Privacy issues and how they relate to your profile

[+addisonbr]

I just don't necessarily like letting people see every photo I've ever taken all at once, without asking me first.

Are you ever going to say "no"?

I would depend on the situation. I can think of a couple of situations where I definitely would say no. I would guess than in most situations I would say yes. I don't think it's too much of an imposition for someone to tell me who they are in exchange for seeing all of my photos. If someone did have a problem with that, I'd probably be a little weirded out anyway.

 

But I still like having some control over easy access to my entire gallery of every photo I've ever taken, all at once.

How does it harm you if someone can see all your public photos at once?

I'd prefer to have at least some control over (for example) hundreds of photos of my kids. I don't know that it hurts other people to ask first. I don't mind the a photo here and there to an owner's cache page, but that doesn't necessarily mean I'd like to publish an easily organized gallery of hundreds or thousands of photos of my family. Sometimes I just want to share a photo.

 

I think there is a potential middle ground between "drop off the grid entirely" and "have a completely open profile".

[+addisonbr]

My working theory is that with additional controls, more photos will be uploaded to the site for cachers and cache owners to enjoy, which I think would be a great benefit. I do acknowledge that many folks would happily keep their profiles open, which I think is great.

I've seen sites with these kind of controls in place. They end up with very little publicly viewable content.

 

So I'd rather have fewer photos that everyone can see, anytime, anywhere.

 

How do you know that many would keep their profiles open? So many people are scared of identity theft that I'd bet they'll pick every option to hide things in a false belief it gives them privacy/security/protection.

If the photos are still available at the cache / event level, the publicly viewable content wouldn't actually be affected negatively. The only thing that would be affected would be people's ability to go to addisonbr's profile to see all of his photos all at once.

 

If people (like me) get more comfortable posting photos with some additional controls, they would likely add more photos to cache pages. I know I would. The only photo currently in my gallery is a web cam ALR. With more control, I'd add more photos to cache pages, which would increase the viewable content for cache owners and any visitors to those cache pages.

[+Avernar]

I don't think it's too much of an imposition for someone to tell me who they are in exchange for seeing all of my photos. If someone did have a problem with that, I'd probably be a little weirded out anyway.

So you want to invade someone's privacy by asking them to tell you who they really are in order to see your public photos? And you say you would be weirded out in that situation?

 

I'd prefer to have at least some control over (for example) hundreds of photos of my kids.

Don't post hundreds of photos of your kids publicly. That would be a perfect example where a site like flickr would be better.

 

I don't know that it hurts other people to ask first.

Asking doesn't hurt. Giving out their private info does.

[+addisonbr]

So you want to invade someone's privacy by asking them to tell you who they really are in order to see your public photos? And you say you would be weirded out in that situation? ... Asking doesn't hurt. Giving out their private info does.

Just their geocaching.com profile name would be enough for me.

 

If they don't want to give that out, they can still see any photos that I've posted to cache pages, no problem. They just can't get to a sorted, organized gallery with every photo I've ever taken in one place.

 

Don't post hundreds of photos of your kids publicly. That would be a perfect example where a site like flickr would be better.

Yes, it's definitely an option, and the way things are set it's how I lean.

 

It would be nice if there was an option between "erase all electronic presence entirely" and "100% open profile to the world", that's all I'm saying. A bit of control would go a long way.

[+Gorak]

In the past, I've posted a number of photos of myself at caches as a condition of logging those caches. Recently I went into my gallery and deleted all of those photos. Beyond those deleted photos, I leave no personally identifying information in my GC profile although it certainly would not be difficult to figure out what city I live in based on my cache finds.

 

While I don't know if I would use it, it would be nice if we had the ability to disable our specific list of found or placed caches in our public profile. However, it's certainly not something important enough to me that I would push for the change.

[+NYPaddleCacher]

I probably wouldn't bother to click through to someone's flickr page, but paging through a gallery on the cache page is fun to do.

And looking through a cacher's photo gallery is not fun to do?

 

So as long as it meets your definition of fun it should be allowed? Everything else shouldn't?

 

I'm just trying to understand your logic here.

 

It sounds more like you just want an argument.

 

Pretty much every operating system that I've seen (and I've seen a lot of them since the mid 1970's) and most robust applications that implement a permissions model will have at least three levels of access control; owners, groups, and others. It sounds to me that what addisonbr would like is be about to deny access to "others" but grant access to those associated with a group (a geocaching friends list). It's an extremely common access model, and since GS already has the notion of an "owner" (the user associated with a profile), groups (those on a friends list) , and others (everyone else). Since they've already got the data model, it's a matter of implementing some business logic and a UI that will allow any geocachers with a user account to have greater control over their profile. As is the case, with most access control systems it's typically pretty easy just to grant access to everyone.

[+briansnat]

I didn't need that tinfoil hat. But my two stalker's sure as hell did. Let me tell you a little story, and hopefully I won't bore you. It actually happened a few months before I started Geocaching (Thankfully, which allowed me to choose a different online alias for this website), but say, for the sake of arguement, it happened after I started Geocaching.

