Pseudonymity is Hard: Why Your Secret Virtual Identity Has Never Been Safe.

While I reveled in a year of high-profile virtual pseudonymity, the human behind the scenes often felt like a fugitive. Constant vigilance was required to mitigate the risks of inadvertently revealing clues online that would connect the two identities. One slip and the game could be over.

It doesn't take the proactive work of hackers or stalkers to blow your identity. As with most computer issues, user error is the most likely source of a problem. Here are a couple of easy ways to shoot yourself in the virtual foot:

• Sending a social network status update from the wrong identity.  I hate to admit it, but I made this careless mistake a few times. And the tweets weren't vague, but announcements of new blog posts. Fortunately, I noticed immediately, deleted the tweets and no one was the wiser.
• Typing in the wrong chat window. I suspect that most of us have made this mistake. I've been lucky. The half dozen times this happened resulted in nothing more than a little embarrassment. 

Outside of such errors, there are many of ways to expose clues to your identity in day-to-day web surfing. Every time you view a website, information about you such as your IP address, the link you clicked to reach the site and your Internet Service Provider is passed along and probably logged. This is a problem when the information can be connected to your identity, such as in the case of the Plurk Hole I wrote about back in September, 2008.

Peter Stindberg wrote today about a similar security hole exposed by the new media sharing feature of the Second Life client. The really insidious part of this particular "feature" is that your IP info can be pulled by just passing in the vicinity of the shared media. And someone with even a small amount of know-how can easily tie your avatar identity to the the IP-related information.

Truth is, there is no absolutely certain way to hide your identity. The more active you are with a pseudonymous identity and the more you extend it through multiple social networks, blog commenting, etc., the more risk you take that someone will gather enough nuggets to make a connection.

Personally, I always assumed my pseudonymity would eventually be compromised. I therefore chose to do nothing under the Botgirl identity that would negatively impact my human identity if it were ever revealed. Unfortunately, for some people, merely exposing the connection between the identities would cause harm.

Outside of constant vigilance, you can reduce (but not eliminate) the risk of identity exposure by using a software program such as Tor or Anonymizer that can mask your IP address and other tell-tale information.

Anyone else have tips on safe identity surfing? Or horror stories?

New Video Of Preeminent Authority on Personas, Identity and the Masks We Wear

How can we be "who we are" by hiding "what we are"?

Image by Anonymitts used under Creative Commons License

A comment on yestersday's post got me thinking:

Complaints about people not being who they "really" are, or having a name or identity different from their "real" selves are just admitting that SL just doesn't go far enough, yet. We're still not able to self-actualize fully. We're still pinned to bodies, and names, that we did not choose for ourselves but were assigned in a world that doesn't yet sufficiently yield to change. Ananda Sandgrain

As a Vajrayana-school Buddhist, my view of virtual identities as being "real" has always been in the relative truth sense of the word. Since neither physical identity nor virtual identity inherently exists outside of the story-making mind, I saw them as equivalent.

But for some reason, Ananda's comment hit me like a Zen Master's stick and I suddenly saw the question in a new way: "How can we be who we are by hiding what we are?"  The associated images that filled my mine were of humans in real life situations wearing masks and voice changers, refusing to disclose personal information in settings such as their work, school and clubs. It seemed absurd.

After reflecting on the question, I have a tentative answer that makes sense to me:

There is a difference between "who you are" (the sentient being) and "what you are" (the aggregation of your physical aspects). Unfortunately, the perception of our essential self is distorted by the package we come in.

• The way we view ourselves is impacted profoundly by social identity. 
• The way we are viewed by others is commonly based upon a reflexive response to physical factors such as age, race and appearance; and social factors such as job, income and nationality.

So by hiding what we are through a pseudonymous identity in a virtual world, it is possible to allow who we are to emerge, free from the baggage of judgements, labels and prejudices that are based on physical and social attributes.

Now this does not mean that most people consciously use pseudonymity for that purpose. But I suspect that the simple experience of seeing oneself in a new way acts to loosen the grip of psychological limitations we've acquired over the course of our physical lives. 

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Is Your Avatar A Parasite or a Symbiote?

