Your Identity | Bloggers Lair | Yakezie Forums

Howdy y'all.  I was just wondering, how do  you manage your identity online?  I originally posted with a pen name but after signing up for FINCON11 I decided to just use my real name since it was easier.

I find that the more and more I get involved, the more I feel at risk that my personal information is vulnerable.  The other day my first/last name was posted in a blog post- which is fine since so many of us do it, but I sometimes worry that my information is too easily found.  

I was shocked when I found out you could look up the address/full name of the owner of any particular domain at whois.net and was able to fix it.

How do you feel about using your full name?  What are your concerns?  How do you try and protect yourself and your privacy even if you blog with your real name?    How do you manage your blogging life vs. your real life?

I use private domain registration and I also have a PO Box so mail doesn't have to come to the house.

Interesting.  We had planned a "reveal" on the weekend but perhaps we'll just do so a little more quietly.

Im actually pretty open… when I first starting blogging I only revealed my first name, and a picture on my site…now privacy isnt as important to me.  I find that being open with my identity has helped my traffic and interaction.  For instance, word of mouth by friends and family, and my personal facebook account has helped me to grow traffic.

protect the whois – it costs something like 12 bucks for the year. 

Notwithstanding, I couldn't imagine putting my full name out there…it would scare the shit out of me that everytime someone googled my name all my political views, and net worth updates would just be sitting there. 

You never know who it out there reading, lurking, watching. I am always paranoid but I also believe that if anyone want to find you, they probably can do it. I use my pen name and feel comfortable with it.

I recently stumbled into the home address of a blogger.  I can't remember what I was searching for but I was trying to find something about their blog and found a site that listed their home address.   The blogger had aparently given the company his address for some review and then they had it in a word document accessible on their site to google search.  So google picked up the document and advertised his home address to the world.   Good reason to use a PO box if you need to give out an address. 

I don't think we need to be paranoid, but better safe than sorry.

I post anonymously mainly cause of some of the stuff I'm talking about and I try to be very careful about revealing specifics about my identity or anything.

I use just a first name to identify myself. 

I use private domain name registration.

I never say what city I live in.  I rarely if ever say what state I live in.

I had to setup Paypal with a separate account that didn't use my real name.

I setup seperate Facebook and Twitter accounts using synonyms.   eg. I have a Facebook with the name 'John Smith' or something like that just so I can setup my FAcebook page.

There is a cost to anonymity.

I think that people relate to a name and a face better than a anonymous person. 

I turned down writing at US News blogs cause they wanted a real name. :(

My diet coke just made an exit through my nose! LOL

Budgeting in the Fun Stuff said:

 please keep in mind that I live in Texas…we like guns.  

Budgeting in the Fun Stuff said:

Sustainable PF said:

My diet coke just made an exit through my nose! LOL

Budgeting in the Fun Stuff said:

 please keep in mind that I live in Texas…we like guns.  

That was exactly what I was aiming for.

Humour? The sting of carbonation still ringing in my nose? both?

That being said, I live in Canada.  A lot of guns per capita up here too.