I recently received an e-mail from someone asking why I didn't use my real name on this blog.
There's a specific reason that I do not use my real name or identity on here, and it's definitely not because I fear retribution.
It's because several years ago, I had a web site domain name registered in my real name instead of a more anonymous "pen" name. From bits and pieces of stuff on the site, someone was able to figure out who I was, where I was and and acquired an address for me. Since I was working for a not-for-profit in a very public position at the time, they were also able to figure out where I worked, who my boss was, and got all of his personal information as well.
The person who did this did it with me watching from behind him to see how easy it would be for someone to put 2+2 together and steal my identity. All he had was the web site address. It was shockingly easy for him to acquire other information from there.
I deleted the site, and reformatted many parts of it to exclude most of my personal information.
Today, there was a news article on MySpace users having their identities stolen because they have WAY too much information out there for troublemakers to data-mine. This was confirmation that I'm correct in limiting my information and remaining anonymous online.
There's too much danger of having one's identity stolen and a world of financial ruin that could follow a such theft. I also don't want some Mexican to illegally acquire an American job with my (stolen) identity.
Bloggers who write that anonymous blogs are bad and have their personal information posted for anyone to see are hypocrites, since many of them actually post false names instead of their real ones; and those that publish their actual information are just looking for trouble from identity thieves.
Any legislation that requires bloggers to identify themselves should reflect identity theft realities and not arbitrarily force people to put revealing information online because of WHAT they're writing about. Senator McCain should keep that in mind as he's proposed anti-blogging legislation in the Senate.
"Thunder" was one of my ferrets; his picture is posted on this blog.
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