Posted by Nadezda on July 2, 2009, at 18:53:27
In reply to Re: Your online PRIVACY + SAFETY, posted by Timne on July 2, 2009, at 18:19:16
One thing that might reassure people is that no one is really paying attention to most, if not all, of what goes on, on the web, unless it concerns them personally.
There are all sorts of nightmare scenarios-- in the world-- lightning strikes, serial killers, people run over by taxis, explosions of gas lines, etc etc etc-- But the thing we might want to remember is that they don't happen to most people-- Yes, something horrible might-- by some miniscule chance-- happen. But living one's life in the heavy weight of all these terrifying possibilities is the danger that really threatens us-- not the actual things themselves.
Here, on pbabble and on the internet in general, we;re protected by great plethora of information, the millions of posts per day, per minute, one might say-- the unbeliveable vastness and complexity of everyone's words and thoughts. Yes someone might, if they were willing to put in the time, and had the savvy-- and I think, for the average person it takes both great persistence and more savvy than they have-- you can follow links, use programs to follow words patterns, guess about connections among usernames, follow up tidbits of information to some possibly correct ur-source-- but is that going to happen? or it the real danger that we'll scare ourselves and restrict our connections with people who are here-- because of some imagined threat that, in the detailing, becomes so real as to cause us real suffering?
I know people have legitimate concerns-- and need to be reassured as to appropriate precautions. But I also think it's really important that most of us are not being stalked by some determined and dangerous enemy--
I don't think these scary possibilities are as real as the loss to us of our sense of safety in the world that comes from focusing too much on them.
Nadezda
poster:Nadezda
thread:904428
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/admin/20090529/msgs/904588.html