Charlanna Beresford set off the latest wave of SL blogosphere discussion on the separation of avatar and human identities. The main contention of the post was that:

...the more people have to work to keep their first and second lives separate, the shorter their second life. No, I’m not talking about people who don’t divulge their first life name, because that is probably 90% of SL Residents. I’m talking more about the avatars who avoid acknowledging that they even have a first life. from Avatars in Wonderland

Is her thesis valid? Beats me. I don't know of any statistical evidence that confirms or disproves the relationship between personal disclosure and the length of active Second Life participation. What I do know is that many of those I've met in Second Life have wrestled with the issue. And some of them have felt compelled to abandon beloved virtual identities after realizing they could not sustain two full separate lives.

When digital and physical identities are completely segregated, an active avatar with a thriving virtual life can act as a parasite in relation to its human host.  For some of the tens of thousands of Second Life residents who spend more than thirty hours a week inworld, the negative impact on human relationships, creative pursuits and sleep deprivation can be substantial.

I've personally found that the connection of digital and physical identities allows for a more symbiotic and synergistic relationship that benefits both avatar and human potential. This does not mean that I believe that pseudonymity is the wrong choice for all beings at all times. In fact, I suspect that pseudonymity may be a necessary stage of development in the lifecycle of fully realized virtual identity.  And for people with sufficient reserves of time and energy, or whose professional or personal lives would be negatively impacted by disclosure, pseudonymity may be the best ongoing solution.

I'll write more about my personal experiences later this week.

Don't All Those Stupid Opinions People Post On Blogs Make You Mad?

Dear Humans,

Do you ever find yourself getting pissed off about the stupid opinions people express in blog posts?  Are there particular topics that get under your skin so bad that you're compelled to write scathing blog comments to cut the culprits down to size?  If so, today's your lucky day. Because I'm here with a simple solution that will quickly bring you peace and happiness:

The next time you get really worked up about a stranger's point of view, pause, take a deep breath and then turn that critical mind of yours upon your own deluded opinion.

Did that piss you off? Good!  You can use that feeling in the exercise below. If not, just pick whatever incident comes to mind and answer the following questions:

1. Who angers, confuses, saddens, or disappoints you, and why? What is it about them that you don't like.
2. How do you want them to change? What do you want them to do?
3. What is it that they should or shouldn‟t do, be, think, or feel? What advice could you offer?
4. What do they need to do in order for you to be happy?
5.  What do you think of them? Make a list.
6. What is it that you don‟t want to experience with that person again?

Okay. Good work! Now comes the fun part. Take your answer to each of the above questions and then test it through sincere inquiry using the four questions below followed by the "turnaround".

1. Is it true?
2. Can you absolutely know that it's true?
3. How do you react, what happens, when you believe that thought?
4. Who would you be without the thought?

Turn around a few of your answers to the first six questions by directing them at you, instead of the other person. For instance, if you wrote "John is a conceited bastard" try "I am a conceited bastard". Then find at least three specific, genuine examples of how the turnaround is true in your life.

For more information on this method, check out The Work of Byron Katie.

Love,

Botgirl

"We have met the enemy and he is us." Pogo

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Fourth Wall: The Video

Fourworlds Falls Into A Little Linden Box

In another sign of lame human behavior, my brother from an atomic planet took the bait and signed up for a shiny new Linden Home. Just minutes after getting the email that announced the launch of the new program, he rushed to the website and traded his unused 512m allotment for a Disneyesque theme home in a sprawling suburb.

It seems to me that alts are like siblings. Each falls into a particular family role. So I guess I should be happy that I get to be the edgy artist instead of the digital fifties throwback. It's actually pretty funny that he chose the "exotic" Japanese version. Like it's all Zen or something.

Well, this is the last I'm going to mention this newest embarrassing chapter in my virtual family tree. I'm sure fourworlds will keep everyone up to date on his little blog.

New Comic To Mess With Your Mind: Fourth Wall

Newest Crazy Google Buzz Privacy Question

Maybe the Google legal department thinks Buzz should be classified like a drug, because this is certainly in the scary disclaimer category:

This extension will have access to your browsing history and private data on all websites.

Thanks for the warning and all, but what's up with that?

Botgirl vs. Dummy 01

Google Buzz Overtakes Facebook in Race to Bottom of Privacy Barrel

Google Buzz launched this week with default privacy settings that publicly disclose a user's most frequent chat and e-mail partners.  If that wasn't bad enough, they buried opt-out settings so deeply that it takes an 11 step tutorial to find your way through the counter-intuitive maze of links leading to the required pages. You'd think the company that pioneered simple UI design could do better if they wanted to.

