A STRANGER OBSESSION

“Privacy is an illusion therefore it doesn’t matter if yours is violated” I didn’t expect privacy when I dove into that chat room off a dark and rarely used Data Back Road in 1998, so why should I care that there are privacy violations occurring every day? Oh, right, because I did expect privacy.  That’s why we all had screen names.  That’s why we all lied about our addresses and phone numbers, only met people from “On Line” in Public Places, attempted to mask our IP addesses, etc and so on.  It was the only place NOT regulated by Corporations and Government, and as such there was a dangerous and alluring aspect to the Internet.  It was the last Frontier, the Wild West without a Sheriff. So when Zuckerburg and Parker and the rest of the Silicon Valley Cartel decided over Martini’s one night to embrace the FBI's position that Privacy no longer means Anonymity it changed the game.  It meant we no longer have to tolerate being under the Microscope, being judged by “what you pu

Embracing Creepy Stalking is just plain creepy.  It just is.  A weird guy who takes an interest in a woman he’s never met, a girl who has no idea he even exists.  Sometimes it starts with “Blog Stalking”, cruising an interesting blog over and over, or visiting a Discussion Forum to read a girl’s posts, hitting refresh as neurotically as clicking a pen.  But, when stalking moves from watching through the blue glow of the monitor to real life watching through the living room window,  it is the cruelty of stalking that strikes me the most.  The silent Watcher has no empathy for his Victim.  He just sits and watches as events and occurrences unfold.  No different than the detached coldness of the Engineer monitoring a Network. This notion of the emotionally removed Stalker was taking up room in my head when Kevin Kelleher’s blog on the last day of Web 2.0 Summit 2011 was served up on the web page I was reading.  I didn’t see the blog until 5 days later, but it struck a chord noneth