Individuality, Privacy, and the need for effort

I'm occasionally struck by the reality of modern Internet Communities and the amount of private information they can reveal.

From Facebook to Twitter, people are literally taking their most private details, and making a public spectacle out of them, which seems a bit foolish. The Internet is "forever" meaning 10 or 15 years down the road, what is youthful behavour now, will be cringe worthy later as people, believe it or not, change over time.

And it should also be mentioned that Officials frequently look for MySpace pages during the course of investigations, or when they are merely fishing around, and there has been two cases of such information leading to people's deaths at the hands of law enforcement simply because some well meaning, but misguided soul posted pictures of themselves with firearms on their myspace pages, in one case in NC, a poor slob simply had pictures of his friend holding firearms and he was killed in a incompetent SWAT raid on his home near a college campus.

It makes some sense to participate in such social sites, it makes even more sense to publish as little actual person information as possible and still participate with ones friends.

In Biblical terms, "Behold, I send you out as sheep among wolves, be ye wise as serpents, and gentle as doves"