Blogging-A Word of Warning!

Blogging: A Word of Warning

M. B. Fields, Jr.
Copyright© 2007 by Grand Organ Productions, LLC

This is the third in a continuing series of essays on Blogging. While (up to this point) there is not a necessity to read previous essays in order to understand the series, it is recommended that you do so. Getting caught up this early in the series will assist you later on.

So far in the series we have discussed, in very general terms, the idea of the Web Log (Blog). We have also examined a brief history of the Blog, beginning in the 1940’s, growing in the 1970’s, and blossoming in the 1990’s through today.

At any given point of the clock, there are tens (if not hundreds) of millions of people writing in their Blog. Bloggers are adding pictures, creating recipes, or pounding the electronic pulpit at virtually any moment of the day or night. And when they are not writing, they are reading. Communities of bloggers assist, encourage, critique, and offer advice to one another as they seek to increase the worth and value of the words written. Every day, new bloggers create their first “Hello World!” entry, and someone is usually close at hand to read it.

How difficult was it for you to find this essay, for instance? I would dare say that you will not have too difficult a time finding this work, especially if you are one of the hundreds of people who read one of my Blogs daily. I post my new professional work in one of them, you see. It is a community of writers. If you follow my work, or my Blogs for only a short time, you can discover many things about me as a person.

Many of those things that you would learn are things that you would perhaps never know about me simply by meeting me in person. You have the opportunity to learn a lot about me, simply by reading the words I type into my Blog. Some of the things you might learn of me are things that do not particularly interest you, or “grab” your attention. You would know where I live, my age, my address, and you would be able to describe me to a Police Investigator at the scene of the crime. (My picture is featured on my Blogs.) You would know the work I have done, and the work I now do. You would know that I have been, for some time, a full-time University student, studying to recieve my Doctorate in Information Technology.

You would know where I attend University, the classes I am taking (or have taken), and my Instructors names if you were to venture in to my “College” Blog. That wouldn’t be too difficult, because I have my Blogs linked together. It may be like a "Daisy Chain", perhaps. But you could follow, read, and learn much about me simply by reading a few entries in my Blogs. You could also feed my name into a search engine, and find out much more information about me, my work, and my life.

There are also many things about me that you would not know. You would not know, for instance, my home telephone number. You would not know my credit card information, or my Social Security Number. You would not know how to contact me via any means other than Email. You would not know my clothing style, my speaking style, or what my voice sounds like. You would not know my parents’ address, their names, or their personal information. And, you shouldn’t know this information. As freely accessible as the Internet is, privacy is something that we feel surrounding us while we create the next amazing entry.

But, in truth, nothing could be further from the truth. If you should choose to create a Blog, there are some really important warnings that you should heed. Times have changed for those of us past the age of, say, 20. (I can’t see 20 in the rear-view mirror!) With the emergence of the Internet into the personal consumer marketplace, you can access anyone’s private thoughts with nothing more than an Email, or Web address (URL). You may be amazed at some of the things you can discover about a total stranger, with only a few clicks of the mouse.

There are people who use the Internet for purposes other than friendly communication, socialization, or family contact. Of course, there are still more business users of the Internet than there are private persons. One business may have thousands of employees with access to the Internet, for instance. There are literally hundreds of thousands of companies whose only source of business, and business income is derived solely via the Internet. (I know this is true, because I have just such a company!) Additionally, in these days of change, especially in the United States of America where I live, we have also seen an emergence of governmental involvement (some might say interference) with Internet traffic.

Does all this make sense to you, so far? I do hope so. Because, as simple as all this sounds, there are some more simple truths I want you to hear, and believe.

Many of those people who spend their days and/or nights “surfing” the Internet are not happy, well-adjusted people at all. They spend their time on the Internet roaming “to and fro, to the ends of the Earth seeking those whom they may devour”, as the Bible says. These are people who have designs to hurt you—badly. They are referred to as Internet Predators. That name has a really nasty ring to it, doesn’t it? Well, believe it or not, the name isn’t nearly nasty enough.