 

I somehow acquired, in a usenet newsgroup, two completely whacked-out obsessed cyberstalkers. In a nutshell, they theorized I was messing with them with dozens of sock puppets. None of this was true, and a logical thinking person, when seeing the proof of this via IP addresses, would have dismissed it in a second. Well, whacked-out, obsessed cyberstalkers are not logical thinking person(s).

 

These guys spent every waking hour for months trying to tie any instance of my username on the internet from 1994-2003 to my real name and address, including reading every sentence of everything I ever posted to the web for clues to my identity. They actually *DID* stumble on my real name and address, but discarded it a fake, due to their bizarre conspiracy theory of me being the commander of an Army of internet Sock puppets. One of these two guys was certified rubber room material, and threatened to have me sent to jail for violation of the Ricoh act, among other things.

 

Now how would you like these two guys following you around on Geocaching.com? I certainly would have been using the same username on here that I did all over the internet since 1994. Them knowing the general area you live in from your cache placements? Seeing where you are every time you find a cache? Seeing if you are in another town 150 miles away for a weekend by your cache finds? Most importantly reading every word of every cache log I ever posted? Anyone ever posted a "closest cache to my house, only .45 miles away" log? I know I have.

 

I'm a big boy, and I can take it, but it really does sort of tick me off when I see comments like "stay off the internet if you don't like it". No one wants to be stalked, and more importantly, no one expects to be stalked. Yepper, when I typed that I live in Buffalo, NY in a 300 word post to a college basketball message board in 1997, I really expected an obsessed lunatic to look for it and find it on page 67 of a Google search in 2003.

 

Thanks for reading, anyone who got through that. And by the way, I have no problem with Souvenirs.

 

That is a disturbing story. I had someone sort of stalk me from this very forum sending me a creepy e-mail that mentioned intimate details of my life. Now I don't cover my tracks well. I don't cover them at all. If you Google my user name, within 30 minutes you will probably know more about me than you do about many of your friends.

 

The idea however that someone would take the time to do that, then email me with the results was somewhat disquieting.

 

Anybody who wants total anonymity should never use the Internet. But for the most part people can be pretty darn anonymous if they take steps to do so. Being careful about personal information they post in forums, using proxy servers, never divulging their real name, staying off social networking sites, using totally different user names from site to site and other measures would make it extremely difficult for someone to track you down.

 

It's a matter of how anonymous you want to be. Me? I don't care. Hopefully it will never come back to bite me. But for someone who is already on this site, I don't see souvenirs as an additional threat to privacy..

[+briansnat]

My working theory is that with additional controls, more photos will be uploaded to the site for cachers and cache owners to enjoy, which I think would be a great benefit. I do acknowledge that many folks would happily keep their profiles open, which I think is great.

I've seen sites with these kind of controls in place. They end up with very little publicly viewable content.

 

So I'd rather have fewer photos that everyone can see, anytime, anywhere.

 

How do you know that many would keep their profiles open? So many people are scared of identity theft that I'd bet they'll pick every option to hide things in a false belief it gives them privacy/security/protection.

 

I can see both arguments, but in the end nobody is compelled to upload photographs. I think that being able to see the photographs that other cachers CHOOSE to post is part of what contributes to the sense of community here. I click on someone's profile and can see someone in Colorado, or California or Germany having the same kind of fun that I'm having. To me it helps cement the sense of community.

 

Add Facebook or Flickr-like controls and that is generally out the window. More people may post photos, but fewer people will be able to see them. Our controls are already as good as Facebook, Flickr's and others. If you don't want people to see your photos, don't post them on the Internet in the first place.

[+addisonbr]

Our controls are already as good as Facebook, Flickr's and others.

I wasn't aware that there were any profile controls here on geocaching.com, but I might be misunderstanding something.

[+briansnat]

Our controls are already as good as Facebook, Flickr's and others.

I wasn't aware that there were any profile controls here on geocaching.com, but I might be misunderstanding something.

 

At the most basic level they are the same. If you are afraid of the wrong person seeing the photo, don't post it on the Internet.

[+addisonbr]

At the most basic level they are the same. If you are afraid of the wrong person seeing the photo, don't post it on the Internet.

Ah! Yes, I just find myself hoping there is a solution other than dropping off the grid entirely.

[+briansnat]

At the most basic level they are the same. If you are afraid of the wrong person seeing the photo, don't post it on the Internet.

Ah! Yes, I just find myself hoping there is a solution other than dropping off the grid entirely.

 

Post photos you don't mind anybody seeing. I've seen some cachers who have extensive galleries but you will not see a photo of that cacher or any other individual. You see photos of the scenery, the cache itself, other details of the hunt, but no people. I think that's cool if you want to go that way. Apparently some people have made that choice.

Edited November 25, 2010 by briansnat

[+addisonbr]

Post photos you don't mind anybody seeing. I've seen some cachers who have extensive galleries but you will not see a photo of that cacher or any other individual. You see photos of the scenery, the cache itself, other details of the hunt, but no people. I think that's cool if you want to go that way. Apparently some people have made that choice.

Yes, limiting things in that way is an option. Either post no photos of all, or make sure that none of your photos have people in them.

 

I just wish there was an option that would make me comfortable adding a lot more (social) photos to cache pages. I like leaving long logs, and as an extension of that would love to leave photos as well. (Sometimes I mail photos to cache owners, but it would be cool to post them to the site for others to enjoy as well.)

[+John in Valley Forge]

At the most basic level they are the same. If you are afraid of the wrong person seeing the photo, don't post it on the Internet.

Ah! Yes, I just find myself hoping there is a solution other than dropping off the grid entirely.

 

Post photos you don't mind anybody seeing. I've seen some cachers who have extensive galleries but you will not see a photo of that cacher or any other individual. You see photos of the scenery, the cache itself, other details of the hunt, but no people. I think that's cool if you want to go that way. Apparently some people have made that choice.

 

That is pretty much the tact I have decided to take after reading how some people feel about privacy around here. Since it is my privacy I want protected, I will not rely on someone else to protect it.

[+briansnat]

At the most basic level they are the same. If you are afraid of the wrong person seeing the photo, don't post it on the Internet.

Ah! Yes, I just find myself hoping there is a solution other than dropping off the grid entirely.

 

Post photos you don't mind anybody seeing. I've seen some cachers who have extensive galleries but you will not see a photo of that cacher or any other individual. You see photos of the scenery, the cache itself, other details of the hunt, but no people. I think that's cool if you want to go that way. Apparently some people have made that choice.

 

That is pretty much the tact I have decided to take after reading how some people feel about privacy around here. Since it is my privacy I want protected, I will not rely on someone else to protect it.

 

That's the key. You are your own privacy control.

[+Avernar]

Just their geocaching.com profile name would be enough for me.

What does knowing their cacher name give you?

 

Sounds what you really just want is a log of all the people who looked through your photos.

[+Avernar]

It sounds more like you just want an argument.

No, I don't just want an argument. I just want to understand why slowing down someone who wants to look at your photos has any kind of benefit.

 

Pretty much every operating system that I've seen (and I've seen a lot of them since the mid 1970's) and most robust applications that implement a permissions model will have at least three levels of access control; owners, groups, and others. It sounds to me that what addisonbr would like is be about to deny access to "others" but grant access to those associated with a group (a geocaching friends list).

Nope. That's what Lone R wants.

 

Addisonbr wants to have files scattered all over the hard drive to be world accessible but a hardlink of all those files in one directory to be group accessible.

 

Lone R's argument I understand and haven't "just want an argument" with him. Addisonbr on the other hand makes no sense to me. You can still see all the pictures, it would just take you longer to do it. What's the point then?

Edited November 25, 2010 by Avernar

[+Avernar]

I can see both arguments, but in the end nobody is compelled to upload photographs. I think that being able to see the photographs that other cachers CHOOSE to post is part of what contributes to the sense of community here. I click on someone's profile and can see someone in Colorado, or California or Germany having the same kind of fun that I'm having. To me it helps cement the sense of community.

 

Add Facebook or Flickr-like controls and that is generally out the window. More people may post photos, but fewer people will be able to see them. Our controls are already as good as Facebook, Flickr's and others. If you don't want people to see your photos, don't post them on the Internet in the first place.

That's pretty much what I'm saying but much more eloquently.

[+John in Valley Forge]

Just their geocaching.com profile name would be enough for me.

What does knowing their cacher name give you?

 

Sounds what you really just want is a log of all the people who looked through your photos.

 

I don't know. There are names I recognize all the time, from cache logs and from here. If there were such controls, some of those people would get permission and some would not.

[+The Jester]

I don't mind the a photo here and there to an owner's cache page, but that doesn't necessarily mean I'd like to publish an easily organized gallery of hundreds or thousands of photos of my family. Sometimes I just want to share a photo.

 

I think there is a potential middle ground between "drop off the grid entirely" and "have a completely open profile".

Sorry, I don't buy it. I just can't believe that you would post all your pictures here on GC if the controls were in place. Why in the world would you be posting all your family photos ("every picture I've ever taken") on a geocaching site? All those photo of your kids birthday parties, family vacations, holidays, etc? AFAIK the only way to get photos in the gallery is by posting to a cache page, so you would then post "everything" (your words) to cache pages - which you "don't mind a photo here or there", but that doesn't come close to "hundreds or thousands" of photos which you would have to post to have them all in the gallery. You seem to be arguing just to argue about nothing.

[+sanssheriff]

 

...But for the most part people can be pretty darn anonymous if they take steps to do so. Being careful about personal information they post in forums, using proxy servers, never divulging their real name, staying off social networking sites, using totally different user names from site to site and other measures would make it extremely difficult for someone to track you down.

 

It's a matter of how anonymous you want to be. Me? I don't care. Hopefully it will never come back to bite me. But for someone who is already on this site, I don't see souvenirs as an additional threat to privacy..

 

 

That is pretty much the tact I have decided to take after reading how some people feel about privacy around here. Since it is my privacy I want protected, I will not rely on someone else to protect it.

Not meaning to discount what others have said here, but in my opinion these statements sum it all up. Take steps to protect your own privacy.

 

I also see no added security threat from having these souvenirs.

[+addisonbr]

Just their geocaching.com profile name would be enough for me.

What does knowing their cacher name give you?

It allows me to have a little control over who has access to my profile/gallery. There are some I might not want to grant that access to. It's similar to the controls on other social networking sites, some which use real names, some which don't.

[+addisonbr]

Addisonbr wants to have files scattered all over the hard drive to be world accessible but a hardlink of all those files in one directory to be group accessible.

Yes, that's pretty much exactly right.

[+addisonbr]

Just their geocaching.com profile name would be enough for me.

What does knowing their cacher name give you?

 

Sounds what you really just want is a log of all the people who looked through your photos.

 

I don't know. There are names I recognize all the time, from cache logs and from here. If there were such controls, some of those people would get permission and some would not.

+1

[+addisonbr]

Sorry, I don't buy it. I just can't believe that you would post all your pictures here on GC if the controls were in place. Why in the world would you be posting all your family photos ("every picture I've ever taken") on a geocaching site? All those photo of your kids birthday parties, family vacations, holidays, etc? AFAIK the only way to get photos in the gallery is by posting to a cache page, so you would then post "everything" (your words) to cache pages - which you "don't mind a photo here or there", but that doesn't come close to "hundreds or thousands" of photos which you would have to post to have them all in the gallery. You seem to be arguing just to argue about nothing.

Ah, yes, this is a simple misunderstanding. I was using "every photo" as a shorthand for "every photo I've uploaded to geocaching.com". I of course would not be interested in posting photos of kids birthday parties, family vacations, holidays etc. here. But there are cachers here with galleries that include hundreds and even thousands of photos. I do apologize for the miscommunication if people thought I wanted to use geocaching.com as a storage place for all of my non-geocaching photos as well - I didn't intend to give that impression.

 

I'm not arguing about nothing, but am happy to reply politely to clear up any misunderstandings about my thoughts about the profile.

[+John in Valley Forge]

 

Addisonbr wants to have files scattered all over the hard drive to be world accessible but a hardlink of all those files in one directory to be group accessible.

 

Lone R's argument I understand and haven't "just want an argument" with him. Addisonbr on the other hand makes no sense to me. You can still see all the pictures, it would just take you longer to do it. What's the point then?

 

I think the difference would be that when I upload a photograph to a cache log, my intent is to share that photograph with the CO and those persons interested in that particular cache. Not necessarily for everyone and anyone on the site to look at.

[+narcissa]

Sometimes people complain because I use the in-site email to contact other geocachers and I don't attach my real email address. The peer pressure to reveal your email address to anybody who wants it strikes me as more insidious, privacy-wise, than anything Groundspeak does or doesn't do with my profile.

[+addisonbr]

Not meaning to discount what others have said here, but in my opinion these statements sum it all up. Take steps to protect your own privacy.

I think, at the end of the day, this is very right. To the extent that those steps include setting the controls on your profile appropriately, that should be done. If those controls don't exist, a different approach may be warranted.

 

And at the end of the day, regardless of the settings, you're still ultimately responsible for what you put out there.

[+John in Valley Forge]

Sometimes people complain because I use the in-site email to contact other geocachers and I don't attach my real email address. The peer pressure to reveal your email address to anybody who wants it strikes me as more insidious, privacy-wise, than anything Groundspeak does or doesn't do with my profile.

 

When I realized it did that, I created a sock-puppet email address just for use with this site.

[+addisonbr]

Sometimes people complain because I use the in-site email to contact other geocachers and I don't attach my real email address. The peer pressure to reveal your email address to anybody who wants it strikes me as more insidious, privacy-wise, than anything Groundspeak does or doesn't do with my profile.

Oh, that's interesting. I do find it a bit inconvenient to maintain a conversational thread when that happens, but it's never dawned on me to be annoyed with the other person or certainly not to complain to them. I just found myself wishing that instead of a return address of "noreply@geocaching.com", that messages like that could be sent with some sort of scrambled gobbledegook return address that could bounce through the gc.com servers and get to the right place (without me needing to see any information that people didn't want to share).

[+narcissa]

Sometimes people complain because I use the in-site email to contact other geocachers and I don't attach my real email address. The peer pressure to reveal your email address to anybody who wants it strikes me as more insidious, privacy-wise, than anything Groundspeak does or doesn't do with my profile.

 

When I realized it did that, I created a sock-puppet email address just for use with this site.

 

I could do that, but I prefer to have email from strangers go through the site because Groundspeak tracks it. Occasionally someone takes the forum a little too seriously and tries to take things to email, where they think they can get away with abusive language that won't fly on the forum. By forcing them to go through the site in order to contact me, that kind of behaviour can be quickly nipped in the bud. Recently I had a guy go nuts on me because I had been holding onto his TB for two weeks. Dealing with that would have been much trickier if it was external to Groundspeak.

 

*edit* Of course, smart people figure out that they can contact me through my blog, but smart people aren't usually the ones flipping out over TBs or a thread about swag.

Edited November 25, 2010 by narcissa

[+narcissa]

Sometimes people complain because I use the in-site email to contact other geocachers and I don't attach my real email address. The peer pressure to reveal your email address to anybody who wants it strikes me as more insidious, privacy-wise, than anything Groundspeak does or doesn't do with my profile.

Oh, that's interesting. I do find it a bit inconvenient to maintain a conversational thread when that happens, but it's never dawned on me to be annoyed with the other person or certainly not to complain to them. I just found myself wishing that instead of a return address of "noreply@geocaching.com", that messages like that could be sent with some sort of scrambled gobbledegook return address that could bounce through the gc.com servers and get to the right place (without me needing to see any information that people didn't want to share).

 

Yeah, that would be nice.

 

Once I establish a rapport with another geocacher, I'll go ahead and start conversing through email. I just like to weed out the psychos.

[+northernpenguin]

 

*edit* Of course, smart people figure out that they can contact me through my blog, but smart people aren't usually the ones flipping out over TBs or a thread about swag.

 

Trashmail.net deals with them nicely. And also with sign you up for spam website forms too.

[+Avernar]

It allows me to have a little control over who has access to my profile/gallery. There are some I might not want to grant that access to. It's similar to the controls on other social networking sites, some which use real names, some which don't.

A little control and the illusion of privacy.

 

I wouldn't argue against a blacklist where you could exclude people from from looking at your stuff however.

[+Avernar]

I think the difference would be that when I upload a photograph to a cache log, my intent is to share that photograph with the CO and those persons interested in that particular cache. Not necessarily for everyone and anyone on the site to look at.

But that's not the intent of the site. It was designed to share with everyone. That's how you build a large community.

 

Facebook and other sites like it are not a community. They're a vast collection of little tribes. When I go to Facebook all I learn is what's going on in my little group. While nice it doesn't hold my attention for too long.

 

The Geocaching site on the other hand I get to see what's going on all over the Province, Country or World if I choose to look. More more rich in content.

[+LukeTrocity]

I didn't need that tinfoil hat. But my two stalker's sure as hell did. Let me tell you a little story, and hopefully I won't bore you. It actually happened a few months before I started Geocaching (Thankfully, which allowed me to choose a different online alias for this website), but say, for the sake of arguement, it happened after I started Geocaching.

 

I somehow acquired, in a usenet newsgroup, two completely whacked-out obsessed cyberstalkers. In a nutshell, they theorized I was messing with them with dozens of sock puppets. None of this was true, and a logical thinking person, when seeing the proof of this via IP addresses, would have dismissed it in a second. Well, whacked-out, obsessed cyberstalkers are not logical thinking person(s).

 

These guys spent every waking hour for months trying to tie any instance of my username on the internet from 1994-2003 to my real name and address, including reading every sentence of everything I ever posted to the web for clues to my identity. They actually *DID* stumble on my real name and address, but discarded it a fake, due to their bizarre conspiracy theory of me being the commander of an Army of internet Sock puppets. One of these two guys was certified rubber room material, and threatened to have me sent to jail for violation of the Ricoh act, among other things.

 

Now how would you like these two guys following you around on Geocaching.com? I certainly would have been using the same username on here that I did all over the internet since 1994. Them knowing the general area you live in from your cache placements? Seeing where you are every time you find a cache? Seeing if you are in another town 150 miles away for a weekend by your cache finds? Most importantly reading every word of every cache log I ever posted? Anyone ever posted a "closest cache to my house, only .45 miles away" log? I know I have.

 

I'm a big boy, and I can take it, but it really does sort of tick me off when I see comments like "stay off the internet if you don't like it". No one wants to be stalked, and more importantly, no one expects to be stalked. Yepper, when I typed that I live in Buffalo, NY in a 300 word post to a college basketball message board in 1997, I really expected an obsessed lunatic to look for it and find it on page 67 of a Google search in 2003.

 

Thanks for reading, anyone who got through that. And by the way, I have no problem with Souvenirs.

 

That is a disturbing story. I had someone sort of stalk me from this very forum sending me a creepy e-mail that mentioned intimate details of my life. Now I don't cover my tracks well. I don't cover them at all. If you Google my user name, within 30 minutes you will probably know more about me than you do about many of your friends.

 

The idea however that someone would take the time to do that, then email me with the results was somewhat disquieting.

 

Anybody who wants total anonymity should never use the Internet. But for the most part people can be pretty darn anonymous if they take steps to do so. Being careful about personal information they post in forums, using proxy servers, never divulging their real name, staying off social networking sites, using totally different user names from site to site and other measures would make it extremely difficult for someone to track you down.

 

It's a matter of how anonymous you want to be. Me? I don't care. Hopefully it will never come back to bite me. But for someone who is already on this site, I don't see souvenirs as an additional threat to privacy..

 

Dude your not kidding, you seriously have nothing covered! In 30 seconds I got your full name, address, facebook, youtube channel ( I did manuncachunk tunnels too), and found out you had surgery over the summer. I thought I was bad, but my online profile and actual info are relatively separate.

[+addisonbr]

A little control and the illusion of privacy.

I don't think I'd suffer from the misconception that any photos I've posted to the site are truly private, regardless of what settings are enabled on the site.

 

But I do see some value in having a little control over how the information is organized.

[+addisonbr]

But that's not the intent of the site. It was designed to share with everyone. That's how you build a large community.

Yes, and that's one thing I really like about cache pages - that they're shared with everyone. You do need to log in, it's true, but once logged in you can see any cache in the world, all of the logs for that cache, any of the photos, etc. (I suppose excepting premium member caches, but that is Groundspeak's call, not mine.)

[+briansnat]

I didn't need that tinfoil hat. But my two stalker's sure as hell did. Let me tell you a little story, and hopefully I won't bore you. It actually happened a few months before I started Geocaching (Thankfully, which allowed me to choose a different online alias for this website), but say, for the sake of arguement, it happened after I started Geocaching.

 

I somehow acquired, in a usenet newsgroup, two completely whacked-out obsessed cyberstalkers. In a nutshell, they theorized I was messing with them with dozens of sock puppets. None of this was true, and a logical thinking person, when seeing the proof of this via IP addresses, would have dismissed it in a second. Well, whacked-out, obsessed cyberstalkers are not logical thinking person(s).

 

These guys spent every waking hour for months trying to tie any instance of my username on the internet from 1994-2003 to my real name and address, including reading every sentence of everything I ever posted to the web for clues to my identity. They actually *DID* stumble on my real name and address, but discarded it a fake, due to their bizarre conspiracy theory of me being the commander of an Army of internet Sock puppets. One of these two guys was certified rubber room material, and threatened to have me sent to jail for violation of the Ricoh act, among other things.

 

Now how would you like these two guys following you around on Geocaching.com? I certainly would have been using the same username on here that I did all over the internet since 1994. Them knowing the general area you live in from your cache placements? Seeing where you are every time you find a cache? Seeing if you are in another town 150 miles away for a weekend by your cache finds? Most importantly reading every word of every cache log I ever posted? Anyone ever posted a "closest cache to my house, only .45 miles away" log? I know I have.

 

I'm a big boy, and I can take it, but it really does sort of tick me off when I see comments like "stay off the internet if you don't like it". No one wants to be stalked, and more importantly, no one expects to be stalked. Yepper, when I typed that I live in Buffalo, NY in a 300 word post to a college basketball message board in 1997, I really expected an obsessed lunatic to look for it and find it on page 67 of a Google search in 2003.

 

Thanks for reading, anyone who got through that. And by the way, I have no problem with Souvenirs.

 

That is a disturbing story. I had someone sort of stalk me from this very forum sending me a creepy e-mail that mentioned intimate details of my life. Now I don't cover my tracks well. I don't cover them at all. If you Google my user name, within 30 minutes you will probably know more about me than you do about many of your friends.

 

The idea however that someone would take the time to do that, then email me with the results was somewhat disquieting.

 

Anybody who wants total anonymity should never use the Internet. But for the most part people can be pretty darn anonymous if they take steps to do so. Being careful about personal information they post in forums, using proxy servers, never divulging their real name, staying off social networking sites, using totally different user names from site to site and other measures would make it extremely difficult for someone to track you down.

 

It's a matter of how anonymous you want to be. Me? I don't care. Hopefully it will never come back to bite me. But for someone who is already on this site, I don't see souvenirs as an additional threat to privacy..

 

Dude your not kidding, you seriously have nothing covered! In 30 seconds I got your full name, address, facebook, youtube channel ( I did manuncachunk tunnels too), and found out you had surgery over the summer. I thought I was bad, but my online profile and actual info are relatively separate.

 

Your bad, I had surgery last year. Now that you know all of this please don't stalk me

Edited November 25, 2010 by briansnat

[+John in Valley Forge]

I think the difference would be that when I upload a photograph to a cache log, my intent is to share that photograph with the CO and those persons interested in that particular cache. Not necessarily for everyone and anyone on the site to look at.

But that's not the intent of the site. It was designed to share with everyone. That's how you build a large community.

 

Facebook and other sites like it are not a community. They're a vast collection of little tribes. When I go to Facebook all I learn is what's going on in my little group. While nice it doesn't hold my attention for too long.

 

The Geocaching site on the other hand I get to see what's going on all over the Province, Country or World if I choose to look. More more rich in content.

 

That may have been the intent of the site when it was developed. I don't know the intent.

As far as this being a community, yes I suppose it is. And like any community, it is filled with all kinds of people. Some you want to associate with and some you don't.

