Comments on Dan Must Blog: The Ethics of Cyber Sleuthing

Ma'am,

Judging by your most recent follow u...

2008-12-06T14:11:00.000-05:00

Ma'am,

Judging by your most recent follow up, I can only presume we are discussing different entries. You make the following claims:
1. That my entry is the third search result when one Googles your name.
2. That I have interpreted the situation in a way that depicts you in an unfairly negative light.
3. That I have posted your late husband's last name, and/or linked to your family.
4. That I posted a photo of you.

Each of these is false, albeit with varying degrees of importance. The entry does come up as a result for a search of your name, but in the sixth position, not the third. I feel that, aside from two sentences where I actually share my impressions, the situation is simply stated through a series of facebook messages which have been quoted in their entirety. How this is interpreted by others has little to do with any shaping of the truth on my end. Your late husband's last name does not, and has not at any point, been mentioned in this entry. There are no links to any information regarding you or your family, nor are there any links to sites where one could find information on your family (other than to Google itself). Finally, there has never been a photo posted of you. The comment was making reference to the photo you had as your Facebook profile image, which was seen by me when you originally friend requested me for whatever reason.

At this point, the entry makes mention of a woman named Sharon, who is in the Pittsburgh Facebook Network (although she may or may not live in Pittsburgh), whose husband passed away in 2001. While these are identifiers, I feel that they are far too nondescript to cause any possible harm to your reputation or family. Meanwhile, your responses seem to suggest that you have not even taken the time to read the entry. You're flying off the handle over me stating the city you may or not live in, while you have gone and posted your full name and the handle "RadWriter" (which can be linked to various political blogs via their comment sections) in your own comments.

While I can understand the need for some concern regarding one's identity in these modern times, I am quite sure that this entry lacks anywhere near the amount of information one would need to accurately identify you. I will not be removing it, nor will I alter it any further. You are missing the forest for the trees. The entire entry is about ethics, and I have already taken a step back from where I was comfortably positioned, a place of caution and concern. I thought long and hard about the possible ramifications of this entry, and how much information would be too much, and I defaulted to the side of caution.

Sincerely,

Dan Awesome

PS: I accept your apology.

You know, this has been a misunderstanding that is...

2008-12-06T14:03:00.000-05:00

You know, this has been a misunderstanding that is now in a very public forum. I can understand that to Dan -- and I truly have no idea who he is -- that it seemed strange that he got a friend request from some woman three times. I do understand that. And for me, it was strange that someone I didn't know got repeated friend requests. Misunderstandings happen. It was no big deal until it became the third thing someone sees when they google my name. It is a downside of the otherwise amazing cyber world that we can communicate with people without having any sense of who they are. Dan, I apologize for calling you paranoid. I do understand how this looked to you.

yeah dan, be a hero! and speaking of attractive wo...

2008-12-06T13:38:00.000-05:00

yeah dan, be a hero! and speaking of attractive women, i hear yer girlfriend is a fox! i think that since the issue of attractiveness has now come up, you should post that picture of sharon (last name) so we can all judge for ourselves.

And Dan, just removing my last name, while leaving...

2008-12-06T12:32:00.000-05:00

And Dan, just removing my last name, while leaving other identifiers does not do the job.

Dan,
I again very strongly request that you rem...

2008-12-06T12:31:00.000-05:00

Dan,
I again very strongly request that you remove all of this immediately. I found this, to my horror, when I googled my name. It is the third thing anyone sees when they google my name. Although lots of info about me -- and everyone -- is available on the Web, you have put pieces together in a way that clearly portray me as a crazy lady and some kind of cyber stalker creep. It gives my late husband's last name and leads them right to my stepdaughters. For anyone who googles my name, it also leads them right to my relatives. Do you have no senstitivy whatsoever to what this does to my reputation and to my family? You apparently had my photo posted with this earlier and noted you found me attractive. What was your motive for doing that?
As I told you from the first time you contacted me, I don't know how you got a friend request from me in the first place. Other people were living with me and using my computer all the time, and my household workers also have access to my passwords to do things for me on my competer. Maybe I hit on your name accidentally when I meant to hit on someone else's. I don't know. Why didn't you just shelve it the first time when I told you there must be some mistake?
I have, however, figured out how you got repeated requests: I deactivated my Facebook account several times over those months because there were problems. Since you kept my request, whenever I reactivated my account long enough to check my Obama networks and friends, you got the request again.
If you want to just use this as a case example of somethng, then use a pseudonymn for my name and don't give any other identifiers such as the name of my city or year of my husband's death.
Please, Dan Whoeveryouare, be a hero, remove all of this from public view immediately.

I'd have to agree with Dan on this. I think the fa...

2008-12-06T12:09:00.000-05:00

I'd have to agree with Dan on this. I think the fact that she friend requested you in the first place when you clearly don't know her either means:
-her grasp of social networking is probably not so good as it is extremely difficult to accidentally friend request someone and NOT have any idea how it happened (particularly someone she's allegedly never met before and wasn't looking for so how/why would she be looking at your profile in the first place?)
-or she's just being creepy in friending someone she didn't know and is simply a liar.
It seems likely that the requests would keep popping up if she repeatedly deactivated/reactivated her account, but it all boils down to why you were friended in the first place, which again means she either is a liar or just doesn't really understand how Facebook works.
The only thing I think I would have done differently was not post her last name, and maybe I would go so far as to change her first name too. Otherwise any information was readily accessible over the internet and through search engines, so if she's upset that people can find out general information about her then it doesn't make sense to be angry at you, because really everyone's in that situation, just google somebody's name. Interesting post though.

