there's no such thing as 'off the record' onlinei don't mean this in a figurative way - everything in the online world is recorded, literally. it's how the medium works. a recording is made in the computer's memory of the sounds you make, the images you present to the camera, the words you type, the links you click, etc. (depending on what exactly you're doing online) and a copy of that recording is sent along a path to whatever it's final destination is supposed to be. at some later point that recording and maybe even the copies (though it's impossible to be sure with the copies) are deleted or overwritten, but recording (and thus 'the record') is a fundamental and unavoidable part of online interaction. 'off the record' simply can't exist there.
Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot- proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning. - Rich Cook
on the internet there is always someone watchingi suspect one of the things preventing people from grasping the privacy consequences of their online activity is that in the offline world people consider themselves to be in private when there's no one else around, and since there's often no one else around when they go on the internet, that sense of privacy persists even though it really shouldn't.
Internet Story from Adam Butcher on Vimeo.
