Wednesday afternoon I was minding my business in my Athol store when a woman walked in and started making small talk. She used purchasing a new USB cable as an intro before telling me she really came because of my online dating profile. Shortly after I turned off my dating profile.
I guess I was being stalked which was kind of flattering and boosted my ego. Apparently this woman saw my online profile, recognized me and made the decision that I was up for grabs. There is no anonymity online.
Years ago anyone could post anything about themselves. As long as it came across as credible and believable it was true. In those days I could have said I was a millionaire astronaut and it would have been impossible to prove, but now everything can be traced.
Everywhere we visit leaves an online footprint of who and where we are. Browsers, search engines and even our operating systems know all of this stuff within an instant of clicking. Google and Microsoft keep tabs on us and connect everything we do.
Earlier this year my daughter told me a story about bomb threats at her school that had come through email. Apparently several schools in her area received similar threats. Although the sender had done a fairly decent job of covering his tracks and masking his IP address, authorities tracked him down fairly swiftly.
If you’re an active (or even semi-active) user of social media then you’ve likely received an invitation to create a historical memoir of your history. Those journals are based on your history and timeline. Those posts you made years ago are still lingering in the digital underground on someone’s server in cyberspace proving social media posts stick around.
The same is true of online dating sites. My new acquaintance noticed a profile I had created a year ago and noticed another one last week. According to her she had been to my store before and recognized me. She confirmed it was me by clicking through pictures on a search engine and then visited my store to prove her theory.
Although I’m a fairly open person, I don’t know how I feel about my personal information dangling out in cyberspace for anyone to see. It’s obviously too late now to remove all my information because once it’s out there it’s out there. Modern search engines and internet servers connect information and create a chain linking every tidbit of information together.
Over the years I used to wonder about those few rare people who limited what they did online. When social media was gaining momentum it was rare to unearth that disinterested person. Usually this human oddity had one email address they hardly used. They generally kept their online presence to a minimum.
The type of person who minimized their online footprint may have been the better person in the long run. Not only does minimizing the footprint create more anonymity, but it minimizes the ability of search engines and the internet to link people, places and things associated with you.
We’re in an era when truly being anonymous is nearly impossible. Depending on your profession and pastimes, searching for your name may yield a bunch of different results you didn’t know were online. After you put down the paper you should type your name into your favorite search engine, you’ll be almost as surprised as me when my suitor showed up where I was working.
(Jeromy Patriquin is the President of Laptop & Computer Repair, Inc. located at 509 Main St. in Gardner. You can call him at (978) 919-8059 or visit www.LocalComputerWiz.com.)