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gwern comments on Open Thread, December 16-31, 2012 - Less Wrong
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How much should I care about online privacy?
As far as I can tell most people's fear s in relation to privacy are motivated by an intuitive 'ick' feeling not by any projection of future harms. But as we know reversed stupidity isn't intelligence, so the question of how much one should care about privacy, especially online, is still open.
What do you do in terms of preserving privacy and why? E.g. Do you keep your real world and online (or different online) personalities distinct, if so why?
Edited for typos and clarity
It's hard to judge. When I started seriously participating in stuff online, I kept heavily pseudonymous so I could disavow it later (I was still growing up) and out of interest in crypto & security issues. This came in handy when I earned some enemies on Wikipedia who sought to 'out' me; one group went so far as to call up universities looking for info on me in order to harass me and in the best-case scenario, get me fired from a job. Naturally, they failed. More recently, I learned of death threats; I believe the threat to be very minimal, but it's still not a particularly happy thought.
The point being that when I started, I didn't seriously expect stalkers and threats, but if I had started 'public', I didn't have the option to retract all the relevant privacy info.
Seriously? What the hell? I forget how many crazy people there are on the internet.
I'm feeling a little more paranoid now. How high do you estimate the risk is and does it link to any particular topics?
I'd be comfortable with an estimate like <1/1,000.
Well, there's always something which caused them to do it. But the topic isn't always useful. In one area, I was entirely unsurprised; in another area, I was completely blindsided and still find it hard to believe; in a third, I was moderately surprised.
On a scale of 'attempted privacy invasions/total posts on the internet'?
Can I ask what the unexpected ones were?
What did they intend to do with personal information? Just contact real life people and be rude about you? I'd guess if you have a good real life reputation already that would be ineffective.
No, that the death threat would result in any harms to me.
No.
You'd be surprised. One Wikipedia admin, Kate IIRC, quit Wikipedia entirely because she thought her stalkers like Daniel Brandt could get her fired. Another, PhilWelch IIRC (who's a LWer now), had some unfortunate encounters with the police, courtesy of his stalkers, demonstrating that even if they can't get you fired they can do a distressing amount remotely.
This isn't uncommon at all. A lot of bloggers who discuss anything controversial receive death threats, rape threats, or other threats of violence. Fortunately, the threateners are almost always Internet Tough Guys, all keyboard and no fists.
I've been targeted by an online stalker once over stuff on Wikipedia — fortunately he was incompetent and the personal information he posted about me was obsolete. (Ironically enough, he thought of himself as a privacy activist. Self-righteousness is strong in that one.) An ex-girlfriend of mine who blogs about mental health issues has been repeatedly harassed, had private email messages leaked and posted online, and has been threatened repeatedly. And some organizations (e.g. Scientology) have quite a reputation for attacking people who criticize them online (or in print) ....
I was aware of this for specific things, (e.g. blogging about gender and sexuality issues, or the weirder parts of reddit or 4chan). But I'd always thought of wikipedia as a nice friendly place. Basically I thought it was a risk you took on in certain areas not a general background thing.
The vast majority of activity on Wikipedia is nice and friendly. But some of that minority, well...
(More in high-conflict areas than elsewhere, yes, but crazy people are everywhere. Articles get written on obscure subjects because no matter what the topic is, someone is obsessive about it. But people go crazy about unexpected topics, because no matter what the topic is, someone is obsessive about it...)
Wikipedia doesn't have a culture that promotes being awful to people, the way that some sites do — but it's a high-value target.