[lelandbatey]

I felt the same way about nicknames, but at some point I realized that I had a digital trail attached to my online-name that was a mile wide. I figured I might as well just start using my real name (which is rather unique already).

Also, I find your story of rules interesting. When I was first introduced to the internet (when I was about 7 years old, in school), the one "rule" I remember being told to us over and over again, by parents, by teachers, by anyone in authority was:

    Everything you do online *can* be traced back to you. Communicating online
    requires the same etiquette as communicating face to face. Don't do or say
    anything you wouldn't do or say in real life.

That was the "one rule" of my day, and of the people I knew. It's one of the things that made switching to my real name easy, since I didn't have to change how I wrote.

[spc476]

I've been on the Internet since 1989 (second year of college) when practically everything on the Internet was public (even every computer---NAT wasn't done until the mid-90s) and that if you didn't want it known publically, you didn't put it on the Internet. And what you did put on the Internet you must accept responsibility for.

Even today, I treat everything I post to the Internet as public. Even on MyGoogleFaceSpacePlusBook, I don't bother with privacy settings, because of 1) the above, where I treat everything I put on the Internet as public, and 2) the people who run MyGoogleFaceSpacePlusBook really love mucking with the default privacy setttings.

[danso]

Wow, you must be very young, i.e. 10-12, or have very perceptive teachers. I feel that teachers and other authority figures still don't get it, especially those above 40 who aren't in a Internet/computer-heavy field. And even young folks in the tech field still don't realize it (basically everyone who uses something like SnapChat too enthusiastically)

[rprospero]

I'm thirty and have been getting on the internet since the first Bush administration. Even at the time, the first rule of the internet is that everything you put online is public. This wasn't just about things that you posted on forums, either. The assumption was that the sysadmin would read your e-mails when she was bored and that anything interesting would be passed around.

[robin_reala]

Not just an assumption, I’ve had sysadmins that did that.

[Tomte]

Meeting a sysadmin of your mail provider at some real-life net gathering, wearing the "I read your mail" shirt really was a bit unsettling...

[lelandbatey]

I'd put it down to where I grew up and who I grew up around. This was 2000-2002, and I grew up in Redmond, Washington. My first real Internet experience was getting a school email account, and they gave us a long series of talks about how we were supposed to use them appropriately.

[aaronbrethorst]

Are you at UW now?

edit: ah, WSU I see.

[lelandbatey]

Yeah, I wanted to study CS, but there was pretty much no chance of me getting into the very competitive CS major at UW. So I decided to go to a smaller WSU campus in the Tri-Cities. It's way, way smaller, and with much smaller staff, but for CS it's totally perfect. It's pretty much all taught by people who've been doing research at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory for the past 30+ years.

It's a great mix of professors who have tremendous experience in academia and industry, as well as a small enough campus to allow random undergrads to spend tons of time working with and learning from them. I feel like it's a serious hidden gem for those looking to learn CS.

[aaronbrethorst]

Let me know if you're ever looking for an internship in the mobile space in Seattle. My email is in my profile.

[throwaway344]

Yeah 10-12 is low-balling it. Someone could easily be four or five years older than I am (14), and have been hearing all that advice for much of their lives.

[lelandbatey]

Yes, I'm 19, and this happened in the early 2000's. I think though that I got this advice a bit earlier than others because I grew up in Redmond, Washington, surrounded by Microsoft and people involved in and influenced by computers and the Internet.

[001sky]

They've been tracking everyone since 9/11. That was the day the world changed for online anonymity. For good or bad, it just is. Of course, the powers of authority (eg, teachers) also want it that way. You can see it in the language of fear the perpetuate: we are watching you...etc.

[Moto7451]

I'm 25 and was told the same thing back in elementary school after our super high tech ISDN line was installed.

[nknighthb]

They've been telling kids not to give out personal information (including their name) online since at least the mid 90s.

[sliverstorm]

I feel like there's still value in hiding real names, if only to block the low-hanging fruit. A 1337 hacker can surely trace me no matter what name I use, but using an alias is practically effort-free and can slow down Joe Sixpack.

It also depends where I am posting, and whether I want to "own" what I say on that particular site. It's nice when my real-life compatriots don't necessarily know every darn thing I say or do online. They could find out if they really wanted to, of course.