current stuff. A reminder of past lives! Strangely the word "Helen" appears and I don't remember a Helen...

 

[Moo]

My anonymity seems to be quite secure: googling my name draws a blank, as does that 123people site. On the latter I was mildly surprised to discover that, in spite of my being on Facebook, several men share my unmistakeably female name.

 

[biffvernon]

I wouldn't mind so much, but the fake profile is almost illiterate.

You imply this is the differentiating feature?

 

[biffvernon]

My anonymity seems to be quite secure: googling my name draws a blank, as does that 123people site.

Au contraire. "moo" give lot's fun related stuff.

 

[Moo]

Seeing as it's you, Biff, I'll let you into a little secret. I'm not down on my marriage certificate as 'Moo'.
But I take back what I said about Google. If you really wanted to find out highly personal things like my address and the name of the person who lives with me there, the information from the electoral roll is available. But you'd have to sign in or register, which might compromise your own anonymity....

Luckily both my names are rather common ones (in every sense of the word), so I seem to be well hidden in quite a large crowd. 'Twould be a very sad person who could be bothered to trawl through all of them in order to find me.

 

[Penners]

I wouldn't mind so much, but the fake profile is almost illiterate.

You imply this is the differentiating feature?

:lol: :lol: :lol: