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Our past haunts us
30 July 2005
There's no place to hide on the Internet.
I was doing a little gratuitous searching for my own name today to find our where it might stand on the ratings and I found a list of computer articles I wrote in the 1980s for Antic (like my piece on the Atari XE and XL or this article on The Canadian Connection to Logo)and ST-Log magazines. The articles are available, too, with a click of the mouse. The earliest is from 1984.
Nineteen eighty four. Aside from its association with Orwell's masterpiece, it was 21 years ago and I was a whole lot younger. I had a room full of computers, I was riding on top of the business as a tech writer and columnist, my book had just been published - Mapping The Atari, which is also online, like some sort of digital fossil... or maybe virtual archeology? I mean, aside from the historical value, who really uses old Ataris these days?
I am, I have to admit, a bit nostalgic about those days, however. Others are, too it seems. A few years ago I did an email interview for The Atari Times and it's online, too. Did I really say all that?
It was in late 83 that I met Susan, who remains my partner today, although how she bears with me, I haven't the foggiest. She appears online in conjunction with me, in our mutual business, and remembered in the introduction I wrote to the second edition of Mapping - still available online.
And Greg Costikiyan has a page that lists the entire series of MOVES magazine issues, and lists the authors. I started writing for them in 1980 and I also wrote a column for its sister publication, Strategy and Tactics, all about computer wargaming. And then there was the cousin sci-fi gaming magazine, Ares for which I also wrote.
Internet archives like the Wayback Machine contain snapshots of pages and sites I worked on as far back as 1997. Brrr. Some of these were, uh, rather spotty. Well, okay, ugly. But so what? I was limited by the tools we had, the HTML compliance thing, and my own design experience.
I've been online for the past 25+ years. I started on CompuServe in the late 1970s, then became a sysop in 1983, was a sysop on Delphi, too, a few years later... ran my own BBS... and had an Internet presence since 1995. Much of that time and content has been lost - sometimes for the betterment of us all - but since the Internet started to be a public service, a lot has been captured. It can sometimes be humbling to revisit it.
My business is online, too at Mail Boxes Etc. home site. Well, I expected that. But years from now, will I still be haunted by it?
Even if I've not been the editor of the paper for seven years, and several editors have filled that position since (a couple of them with considerably less talent and ability than they should have had, I am forced in the name of verity and all humility to add), a little searching can turn up pages where I'm still listed as editor of the Enterprise Bulletin. And while the archives aren't online, a trip to the local library will show eight years of writing for that paper recorded on microfilm and microfiche. Will people refer to those articles or comments years from now, after I'm gone?
I also sometimes find my name associated with Sensor Technology, a company I worked for (marketing piezo-electric ceramics) for a year, after the paper and I parted ways.
I am mentioned in the context of Wretro Riders on Rob Harris' CMG Online site, a great resource for Canadian motorcyclists. But how long ago did I have that bike? Five, six years? It's hard to keep track of bikes I've owned. Seventeen in the past 12 years or so...
And on top of all of this are the numerous forums I've posted on, articles I've written, my accounts with Amazon.ca, Bookcloseouts.com, eBay, Enfieldmotorcycles.com, and so on. Everyone leaves a trail online when they use these services. It's probably not difficult for someone to find us, if they know where to look.
Fortunately, no one can (yet) peer into my basement or my hard drives and drag out the miserable attempts at writing novels and fiction I made over the intervening years.
Am I worried about this lack of privacy? Not particularly. I've been a writer for a few decades, been a volunteer with events like the Ride For Sight, online commentator, municipal politician, board and committee member... do any of these and your name will live on, be recorded, be repeated, be reviled and be recalled. Perhaps in infamy, perhaps in glory, but thanks to the Net, we can't escape. There really is nowhere to hide in this new world.
I was doing a little gratuitous searching for my own name today to find our where it might stand on the ratings and I found a list of computer articles I wrote in the 1980s for Antic (like my piece on the Atari XE and XL or this article on The Canadian Connection to Logo)and ST-Log magazines. The articles are available, too, with a click of the mouse. The earliest is from 1984.
Nineteen eighty four. Aside from its association with Orwell's masterpiece, it was 21 years ago and I was a whole lot younger. I had a room full of computers, I was riding on top of the business as a tech writer and columnist, my book had just been published - Mapping The Atari, which is also online, like some sort of digital fossil... or maybe virtual archeology? I mean, aside from the historical value, who really uses old Ataris these days?
I am, I have to admit, a bit nostalgic about those days, however. Others are, too it seems. A few years ago I did an email interview for The Atari Times and it's online, too. Did I really say all that?
It was in late 83 that I met Susan, who remains my partner today, although how she bears with me, I haven't the foggiest. She appears online in conjunction with me, in our mutual business, and remembered in the introduction I wrote to the second edition of Mapping - still available online.
And Greg Costikiyan has a page that lists the entire series of MOVES magazine issues, and lists the authors. I started writing for them in 1980 and I also wrote a column for its sister publication, Strategy and Tactics, all about computer wargaming. And then there was the cousin sci-fi gaming magazine, Ares for which I also wrote.
Internet archives like the Wayback Machine contain snapshots of pages and sites I worked on as far back as 1997. Brrr. Some of these were, uh, rather spotty. Well, okay, ugly. But so what? I was limited by the tools we had, the HTML compliance thing, and my own design experience.
I've been online for the past 25+ years. I started on CompuServe in the late 1970s, then became a sysop in 1983, was a sysop on Delphi, too, a few years later... ran my own BBS... and had an Internet presence since 1995. Much of that time and content has been lost - sometimes for the betterment of us all - but since the Internet started to be a public service, a lot has been captured. It can sometimes be humbling to revisit it.
My business is online, too at Mail Boxes Etc. home site. Well, I expected that. But years from now, will I still be haunted by it?
Even if I've not been the editor of the paper for seven years, and several editors have filled that position since (a couple of them with considerably less talent and ability than they should have had, I am forced in the name of verity and all humility to add), a little searching can turn up pages where I'm still listed as editor of the Enterprise Bulletin. And while the archives aren't online, a trip to the local library will show eight years of writing for that paper recorded on microfilm and microfiche. Will people refer to those articles or comments years from now, after I'm gone?
I also sometimes find my name associated with Sensor Technology, a company I worked for (marketing piezo-electric ceramics) for a year, after the paper and I parted ways.
I am mentioned in the context of Wretro Riders on Rob Harris' CMG Online site, a great resource for Canadian motorcyclists. But how long ago did I have that bike? Five, six years? It's hard to keep track of bikes I've owned. Seventeen in the past 12 years or so...
And on top of all of this are the numerous forums I've posted on, articles I've written, my accounts with Amazon.ca, Bookcloseouts.com, eBay, Enfieldmotorcycles.com, and so on. Everyone leaves a trail online when they use these services. It's probably not difficult for someone to find us, if they know where to look.
Fortunately, no one can (yet) peer into my basement or my hard drives and drag out the miserable attempts at writing novels and fiction I made over the intervening years.
Am I worried about this lack of privacy? Not particularly. I've been a writer for a few decades, been a volunteer with events like the Ride For Sight, online commentator, municipal politician, board and committee member... do any of these and your name will live on, be recorded, be repeated, be reviled and be recalled. Perhaps in infamy, perhaps in glory, but thanks to the Net, we can't escape. There really is nowhere to hide in this new world.
