fun with Myspace

[Dar]

Oh kids nowadays.......

I have a myspace page because Janis has a myspace page, really that's the only reason, I rarely even look at it, but once in awhile I remember.
Well my youngest nephew has a myspace page and I have him as one of my 'friends'. So yesterday I went to my myspace page and then clicked on his little icon to go to his page. On his page there was a cute picture of him and his girlfriend that was a link to HER myspace page.
Very cute page, with a lot of information about her likes and dislikes which was interesting to me since I've not met her yet. Then I come to the MOST interesting thing.........SHE'S PREGNANT! I talked to my sister (his mom) after making sure from him that she already knew, since it wasn't my news to tell. She was waiting to officially tell the family until girlfriend was through the first trimester. Her older son who's turning 25 just became a father in December, and now number two son who is turning 23 is following suit.

I can't believe the stuff that 'kids' put on these web pages.....for ANYBODY to see. cracks me up

[Elliott]

Well, congratulations are in order here! To the new baby! The circle of life just goes on and on. And now I want a My Space Page... Is it free?

[Eva]

Yes Elliott, it is free.
Dar, you have a myspace page because Janis has one :confused: You can visit her's also if you don't have one, you know...

Eva

[Mary6906]

Yes, even I have a Myspace page only because one of my friends had one and they begged me to come on. Not that I have anything to blog about, my life's not that interesting. I just basically have my musical interests, that's about it, nothing special.

It certainly amazes me what some people put on their pages though.

[Oak Kitten]

There was just an article in the New York Times recently about how it is nearly impossible to expunge your information even after you delete your Facebook account. Not sure if the same thing is applicable to My Space, but I would not be surprised. Will never have a page on either of those sites for that reason.

I suppose if one was extremely circumspect about what one posted, it would be OK, but the young'uns today put anything and everything out there for the world to see. Some of them are going to learn some very hard lessons about doing that sort of thing.

Oak

[Eva]

Yes, I think a lot of people don't realise that many, many people are seeing what they are writing. Not so much different from putting things up here on an openly accesable messageboard by the way.

Eva

[ponytail]

I just got a MySpace page recently as a way of making my music available over the internet. And I was influenced by the fact that an old friend of mine now has a site there for her music (hey, I can't get away with wearing the same outfits as her, so...;) )

I'm not putting any really personal information on it, though. I'd only do that on a site where I felt a high level of trust (like here) -- and even then, I'm well aware anybody could see it.

So I just keep my evil plans for world domination to myself...:p

[Dee]

Yes, I think a lot of people don't realise that many, many people are seeing what they are writing. Not so much different from putting things up here on an openly accesable messageboard by the way.

Eva

And for those who may not realise it, not only can THE WHOLE WORLD see everything you post online, once it's there it can always be accessed, even if you think it's been erased! So if you can't live with it forever, don't post it. Period.

http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k267/deemark/Emoticons/_boggled.gif

But don't take my word for it. Read The Net Never Forgets (http://archive.salon.com/21st/feature/1998/11/25feature.html) and be amazed:


"Take all those homespun Web pages out there. People assume that their home pages disappear once they pull the plug. Not necessarily: While your browser may report a "404: File Not Found" when you call up an offline Web page, those pages live on in other electronic nooks and crannies. Since 1996, the Internet Archive, a kind of digital warehouse, has been trolling the Web and hoarding everything it comes across -- text, images, sound clips. Every two months, it scoops up the entire Web and stores the results on its virtual shelves. It has preserved my expired site, and it may well have yours.

Bulletin board messages live on far after the threads peter out. The messages we send to the Internet's 33,000 newsgroups often fall off the edge of Usenet after a week or so, but the postings live on in databases like Deja News and the Internet Archive."

[Bat]

I guess the right(wrong) people haven't looked at my posts, because I haven't had my phone tapped...yet. I'm still walking the streets, a free woman, but who knows when that may change?

[Eva]

I haven't had my phone tapped
Are you sure?

Eva

[Bat]

Since I very rarely make a phone call, I doubt whether anyone would bother. All they would hear is the ether...nothing going on here.

[DaveM]

I believe my phone was tapped on one occasion. It was during my brush with the law, when local authorities had ridiculously informed the ATF that I might own some sort of illegal weapons (the accusation was groundless and the ATF quickly told them so). Out of curiosity I measured the voltage on my phone line, which proved to be significantly below the normal--classic sign of a tap which is drawing its power from the line (though likely located at a junction box or the like as opposed to inside the house). The voltage drop mysteriously vanished after about two weeks. And I never heard anything about it--most pertinently, I never received a copy of anything resembling a court order for a wiretap.

Have often wondered if someone in Washington there is a little file stuffed with transcripts of me making medical/legal appointments, talking with family members, etc. Thrilling stuff, I have no doubt. No doubt there's a warehouse full of similar, given current government habits.

[Eva]

I think our phone was tapped for a while during the cold war. My parents fled Hungary in 1956. I think it was mainly my brother who was their target when he was about 18 - 20.

Eva

[Bat]

That was a terrible time in Hungary, Eva...we were all so hoping the uprising would be successful, but of course, the Russian bear was far too strong. I'm so glad your family could get out before the brutal clampdown started (again)!
You're a very lucky gal that you can live where you do instead of behind the iron curtain for the early part of your life. Your parents can tell you what freedom means! (and probably have).

[david uk]

I think our phone was tapped for a while during the cold war. My parents fled Hungary in 1956. I think it was mainly my brother who was their target when he was about 18 - 20.

Eva

who was it that tapped your phone Eva? That must have been many years after '56 if your brother was already 18-20.

[Eva]

Bat, yes I am very happy I live in the Netherlands. My parents do know the meaning of freedom. Also they know the meaning of terror and injustice. Of the fear in the night when the cars of the secret police are coming and you don't know if it will be your father they will take away (he most like won't return) or the neighbour. They brought me up with the attitude one needed to survive there: don't talk too much about what you really think. They will come to get you for it. Don't stand out. It's safer to blend in. They don't live like that anymore. But these messages are also deep in me.

David, my brother was born in 1961. So it was at the end of the seventies and the beginning of the eighties. I think it was the Dutch intelligence service. My brother was at a 'military' age I guess. And we had lots of connections with Hungary of course. Letters, telephonecalls, etc. When he applied for a school where he would be learning to work on seagoing vessels he got an interview. Someone who he had never met before asked him what the nature of his contacts with Hungary were. I think that for the intelligence services all people fro eastern Europe always stayed suspicious.

Eva

[Oak Kitten]

Back in 1974 Seymour Hersh broke the story in the New York Times about how the CIA, FBI and NSA were spying on U.S. citizens, opening their mail and intercepting telegrams and maintaining databases of thousands of names of ordinary citizens. The Army was using intelligence agents to infiltrate church groups, black studies classes at universities and most famously, the 1968 Democratic National Convention. The FBI was far and away the worst, using agents to literally ruin people's lives because FBI agents deemed their political views to be "subversive." Anyone who has read Janis's Advocate column knows her father was a recipient of this sort of attention. These FBI activities dated back to the McCarthy era in the 1950s. These abuses led to 2 major Congressional investigations and the intelligence oversight legislation we have today intended to prevent a recurrence.

What concerns me is in addition to the present day administration's efforts to undermine these laws, young people have no historical memory of these abuses, and growing up in an internet environment where they have little compunction about putting anything and everything out there for the world to see, they won't "get it." They have been desensitized to the idea of privacy.

Oak