These folks don’t merely want to find you, they really want to hurt you. And, your age, or your gender, or your marital status do not either matter to them, or protect you from them. As we have already seen, the Internet is a really marvelous, wonderful, and WIDE OPEN access portal to the world. Just like there are bad people in the world, there are, likewise, bad people on the Internet.

In the city of Baltimore, Maryland, a Police detective, giving a presentation to a class of High School students (you know, the really cool ones!) in 2006 took exactly eight minutes to tell one of the audience members enough information about themselves to have made it possible, should he desire, to follow them home, or meet them there. He could have had the correct key made to unlock their home, or start their car. He could have told them where they would be going after that assembly, or when they left home the next morning. He could have told them their bank, the checking account number, and the balance. He told them their Driver’s License number, their Social Security Number, their Blood Type, and their Medical History. And, he did this without using one single privileged access which is available only to Law Enforcement. He did it using nothing more than the Internet, and a search engine. He accomplished all this in under eight minutes! It was estimated that, of the eight minutes used, 14% of the time was spent in gathering the information, while 86% of the time was used in divulging the information to the audience. How's that for instantaneous access?

In a recent series of reports done by NBC's "Dateline", Anchor Stone Phillips observed an undercover police officer in a chat room with a 12 year-old girl for two days, spanning a time frame of some 20 minutes chatting with her. Two days later, the news crew and the officer paid the youngster and her parents a visit--at their home! They not only displayed the transcripts of the chat sessions, but illustrated to the parents, the child, and all of us just how far someone can go with just a minumum of general (non-specific) personal information. It was a chilling revelation, and yet was only a sample of what can be reality in this new world of "instant" information.

How, you may rightly ask? Remember, we have determined that the Internet IS the world’s repository of information. That information comes into the Internet using a computer, which translates a series of zeros and ones into letters. These numbers and letters are called “data”. Knowing that there is someone named “Smith” that uses the Internet is not exactly rocket science, now is it? But to know that you are Richard Smith, you are 52 years old, you live at 123 Easy Street, in Anytown USA is something entirely different. Some information you cannot control. However, much of the information this Officer used for his demonstration was readily available on the Internet because the student had placed it there himself!

You may well believe that the information you place in a “safe” place on the Internet is available only to you, or those whom you choose. It’s just simply not true. You do not know where the information is. You just have to know how to look for it. If your Motor Vehicle information is provided to the Internet by your city’s Driver Licensing Branch, there’s just not much that you can do about it. You can request to be excluded from the Internet files, but these days that would be tantamount to voluntarily revoking your own license. And, the information would still be available on the Internet.

Before you post personal information (always, incidentally, a very bad idea) please consider that anyone—especially someone who has ill intent and some very basic computing knowledge—can find it. Programs are written each and every day to do nothing more than what is called “data mining”. These programs simply retrieve data, and store it in places designated by those who create, own, or run these programs. It is Data, not people, that the computer was designed to manage. People have to manage people themselves. Data becomes information when it is associated, or linked, to an individual.

Before you begin your Blog, please take a moment to consider who may see your Blog, and what they may well choose to do with the information you provide them. School administrators are reading Blogs every day. Threats against fellow students and faculty are deemed sufficient reason for suspension, expulsion, and even criminal prosecution. That joke you tell about your College Professor could well signal the end of your academic career!

Likewise, for those of us who “punch a clock” every day, your employer has access to every digit you create at work. Anything you touch on the Internet while at your job automatically becomes “work product” insofar as your employer is legitimately entitled to consider. Many people are being terminated for their use of the Internet while at work.