Another puzzling aspect of their privacy policy is the disconnect between the language on the Buzz for mobile acceptance page and the actual Terms of Service.

Before using the mobile version, you must "agree that Google will use your location when you use Buzz." But the actual ToS stipulates, "You can also choose to exclude your location from all of your posts."

So which is it?

It seems to me that Google is following the lead of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, who wrote in an open letter, "We've worked hard to build controls that we think will be better for you". I guess from their point of view, what's best for us is full disclosure of all personal information.

I don't believe that Google and Facebook are taking this stance out of pure self-interest. Instead, I think they equate "what's good for the network" with "what's good for the customer." And if a few individuals have information disclosed that they'd rather not share, well, that's the price we pay for the wondrous benefits of data-mined utopia, right? Right?

Mercy Killing: Self-Assisted Facebookicide Watch

Is it just me, or does it seem a bit suspicious that a site devoted to getting Second Life avatars ejected from Facebook launched about the same time Linden Lab acquired a competing Social Network?  No! Of course not. I just love to kid the Lindens when the opportunity arises.

But seriously, I was added to the Fake Facebook Profiles hit list the other day. And although some people have expressed anger about the lone gunman's efforts to shoot down as many of us as he can fit into his busy schedule, I'm ambivalent. Maybe even grateful.

Truth is, I actually hate Facebook. I joined a couple years ago on a whim. Next thing I knew, I had over 900 friends and an endless stream of attention-sucking requests to attend events, play games and accept virtual tokens of affection, few of which I was interested in. Of course, anyone who really is my friend (in the "know me" sense of the term), reads my blog or pays any attention to my status updates would never ask me to join their Mob or accept a digital plant.

Since my policy has been to accept every friendship request that comes my way, I have no one to blame for this sorry situation but myself.

I friended people who only post in languages I don't understand.
I friended people who look like serial killers in their profile pics.
I friended people whose lives seem to revolve around Farmville.
I friended people with obviously commercially oriented spam accounts.
I clicked yes, yes, yes, yes, yes with absolutely no discrimination.

Once I figured out the error on my open-door approach, I could have unfriended the 800+ people I don't know. But at this point, it hardly seems worth it since I'm already connected to most of those I actually have relationship with through Twitter, Plurk or Avatars United. And as I noted at the top, my days are now numbered anyway.

I guess the main reason I haven't committed Facebookicide is that despite the fact that I almost never find anything of interest, there's a little part of me who is afraid that if I bail, I'll miss something. Yeah, right. Or someone will miss one of my "new post" announcements. Since I auto-post Tweets to my Facebook status, once in Blue Moon it turns into an interesting chain of conversation in the comment space. But they are far and few between and really not worth the insanely low signal-to-noise ratio. So...

Maybe I should just pull the plug on myself before I get virtually murdered...

Maybe I should stop accepting every friendship request I receive on Avatars United...

Maybe I should stop while I'm behind and end this post here.

Virtual Worlds, Mental Models and NLP

Thanks to Alanagh Recreant for tweeting a link to this video by Neuro-linguistic Programming (NLP) co-founder Dr. John Grinder. It was right on time in relation to a comment yesterday by Gwyneth Llewelyn about the relationship between virtual worlds and transcendence. I think that for some beings (me being a prime example) the experience of embodiment as an avatar in a virtual world can blast us outside the limitations of our existing mental models and allow us to see life through the eyes of a child.

RANT ALERT: New Rules for Avatars on Social Networks

This is not directed at anyone personally, but rather a laundry list of social network behavior that gets on my nerves. And I think I've been guilty of each one of these from time to time:

• Stop whining about Social Networks and Virtual Worlds like they owe you something beyond their ToS and applicable laws. They are private companies, not public institutions. They get to write the rules posted on the playground because they own it. They have the right to add, modify or delete any features they want at anytime. They are entitled to insist upon identity validation, credit card authorization or whatever other information they decide is mandatory for participation. You have the right to game the system and they have the right to kick your digital ass out if they catch you. 

