Your approach sounds most sensible. It amazes me that people upload, type, or otherwise place “information on a worldwide network used by billions of people, and expect it to stay private. :-)

If it would mortify me for people to know a particular thing about me, I don’t put it on the internet. Because yeah, email can be hacked, or a livejournal error can make a locked post public, or law enforcement can take an interest in someone’s affairs and obtain a warrant for access to their MySpace registration information*. I’ve got plenty of personal emails stored and a few locked posts that I wouldn’t go out of my way to show to an employer, but certainly nothing that could get me or anyone I care about into any kind of trouble.

*I’ve never had so much of a speeding ticket, but I’ve heard waaay too many stories about people posting their idiotic exploits to MySpace or YouTube and being shocked–shocked–to discover that law enforcement can trace it back to them. Uh… duh.

I happened to have finished reading The Ghost Brigadesyesterday. I haven’t had many “oh I must get back to the book” reads lately. Sincere thanks.

Not that John and I might not hit it off were we ever to meet. After all, he seems like an interesting and affable guy :) But I’m not a friend, I’m a fan. And as a fan of an author, I do the best thing: I buy his books (OK, and list him as a favorite author on Facebook, along with Cory Doctorow…)

So John, and I mean this in the most friendly way, please get back to work – I got book money burnin’ a hole in my pocket :D

Josh Marshall?

I kid, I kid.

Well, I think you also have to consider the possibility that someone who was a dick to you in 7th grade might have grown out of it since then. I remember at my 10th high school reunion that one guy spent most of it going around to various people and apologizing for being a dick while we were in high school. Which was nice of him. I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt when it comes to comparing them as grownups to who they were when they were 13.

OTOH, the level of unreasonable intimacy and inherent editing of the instantaneous but delayed communication medium really messes with our hard-wiring. We tend to think of conversation speed communication (such as IM & texting) as “authentic” and “spontaneous”. It can be, but often isn’t. And all sorts of strangeness takes place because the instinctive expectation does not jibe with reality.

[Giant foot comes down across page]
And now for something completely different.

Isn’t it just like the arrogant jerks who’d beat up a guy in 7th grade to come sucking around to him now that he’s famous? Glory hounds and sycophants don’t often change their stripes. As they say on another blog I read ‘The real WTF’ is that anyone expected different of them.

“I have to say that Doctorow’s point is rather blunted by the simple fact that he’s IN THE FRIGGIN’ PHONE BOOK”

I don’t think it occurs to most people that phone books are still a valid way to find people, particularly people of any level of notoriety. This of course suits me fine; I don’t want people just calling me out of the blue.

Angelle:

“So, John, ever find yourself at a con or a signing, and people treat you like they know you, because you’re online and in some weird way they do?”

Well, I think most people recognize that just reading someone’s blog doesn’t mean someone’s your pal. I do get a lot of “I read your blog” or people asking questions of me that clearly indicate blog reading was going on.

The dynamic is somewhat different with people who are regular commenters; they actually interact with me, so they feel, and not unreasonably so, that we have some sort of relationship. And we do, although and to put this as neutrally as possible, just because people have friendly banter online doesn’t automatically mean that in the real world people are going to be friends. That said, at least some people I consider friends are people I first “met” through the comments here, and in a general sense I think most people who comment here regularly are pretty cool, even the ones I argue with a lot.