(Fwd) Re: [HPFGU-Feedback] ADMIN: Possible Change to the Main

[Shaun Hately]

On 12 Jan 2004 at 7:25, abigailnus wrote:

> 1. First, the obvious - HPfGU would become Google-able. Anything
> that any of us have posted would now be visible not only to the 11,000
> members of HPfGU but to anyone online. This does not include our
> e-mail addresses, to those of us who are concerned about spammers
> - Yahoo automatically shields them - but it might include personal
> information. There's also the issue of copyright - anyone can access
> the posts and copy them at will. Right now, we feel that there is no
> significant difference between exposing yourself to 11,000 strangers
> and to the entire internet, but some of you may feel otherwise.

I'm one who does. There's nothing incredibly sensitive in my posts 
(though there are some things I'd prefer weren't readily accessible 
to anyone who searched for my name, nothing is going to wreck my 
life if it gets out), but there may well be in the posts of other 
people - including people who have left the list and so won't know 
their information is suddenly becoming more accessible, and who 
there is no practical way to inform of this.

Personally I think there is a big difference between exposing 
yourself to 11,000 people and to the entire net, *because* of the 
presence of search engines like google. In my job, occasionally, we 
have to gather information about people - and tools like google and 
their ability to get into public discussion groups are an 
incredibly valuable to us. I hope we only use the information 
responsibly and we have checks to try and ensure we do - many 
people are *not* as scrupulous. You can be talking about ex-lovers, 
private investigators, government investigators, employers, etc - 
apparently casual statements made in web groups and usenet groups 
are used against people sometimes.

The *major* problem I see is the existence of messages by people no 
longer on the groups - those who are still on the groups can be 
informed of this change and given the nature of the archives could 
delete their posts (though that would cause further problems for 
those who set up things like the Fantastic Posts pages - quite a 
few of the message links in that no longer seem to refer to the 
message they originally did). Those who are no longer on the list 
may find information they assumed was relatively private (and 
remember - the list hasn't always had 11,000 members - some of 
those people may have joined and posted on a list with only 1000 
members, so it may have seemed relatively private), now potentially 
accessible to anyone who types their name into a search engine.


Yours Without Wax, Dreadnought
Shaun Hately | www.alphalink.com.au/~drednort/thelab.html
(ISTJ)       | drednort at ... | ICQ: 6898200 
"You know the very powerful and the very stupid have one
thing in common. They don't alter their views to fit the 
facts. They alter the facts to fit the views. Which can be 
uncomfortable if you happen to be one of the facts that 
need altering." The Doctor - Doctor Who: The Face of Evil
Where am I: Frankston, Victoria, Australia