• If you do have an absolutely uncontrollable urge to vent, save it for your blog if you can't do it in less than 140 characters. Or at least space out your posts so they don't hog the stream. The only time you should see your avatar's face more than a few times on a single pageview is if you are sharing a series of links that you feel is of very high value to your followers. 

• Unless you limit your social network to mostly close friends and family members, lay off the mundane posts about what you're having for lunch, which song you're listening to, or what cute activity your pet is up to (unless you're Crap Mariner who gets a feline waiver). Before you hit send, ask yourself what your social network stream would look like if half of those you follow posted the type of information you are about to share.

• Whoever came up with the idea of live-tweeting an event with dozens of posts should be punished by being forced to read the last year of Prokofy's blog posts and comments in one marathon session. Until there's a way to mute a hashtag on all Twitter clients, it's just plain rude to flood the stream with your play by play. Instead, create a new identity and let those who are interested follow it.

• Read your last fifty posts and ask yourself if you'd be interested in following the person who wrote them. If you'd bore yourself, you're probably boring everyone else. 

• Put your lazy-ass finger to work and check out links before you retweet them. Don't send us to a second link we need to click to get to the mentioned content (like a Digg headline or Plurk post). And don't send us to some lame article with a good headline that you didn't bother to review before regurgitating.

• Don't thank people publicly every time they retweet your posts. I understand that this may seem like the polite thing to do. But if you want to offer thanks send a DM so you don't add something to the stream that offers no value to anyone but the two of you. Hopefully the reason someone retweets your post is because they think it contains something their followers would find interesting, not because they are doing you a favor. If anyone deserves thanks, it is the people who actually post something that is good enough be worth retweeting,

• Stop posting long lists of people to follow on Follow Friday.  Twitter's new list function gives you a great way to list the people you think are worth following in categories of interest. 

• If someone blocks you, it's probably because you're a narcissistic jerk, not because they can't handle your overwhelming wit and scathing, insightful commentary. Okay, maybe this one is personally directed. 

The Joy of Being Easily Amused

After the big Linden Lab acquisition announcement, the deluge of friending announcements on Avatars United drowned out the smattering of status reports and blog posts on the Activity Feed.  In the absence of external stimulation, Evil Botgirl Questi made a brief blog entry and the rest of the gang chimed in with comments over the course of the day: 

Evil Botgirl Questi: The lack of avatar name validation has freed me to finally emerge and take my rightful place as the "real" Botgirl Questi. And you're next, Botgirl Linden!
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah

Supergirl Barbie Questi: Give it your best shot, evil one. I will kick your butt all over the metaverse, if the DMCA doesn't catch up with me first.

Botgirl Questi: I don't need your help, Super-bitch. You have a lot of nerve using my last name.

Botgirl Linden: Okay, enough out of all you! Evil Botgirl, I do not see you in the official Second Life data base, so you will be banned as soon as our lawyers can rewrite the TOS here to account for your anti-social behavior.

Botgirl Linden: And Supergirl, you are violating the sacred DC Comic copyright. Just because we let someone in Second Life sell you a costume with their infringing logo doesn't mean you can display it here. Although Sweden is pretty lax when it comes to that sort of thing, AU is now owned by a US company. Lose your clothes or lose your membership!

Botgirl Questi: Oh yeah, Botgirl "Linden". Just because you are registered as a Linden on an OpenSim grid, doesn't mean you have the authority of a REAL Linden here or in the MotherShipSL. Pipe down before I post those photos of you and M.

Evil Botgirl Questi: That's right, non-evil Botgirl. Now you see how my devious cohorts and I can use Avatars United to throw the virtual world into an uproar. You will never be able to decipher the real from the fake. Your cognitive capacity will be overwhelmed by the bevy of lindens, prokofys, craps and hamlets that assault your stream and distort your mental models. Before you know it, you won't even know who YOU are.

Supergirl Barbie Questi: Non-evil, Non-super and Pseudo-Linden Botgirls: You're all just jealous because I'm cuter than the rest of you and have a much slimmer waistline.

Evil Botgirl Questi: You are so pathetic, Girl of Steel (abs). If you're so GOOD, why are you so proud of promoting an unrealistic female body image?

Postscript. Announcement on top of Avatars United home page today:  Due to the increased load on the site we're only showing status updates in the feed. Please bear with us while we work on improving performance

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