I realized I should use this blog while its is still up and running (actually, I guess it will always be up and running...i should rephrase and say while its still "frequently checked") to see if anyone knows the answer to a question I have regarding privacy and facebook. You see, I submitted a term paper on Wednesday for a journalism class at CMC that was a bit unusual (and fun). Since it's a journalism class, we had the option of writing a standard research paper, or we could write a query letter and article for any magazine. I chose the magazine option. Our professor is going to edit and give us feedback, then we will actually submit the article to the magazine and hope they accept!

I got a moderate surprise last night as I googled sources to fill out my bibliography. The page at the very top of Google was my own page -- three separate times.

I suppose that speaks to the question of just how obscure my sources are, but I thought I'd mention it just in case anybody thinks we're not live or that Google's crawlers knock before coming on campus.

I've been thinking about surveillance and censorship on the Internet, and I just read magoo's post on privacy, and it's crazy because I'm realizing I just don't know anything about all of this. I keep stumbling across articles related to these things, one of them from Wired that talks about the results of a world-wide survey that is looking at government censorship in different nations. One government claims to censor "sexually explicit" (whatever that means) materials, but what it actually censors are political and religious sites that don't quite agree with the ideas/policies of their regime. Governments use all kinds of tricks, making you think you're trying to reach a page that doesn't exist (when it actually does), and then there's the DoS attacks, which I definitely knew nothing about (and now only kinda understand). But, there are of course new browsers and products that allow individuals to get around all this censorship, and some individuals find other ways of fighting it-- this quote from the Wired article is crazy to me:

In response to a fellow student's blog question, I thought I'd broadcast this ASAP:

Do not upload anything you don't want someone anywhere to read!! Not at all, not anywhere!! Not here, not now not because it's a class, never!! Actually, don't print it if you don't want it read, either, even under an assumed name. Exactly the wrong person will order it from Amazon 20 years later, for some other reason, looking for something completely different.

Change the person's name. Change the hair color, distinguishing characteristics, state of origin, name of local city and streets. If the people are recognizable, make them at least deniable: "No, I didn't write it." Or "No, it wasn't about you. The story's set in Squalidelphia."