“Surfing” victims are rising at what would to some be considered an alarming rate
in the workplace. However, it can be reasonably preumed that any employer who allows his workers Internet access will automatically lose a minimum of 50% of the worker’s productivity time on the computer—simply due to surfing. Email, Blogs, and any other communication from the workplace are routinely scanned for proprietary employer information which could either help a competitor, or harm your employer. Or, to be quite blunt about it, anything which the employer could potentially find libelous, dangerous, or just downright personally disagreeable or distateful.

Additionally, many employers, because of fair hiring laws, are not permitted to ask certain questions of potential employees. If you lead them, through your use of their computer, to a negative reality (as the employer may see it), the law says they have the legitimate right to terminate you—on the spot.

This could be anything from speaking negatively about a co-worker, crying about the overtime to get the new model shipped, or bemoaning the fact that the IT guys just can’t seem to get the bugs out of the Quality Assurance program. Discussing your personal views, lifestyle, disease, or court action is also included.

Some employers will also determine that your religious, political, or personal beliefs (as stated by you, voluntarily) are against their “corporate persona”. Having to take work home on the laptop (as we have recently seen) can have totally disastrous impact on an organization. Pity the former employee who had the great misfortune of having their laptop, with all 500,000 social security numbers and dates of birth for their clients onboard, taken in a home burglary. And, if you do not have previous written authority from your boss to even take the information (much less the laptop) home in the first place?

Well, in a very well-known recent event, that is precisely how it happened. This combination of errors cost the United States Government (and the people whose taxes were used to fund the costs) over $1.2 Billion. The laptop was found, and forensic investigation disclosed that the information had neither been accessed or copied. The laptop turned up in a pawn shop. The employee? I think he is currently making big rocks into little rocks underneath a Federal Penitentiary right now. He will be for a very, very long time. And, his maximum future earnings potential will be limited by the number of ways he can use the phrase: “You want fries with that?”.

Although there are a myriad of examples which I could offer you, there is one more that I believe should be included in this discussion. The United States government has deemed it appropriate to, in my opinion, decimate the Contstitutional authority given to it by data mining the cell phone and email communications, financial, banking, birth and death, and other statistical information records of every citizen of this country. The information is being store-housed in some 250 private contract arrangements for further use “as the government may deem necessary, OR for the interests of national security. Strangers are looking at your bank statements, listening to your cell phone calls, and reading your email. They are also reading, and collecting your Blog entries.

As the information is being retrieved, and stored by private contractors, the government is “off the hook” for breaching the privacy of her citizens. The private contractors are “off the hook” because they are performing to the letter of the contracts (generally no-bid contracts, at that) which they legally signed. Persons, organizations, or Governmental agencies are “off the hook” because the information is available for a price to all who would pay the price.

So, who’s the victim? Well, it could be you. Or someone you know. Or someone you shared a private call, or email, or blog entry about. If you want to avail yourself of the INFORMATION available on this reality, I suggest you go to your favorite search engine, and enter a request for information on “Project Echelon”, and read wherever the results take you.

For all these reasons and many more, I would simply ask you to carefully consider creating an access point to your life, and your livelihood that is safe for you, those you know, those with whom you work, and for the stranger next door. Consider not only what, but who, you will show of yourself. It could make a very important difference in your life, if not in your Blog.

There is a wonderful world of caring, engaged, and passionate bloggers on the Internet who form communities, write new rules, and create new adventures every single day. I hope that you will become one of them if you have not yet created a Blog. My Blogs have generated life-strong friendships that surpass my “other” friends, in many cases. I believe that, within each one of us, there is a song to be sung, and a story to be written. Sing your song, and tell your story. Find, discover, and release your passion through a Blog.

Just be smart about it. It could save your money, your job, or even your life.


I hope that you have enjoyed this essay on blogging. I will continue to write these essays on an irregular basis, as the desire and need dictate. Please feel free to contact me via [e-mail] with your comments, or questions. Reading, Rating, and Reviewing of this essay is kindly requested. Brutality is optional. Flames will be ignored.

Write Well!

M. B. Fields, Jr.
Clarksville, Indiana
January 22, 2007