A Word of Warning

Some residents of Blogland don't care who knows their true identity¹. Some go so far as to advertise their name, address and phone number. Others, who don't really fancy getting weird phone calls at all hours of the day and night, are a bit more circumspect. Some still give their name, but keep their address a mystery. Many use a pseudonym(sp?), if only to distinguish themselves from the million other "John Smiths" out there. And some are complete enigmas. I wonder if any are aliens writing blogs right now?

My point? Did I have one? Yes. You might not want certain people in your workplace or family to know what you're writing about them. Or not writing, as the case may be. People have been fired for this. And possibly divorced. Or beaten up.

So imagine my shock when, a few weeks ago, an electromail arrived in my normal inbox, from a fellow blogger whom I had never heard of until then (although it turns out that this one is in the book). How had this person found me out? Was I about to be blackmailed? What if Mrs Farty had been leaning over my shoulder when I opened my mail (as she sometimes does)?

As it turned out, I needn't have worried. I had been targeted by my blog id, but BCC'ed to hide my name from all the others on a circular. Since my inbox rules send all "MrFarty" mail to my blogger inbox, and "MrFarty" wasn't named, the default applied.

And then there was the time I posted something in the comments box of a blog that was being moderated. A hiccup in the interweb meant that the owner didn't get notified, but instead I got an "undelivered" message to let me know. From the owner's (until then) secret email address.

When someone posts a comment about one of my posts, I get an email to tell me about it. Naturally, this email goes to "MrFarty", which is the same address you see when you want to contact me. I thought everyone on Blogger did the same. Until yesterday.

Imagine my surprise when, shortly after posting a comment on xxxxx's blog, I received an email from yyyyy, helpfully telling me that yyyyy was "out of the Office until the 9th May". The contact address in the blog was not even remotely similar to the one on the email. Shome mishtake, shurely? And this from someone who works for a security firm².

So let's be careful out there. I'm just saying.

¹ A philosopher might ask, what do we mean by "true identity"? After all, you can have one identity on the interweb, one at work, one at play, one with one's spouse...see Nietzsche for more on this. I dare you.

² btw, what does DWFN stand for?