 

I am a solo cacher, though I have met many others on the trail and at events. I've enjoyed meeting every one of them.

 

I came to the forums to learn some more about Geocaching. I also learned a lot about geocachers. The forums however, seem about as tribal as it can get. There is the Altoid tin tribe vs the ammo can tribe. The LPC tribe vs the deep woods tribe. The long hike tribe vs the power trail tribe. The GPSr tribe vs the Smartphone tribe. The veteran tribe vs the noobs tribe. etc etc etc. Sometimes they get along with each other, other times it seems they don't.

 

Some I might want to share photos with, some I might not.

 

Sometimes they get along, most times they don't

Edited November 25, 2010 by John in Valley Forge

[+TheAlabamaRambler]

Worried about privacy? Don't post pics taken with your GPS-enabled smartphone!

 

http://www.room362.com/blog/2010/6/25/get-...o-blocking.html

 

Check online pics at http://regex.info/exif.cgi

Edited November 25, 2010 by TheAlabamaRambler

[Mr.Yuck]

I didn't need that tinfoil hat. But my two stalker's sure as hell did. Let me tell you a little story, and hopefully I won't bore you. It actually happened a few months before I started Geocaching (Thankfully, which allowed me to choose a different online alias for this website), but say, for the sake of arguement, it happened after I started Geocaching.

 

I somehow acquired, in a usenet newsgroup, two completely whacked-out obsessed cyberstalkers. In a nutshell, they theorized I was messing with them with dozens of sock puppets. None of this was true, and a logical thinking person, when seeing the proof of this via IP addresses, would have dismissed it in a second. Well, whacked-out, obsessed cyberstalkers are not logical thinking person(s).

 

These guys spent every waking hour for months trying to tie any instance of my username on the internet from 1994-2003 to my real name and address, including reading every sentence of everything I ever posted to the web for clues to my identity. They actually *DID* stumble on my real name and address, but discarded it a fake, due to their bizarre conspiracy theory of me being the commander of an Army of internet Sock puppets. One of these two guys was certified rubber room material, and threatened to have me sent to jail for violation of the Ricoh act, among other things.

 

Now how would you like these two guys following you around on Geocaching.com? I certainly would have been using the same username on here that I did all over the internet since 1994. Them knowing the general area you live in from your cache placements? Seeing where you are every time you find a cache? Seeing if you are in another town 150 miles away for a weekend by your cache finds? Most importantly reading every word of every cache log I ever posted? Anyone ever posted a "closest cache to my house, only .45 miles away" log? I know I have.

 

I'm a big boy, and I can take it, but it really does sort of tick me off when I see comments like "stay off the internet if you don't like it". No one wants to be stalked, and more importantly, no one expects to be stalked. Yepper, when I typed that I live in Buffalo, NY in a 300 word post to a college basketball message board in 1997, I really expected an obsessed lunatic to look for it and find it on page 67 of a Google search in 2003.

 

Thanks for reading, anyone who got through that. And by the way, I have no problem with Souvenirs.

 

That is a disturbing story. I had someone sort of stalk me from this very forum sending me a creepy e-mail that mentioned intimate details of my life. Now I don't cover my tracks well. I don't cover them at all. If you Google my user name, within 30 minutes you will probably know more about me than you do about many of your friends.

 

The idea however that someone would take the time to do that, then email me with the results was somewhat disquieting.

 

Anybody who wants total anonymity should never use the Internet. But for the most part people can be pretty darn anonymous if they take steps to do so. Being careful about personal information they post in forums, using proxy servers, never divulging their real name, staying off social networking sites, using totally different user names from site to site and other measures would make it extremely difficult for someone to track you down.

 

It's a matter of how anonymous you want to be. Me? I don't care. Hopefully it will never come back to bite me. But for someone who is already on this site, I don't see souvenirs as an additional threat to privacy..

 

Dude your not kidding, you seriously have nothing covered! In 30 seconds I got your full name, address, facebook, youtube channel ( I did manuncachunk tunnels too), and found out you had surgery over the summer. I thought I was bad, but my online profile and actual info are relatively separate.

 

Your bad, I had surgery last year. Now that you know all of this please don't stalk me

 

Well, he's not that hard to find, he's practially using his full name anyways. All my stuff happened long before Mybook or Facespace. Me, I'd never use my real name on the internet, ever, after my experience. I guess my main point is, you can kill a Facebook account yourself as quickly as you could type www.facebook.com into your browser and click a link. What if you had stalker problems on Geocaching.com? You'd be told "there's a history behind your account, and there's nothing we can do". TPTB seem to be going full throttle towards the social media thing. Why not offer the same tools one would have at one of the social media websites?

[+Sagefox]

...I think that being able to see the photographs that other cachers CHOOSE to post is part of what contributes to the sense of community here. I click on someone's profile and can see someone in Colorado, or California or Germany having the same kind of fun that I'm having. To me it helps cement the sense of community.

 

Yep. This is what it is all about for me.

