Hiding behind your screen name

[mania]

If I search in Google for my full name I get 3.750.000 hits.
There are just too many of me around.. :11:

I have only around a 1000
And they are all my family....((((
I want more!!!
Mania

 

[WVMike]

Thanks about the magazine, The little photo for my avitar is my little baby girl in her baby sidemount gear.

Curt, cute kid you got there.

Mainly the whole internet thing, with ID theft, and marketing and spam and all that. Heck put your real email address on the net one time and the spammers will have a feeding frenzy.

That is me over to the left and my name is Mike.

Funny thing here is all the folks who responded to you are not the false prophets and nasties you are talking about. How about a response from some of the "Nasties"?

Mike

 

[cdiver2]

Do you not have your real name posted because your afraid of someone knowing who you are or does this provide a smoke screen so you can flame others about diving in which you really have no experience or knowledge about and your playing a guru internet diver.

Curt I am very surprised at this post from you as a moderator,
with the above post you have just flamed more than 70% of the board *and got away with it* way to go.

My screen name/Avatar was chosen for a number of reasons.
1/ FUN. I am not in the forefront of the diving world, was back when you were 10 years old, I dive for pleasure. I do not take myself to seriously nor am I trying to make money or a name for myself from it, just fun.

2/ Again back when you were ten years old I was dealing with the terrorist world and do not shine to the idea of my name/ location being plastered all over the internet.

3/My wife has a high public profile in the business world and fund raising for Charity's, what I say could effect her business.

My profile tells a lot about me as far as diving go's, but I will PM you with my name and phone number if you want it, I have no problem with this as I KNOW who is geting it.

 

[Damselfish]

Armyscuba has a good point (post #20) about safety. Other than that one point I completely agree with Curt.

Using your real name will keep you from flaming, or at least will keep it to a smolder.


Matthew J D'Avella
Dive Makai Charters
Kona Hawaii

I think/hope most people can avoid flaming without that incentive.

 

[DivingGal]

I sure hope not!!
I don't use my real name for safety reasons. Same reason I ask my family and friends not to give out my phone # to anyone they do not personally know. There are just too many kooks out there &#8230;<snip>&#8230; If someone has a reason for knowing my real name, I have no problem revealing it. I'd just rather not do it on a public forum.

That&#8217;s my reason&#8230;

So far, I like your answers and can understand many of your reasons for not posting your name. I myself have never run into a problem with a freak.

Don&#8217;t go over the &#8220;Freaks forum&#8221; then&#8230; LOL

I don't post my full name so that I avoid emails from widows of Nigerian diplomats trying to offer me huge sums of money by tranferring said money to my bank account....

What they&#8217;re not for real? I am so disappoint

 

[cornfed]

Using your real name will keep you from flaming, or at least will keep it to a smolder.

Someone on an email list I subscribe to started being an jerk towards me. No only was he using an anonymous email address (which you're not supposed to on that particular list) but he was replying directly to me and not the list. I asked him what his names since he was sending me private emails but he haughtily refused to answer. Oh well, it didn't take long before I figured it out. I now have his real name, a valid email address, home phone number AND home address.

Part of the reason I don't use my real name is that I posted a lot on rec.scuba for a while. There was bad blood between me and a few people there and a few of us started banging heads hear. I decided that make a fresh start and wanted to distance myself. There are several people here in the same boat. If you search you can find our little reuninion thread where everyone said what screen name they were using here.

 

[CBulla]

..Let Me See...Hi My name is ________ I live at _________ I work during the hours of ___________ and I'm diving all Weekend or I'm on vacation for the Next two weeks...why don't You come by and break into my house and rob me.

Not trying to pick on you, but you did write up the example so I'll run with it.

Pretend for a moment I am Joe Phreak, the typical 14yr old internet "hacker". Here we go...

Your at home or work with your internet connection running. You've got antivirus and something like Norton Firewall running. You think your pretty safe. Technically you are. Truth of the matter is, unless your pretty suave with computers and have things locked down nice, run IP masking softare, closed ports, etc.etc., the simple act of logging onto the internet instantly opens your PC and everything on it up for me to peruse, even take a copy for myself without you even knowing. Hey, by the way, sorry your mortgage application didnt go through. Heyyyyy..whats this website your visiting now? OH! C'mon, buy it.. just put in those magic 16 numbers... thank you! I'm going shopping later...

K.. we're done pretending. I'm not going to go into all that which is sacred and I get paid to fix, but I think you get the idea. By simply having a cute handle on a website youinitially mask your identity from general public access, but when you get down to it, its nothing more than your alter identity.

note: my example is slightly exaggerated, but not to far off. In recent years I mentored a one out of that mentality into something more productive.

 

[cdiver2]

Colin we are not all computer suave but it do's not mean that we can throw all caution to the wind. We do what we can to protect our selfs from the unsavory characters of this world. How about you tell us how to do IP masking, closed ports etc. I for one would love to know. I would even buy you a drink or two.
David

 

[wstein]

Even real names don't mean much these days.
If I search in Google for my full name I get 3.750.000 hits.
There are just too many of me around.. :11:

Lets see there are 2 of me here in Tampa, I am also a author of computer books, I give Linux lectures in SF, a social studies teacher at Lake Zurwich HS, a writer for the New Democratic OnLine magazine, I work for the USDA (I am from the government, and I am here to help you ), and a play write just name a few. Dang, I am one busy guy!!! I think I need a life. Time to go diving again, I wonder if all my alter ego's wanna go with me :06:


Paul, the man with 143,000 internet personalities.

 

[Kim]

Colin we are not all computer suave but it do's not mean that we can throw all caution to the wind. We do what we can to protect our selfs from the unsavory characters of this world. How about you tell us how to do IP masking, closed ports etc. I for one would love to know. I would even buy you a drink or two.
David

For a start off buy yourself a router - they are not so expensive and come with all your ports closed by default, except the normal ones that are used by certain things - i.e. HTTP access, FTP access etc. They are also programmable so you can choose which ports to open or not - for instance - you don't use FTP ever - you can close the port (most people do though - even if they don't realize it!). They provide a hardware firewall as well. Install a good software firewall (normally not the XP default one) - I personally use Sygate. For IP masking (which I don't bother with as someone can find my router but that's all) there are different programs available - do a search on Google - or maybe CBulla has a suggestion.
For almost total security - dump Windows and use Linux!!