Cyber Rape at Epinions Mar 21 '01    Write an essay on this topic. Tweet Popular Products in Books Irene Hunt - The Lottery Rose: A Novel From $6 John Steinbeck - East Of Eden From $7 The Bottom Line Bye-bye, Epinions I am so fed up with some techies here. It's okay to dislike some opinions. But what is the reason to look up the specific personal information? Why do they leave the comments like "I know you. Here is your info. Hehehehe.." to the public? With the internet, mostly at extensive database, it's quite easy to check the info with our user name or alias. But why should they use this with revenge ratings? You might say they do this with a type of justice. But is this the justice? I am against the censorship, but this is not the censorship issue. This is a security issue. Should we be ready for being revealed our address, phone number, the school name of my daughter, if we write reviews here? We should know there is this type of risk. But why should my daughter's name and school are published here? My story is this: When I submit my review, I might have made somebody disgusted. It might happen to everybody. Some people have completely different points of view. Also, it is often happen that we receive unfair revenge rating, i.e., "NH". This is also fine. We make a couple of cents, anyway. The problem is that if we keep using the same user name all the time, our personal information is retrieved by the search engines or some other data collection service (mail address sellers for spammers). If you go to a popular search engines, and search with your regular user name. You will probably find some of your works (often resume) listed. For some technical fellows, this is the great place to find the personal information. If the info is used with the good faith, the way is usually for the recruiting purpose and so on. But if that information is handed to bad guys, they can do anything with that "public" information. This problem is not solved as long as you use the internet with the fixed handle. The worst case is when you own a domain name. Check the WHOIS database. You can find the very specific personal information. Notice that this type of problem is impossible to find the solution by changing the web service site. Even if you quit Epinions, and go to other review site, you are potentially publishing your personal information, as long as you are submitting something. Anyway, this is my fake user name. I wrote more than 200 reviews here. But my career ends with this opinion. Bye-bye, Epinions. slaveteen@hotmail.com

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