 

And there are other benefits from photos. I once observed a forum regular (who hasn't been active for several years) tear apart a relatively new forum poster. He went after her hard with several posts. If he had just taken the time to look at her profile photo he would have seen that she was 13 years old and, up to that point, had been having a lot of fun with the game. I'm sure his comments would have been much softer.

[+addisonbr]

He went after her hard with several posts. If he had just taken the time to look at her profile photo he would have seen that she was 13 years old and, up to that point, had been having a lot of fun with the game. I'm sure his comments would have been much softer.

I suspect that no matter what controls are or are not introduced, profile photos or icons would still be generally viewable. (I also gently suspect that everyone being able to page through every bit of history and every photo in the profile of 13-year-old girl cachers is not the best argument *against* profile controls...)

[+L0ne.R]

He went after her hard with several posts. If he had just taken the time to look at her profile photo he would have seen that she was 13 years old and, up to that point, had been having a lot of fun with the game. I'm sure his comments would have been much softer.

I suspect that no matter what controls are or are not introduced, profile photos or icons would still be generally viewable. (I also gently suspect that everyone being able to page through every bit of history and every photo in the profile of 13-year-old girl cachers is not the best argument *against* profile controls...)

 

Surely people can understand how a parent might want their child's account to have more privacy applications. Then again maybe people think children shouldn't have accounts on geocaching.com. Or maybe people think that a female child should have more sense then to post her photo on geocaching.com. Or that a parent should have more sense then to allow a child to post their photo on gc. Or maybe people think that privacy for a child is not necessary because the community-aspect of geocaching.com far outweighs any perceived risk to a child.

[+Avernar]

Surely people can understand how a parent might want their child's account to have more privacy applications. Then again maybe people think children shouldn't have accounts on geocaching.com. Or maybe people think that a female child should have more sense then to post her photo on geocaching.com. Or that a parent should have more sense then to allow a child to post their photo on gc. Or maybe people think that privacy for a child is not necessary because the community-aspect of geocaching.com far outweighs any perceived risk to a child.

You're looking at it from the wrong angle. The child's account should be linked to the parents account and the parent would approve photo uploads and friends requests of the child. That's how online gaming services do it.

[+narcissa]

He went after her hard with several posts. If he had just taken the time to look at her profile photo he would have seen that she was 13 years old and, up to that point, had been having a lot of fun with the game. I'm sure his comments would have been much softer.

I suspect that no matter what controls are or are not introduced, profile photos or icons would still be generally viewable. (I also gently suspect that everyone being able to page through every bit of history and every photo in the profile of 13-year-old girl cachers is not the best argument *against* profile controls...)

 

That's kind of unfortunate, but are we really to be expected to vet a profile before replying in the forum? I look at the info in the side bar and that's it (and sometimes I don't even look at that). I find it pretty distasteful when someone's first reaction to a disagreement is to scurry over to my main profile and comb it for personal info. I have had lots of disagreements with people in this forum, but it's rare that I ever look at someone's profile. I don't think the profile is relevant to the forum unless someone specifically draws attention to it.

[+northernpenguin]

 

That's kind of unfortunate, but are we really to be expected to vet a profile before replying in the forum? I look at the info in the side bar and that's it (and sometimes I don't even look at that). I find it pretty distasteful when someone's first reaction to a disagreement is to scurry over to my main profile and comb it for personal info. I have had lots of disagreements with people in this forum, but it's rare that I ever look at someone's profile. I don't think the profile is relevant to the forum unless someone specifically draws attention to it.

 

Yup. One should attack discuss the idea, not the individual.

Who typed it should be irrelevant in most cases. Can't really fault a poster for not performing a background check on the person before replying.

[+John in Valley Forge]

 

That's kind of unfortunate, but are we really to be expected to vet a profile before replying in the forum? I look at the info in the side bar and that's it (and sometimes I don't even look at that). I find it pretty distasteful when someone's first reaction to a disagreement is to scurry over to my main profile and comb it for personal info. I have had lots of disagreements with people in this forum, but it's rare that I ever look at someone's profile. I don't think the profile is relevant to the forum unless someone specifically draws attention to it.

 

Yup. One should attack discuss the idea, not the individual.

Who typed it should be irrelevant in most cases. Can't really fault a poster for not performing a background check on the person before replying.

 

True, but it can help to put things in context. A comment that you or I or someone else might consider to be outlandish coming from a grown up makes more sense if you know it is a kid. Or a comment from a long time seasoned cacher regarding the technical aspects of caching might carry more credence than if it comes from someone with one find.

[+Sagefox]

I also gently suspect that everyone being able to page through every bit of history and every photo in the profile of 13-year-old girl cachers is not the best argument *against* profile controls...[/size]

 

Well... put that way it does sound a bit counter-intuitive.

 

It is up to the parents of 13-year-olds to decide if the kids should have gc accounts and then to monitor their activity. The important issue with kids is that they understand how to deal with emails they might receive from strangers.

 

But parents should have ample skills to deal with a mild site like geocaching because they must certainly already be hyper-vigilant with facebook and other social sites.