Sharon,

Please understand that my intention...

2008-12-06T11:15:00.000-05:00

Sharon,

Please understand that my intention with this entry was not to publicly accuse you of annoying behavior or put information about you on the internet, but rather, to use a personal experience as a jumping off point from which I could share and explore the ethical issues of information on the internet. You will notice that within the piece, I gave out only the following information:

1. Your name
2. That you very likely live in Pittsburgh
3. That you are a widow
4. That your house transferred ownership in 2002

The fact that you have found my blog means that you have access to far more information about me than what I've posted about you. I made a conscious decision not to put any more information. While your address, former profession, and picture were all available, you will notice that none of them are found on this page. There are no links to additional information, and the one key website I used as the cornerstone of the search isn't even mentioned at all. These were all decisions I made in an effort to stay on the right side of a very hazy line. That said, I defend my actions. I have not given out any information about you that I would not be comfortable having out about myself, as evidenced by the fact that you can find the same information about me within the entries of this blog. I will not be removing this entry. I will, however, apologize for referring to you as "just another crazy old lady". That wasn't meant to be an insult, but rather an explanation of my line of thinking. I also mentioned that you seemed attractive, but I notice you didn't take any offense to that. Is it really fair to pick and choose which of my impressions you're bothered by?

And just so you don't think I am a completely heartless ruffian, unmoved by the personal pleas of a fellow human being, I will remove your last name from the entry. It will take a matter of time for the web crawlers to come around again and remove this page from the Google search results of your name, but eventually it will happen.

Sincerely,

Dan Awesome

PS: I take offense to your misquoting of me. At no time did I say "'Identify yourself!' with an exclamation point." If you look back in your Facebook inbox, you will find that the message in question was from July 23, at 7:15pm and read, as I quoted it in the entry "Once again, I do not know who you are. This is the third time you've friend requested me. Please identify yourself." I have uploaded a screenshot of the conversation as a courtesy, blacking out your last name and picture.

http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d156/Djkimmons/Sharon.jpg

Ms. Voas- Welcome to the world of Dan Kimmons. He ...

2008-12-05T22:32:00.000-05:00

Ms. Voas- Welcome to the world of Dan Kimmons. He is offensive, creepy and inappropriate.

Dan! I think you have your answer in terms of the Ethics of Cyber Sleuthing. Take this down, or at least remove her name.

Dan, I have no idea who you are, what your last na...

2008-12-05T22:29:00.000-05:00

Dan, I have no idea who you are, what your last name is, where you live, nothing of the sort. However it was that you first got a friend request, I think I've figured out how you kept getting requests from me. You said you put the friend request in some pending file. I took down and reopened my Facebook account several times over those months for personal reasons. Each time I reactivated my account, I think it repeated the friend request.
Try putting yourself in the shoes of someone who was not trying to contact you, and didn't know why you were getting repeat messages. Now, read back my replies. If I had been repeatedly trying to contact you, why would I have kept answering: "I don't know you nor why this is happening." Why would I have said, in frustration: "The best thing I can think of to do is just ignore the request or block messages from my name."
You took a nothing occurrence and saw it as something rude and creepy because you simply kept refusing to believe the truth. You wrote: "Identify yourself!" With an exclamation point. That is a command. That is not how you ask someone if she likes pina coladas. But I wasn't someone who was trying to contact you in the first place, and I was pretty fed up that some stranger kept demanding to know who I was and refused to believe me.
I demand you take down these offensive creepy public allegations about me.

2008-12-05T20:36:00.000-05:00

This comment has been removed by the author.

So far in my MLIS education, we have not discussed...

2008-10-01T09:34:00.000-04:00

So far in my MLIS education, we have not discussed this.

Remember, you could have found some of this info without the help of the Internet. If you found her in the white pages, then she is listed, so you could have used a phone book to find her address. The info on the county assessment page is freely available in person through county government. You could have looked up her husband's death in the obituaries. Those are archived at the newspaper, as well as by the county. The big difference is that you didn't have to exert much effort to find the info on the Internet. A little typing and it was in front of you, as opposed to having to hike downtown and visit places and look through things, etc. The point is, the information that you found is not a closely guarded secret.

However. I think you made the right choice by staying on this side of giving out her information. There are internet trolls out there, and you risk the chance of causing her harm or at least annoyance by providing them with her information. Odds are that nothing would happen: but is it really necessary to take that chance with someone who has not harmed you in any way? Perhaps you should not have included her full name in this post.

I do have a problem with the amazon.com thing. Chances are that amazon was working diligently on fixing that particular hole, so anyone who tried it would soon be frustrated. Despite that, aiding and abetting (encouraging, even!) someone taking advantage of a system flaw to violate the contract is unethical, in my opinion, even if you know that it won't work for much longer.

I guess what my ethics boil down to is manners. Even if you don't think your actions will directly hurt anyone, you shouldn't do something if it's rude.