Robin Wilton is a Naughty Engineer/ 5 Things little known about me

So, I received the latest in horrible chain letter online behavior from one of my favorite engineer/ identity experts wherein one is tagged to disclose 5 little known facts about one's self and then solicit 5 others to do so. http://blogs.sun.com/racingsnake/entry/damn_i_got_tagged_by

While I'm going to break the mirror or not win the lottery or whatever happens to those fine folks who do not continue the thread. I will step up to the disclosure plate to give you 5 relatively little known facts-- privacy related for this forum, of course:

Little known fact #1: I actually think Scott McNealy was right when he said. "You have no absolute privacy." Notwithstanding my nearly crazed devotion to the topic of data privacy, I understand that secrecy is not something we can have online. I lived for a good while in a tiny town of ~2,000 souls as a kid. Once a group of roughly twelve kids (all under 18) were busted with a six pack of beer by the river. The police officer took one look at my friend and I and told us to get home because he knew who our parents were and would be calling them in 30 minutes if we didn't move out. We did. We had no privacy in that town, but we were also safe and managed to make it through the rest of childhood unscathed. Cultural norming rules and customs kept exposed data under control but did not dictate secrecy. I've not been back to that town (technically a village back then) in a long time, but growth has necessitated far more anonymity but a price of a different sort has also been paid.

Little known fact #2: I worked as a maid for a very short while to put myself through school. This job ended when I was asked to change the sheets in someone's home in his room adorned with paint by number nudes (not kidding). The homeowner took out his pistol and proceeded to stand in the doorway polishing it. Fortunately, I think it was more of a sick joke for him rather than an imminent threat, but I quickly got the hell out of there unscathed, Not, however, before I learned an important lesson that at least *someone* should know where you are on the planet-- no matter how invincible you feel in your 20-dumb-thing years. GPS and mobile telephone technologies are good things on the whole even if they do often stop us from talking to the people next to us.

Little known fact #3: I hate to fly and I am terrified that if an airliner crashes in the ocean, I will be eaten by a shark-- forget the whole gravity and being squashed thing, it's the sharks that get me white knuckled on the plane. The movie Jaws had something to do with this irrational position to be certain. The only reasonable data protection tie here is that I don't see an abatement of necessary airline travel in my foreseeable future. The regulatory schema worldwide is badly fractured and we are likely years away from reasonable harmonization that will actually work to protect the fundamental human rights and the financial assets driven by personally identifiable information.

Little known fact #4: I am painfully shy by nature. Survival and career choices necessitate converting a private inclination to quiet kookiness into a public position, but I view data protection and privacy as too important an issue about which to remain still and, so, I shout, I write, I speak out and, gasp, I blog

Little known fact #5: I have not yet decided the horrors and the paybacks that await Mr. Wilton for including me in his chain letter. Nonetheless, how could I refuse to rise to the challenge?

Posted at 04:17PM Dec 20, 2006 by Michelle Dennedy in General  |  Comments[4]