Escaping the Internet Archives - Re: Please remove...

[Bill Stewart]

At 07:32 AM 1/4/01 -0800, cheryl gilan wrote:
>Subject: Please remove...
>Please remove "Shanah Tovah" item which appears after
>doing a search of my name Cheryl Gilan.
>Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter.
>Cheryl Gilan

Cheryl - Happy New Year 2001!   Cypherpunks is a mailing list.  
Are you asking us to remove your message from the list archives?
There are multiple archives run by various people around the world -
they're even more decentralized than the mailing list,
plus the list is gatewayed to some Usenet newsgroups,
so there may be Usenet archives as well.  The ones that
are easily located by search engines are in Singapore and Germany.
Also, the google.com search engine caches articles it finds -
even if we delete them, they won't disappear.
Your message to the list, and this reply to it,
will be automatically entered in the archives as well,
joining your original message.

Most archivists don't like to change the past, especially 
when the things run automatically, but the reason you'd be 
in one of the archives is because you sent advertising email
to three of the email addresses used by the cypherpunks list on 
September 28, 2000 using your addresses cheryl at socialplus.com
and your_friends at socialplus.com . 

	SHANAH TOVAH  from your friends at JewishMatch.com 
	(owned and operated by SocialPlus.com).  
	We are a leading provider of customized, turnkey solutions 
	that enables your website users to meet each other for the 
	purposes of companionship, dating and hopefully, marriage. 
	.... [details on your ASP omitted - they're in some archives.]
	Cheryl M. Gilan, Director of Business Development
	JewishMatch.com    mailto:cheryl at socialplus.com
	Tel:  (212) 244-7779    Cell: (917) 523-6750
   	P.S.  Please do not hesitate to contact me at the above numbers.  
	 
The usual reason people ask to be removed is 
so spammers don't find their names on the net.
Given the reason your name appeared on our list,
your request will probably elicit more amusement than sympathy,
but we haven't hesitated to archive your contact information.

Perhaps it was a mistake, or someone gave you bad business advice
on useful ways to increase sales, and you did include your contact
information,
which is pretty unusual for a spammer, but you'll find that
information you've posted to the net never disappears
(unless it's something actually useful that you need badly,
in which case it hasn't disappeared, it's just where *you* can't find it.)
Good, bad, ugly, whatever...  you can't escape your writing.
There're flames out in some Usenet archive that I posted in 1982,
back when it was called Netnews and wasn't carried on the Internet.

	"C'mon, Joe, you can always change your name"

If information never disappears, how do you keep it from
coming back to haunt you?  Best you can do is have a common name -
somebody named Jim Johnson wouldn't have to worry about this.
(Won't work for you.  Sounds like your family's Iranian?  :-)

The next best you can do is use minimize the amount of contact
information and other unique correlatable data you provide, 
and use different email addresses for different things.
So, for instance, Yahoo mail says you live in Orange, NJ -
determining whether that's true shouldn't be hard.
USSearch.com thinks so too, but they just got that from Yahoo.
And your email addresses cmgmba at yahoo.com and cheryl at socialplus.com
were easily linkable by anybody searching on your name
even before this message stuck them together.

By the way, <a href="http://socialplus.com/corp/privacystatement.asp">
SocialPlus.com's privacy policy says you collect a _lot_ of information,
which isn't surprising for a dating meta-service, and says that it's
only disclosed under a variety of conditions, including the 
gaping big hole of telling advertisers when users view their ads
(on viewing, not just on clickthrough.)  It does recommend using your
pseudonymous screen names, and warns that 
	"All postings to the Public Areas become public and,
      therefore, care should be taken in disclosing personal information. 
	Postings made in the Public Areas may not be changed or deleted
      by Visitors or Subscribers."
So please understand that your publicly disclosed information is public.

But, hey, you've come to the right place, and have we got a deal for you!
The Cypherpunks mailing list deals with electronic privacy issues.
You can't fix the past, but there are a variety of privacy-protection 
tools or businesses that people on the list have created that
can help you keep your future information private or less linkable.

http://www.anonymizer.com provides anonymous web surfing -
and it combines well with free email and web hosting offers.
You can use it for free, or pay for better performance and more features.
There's a great list of similar tools at
http://www.sethf.com/anticensorware/smartfilter/greatestevils.php
(it's there because all the censorware products block web anonymizers.

www.ZeroKnowledge.com 's Freedom project provides a variety of services,
including multiple email and web identities and cookie management for a
small fee, 
with cryptographic protection.

David Brin's "The Transparent Society" provides some discussion on how
traditional views of privacy have been made obsolete by technology -
get used to it, and make sure there are webcams pointed at 
government officials so they behave themselves, since they'll be
pointing webcams at you.   Paperback ISBN  0738201448
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0738201448/o/qid=978637792/sr=8-1/ref
=aps_sr_b_1_1/103-5076663-8890269


				Thanks! 
					Bill
Bill Stewart, bill.stewart at pobox.com
PGP Fingerprint D454 E202 CBC8 40BF  3C85 B884 0ABE 4639