Hitcher - Academy Award Nomination...

**jrandom** · 31st March 2005, 13:37

Originally Posted by Jimmie

However it is a little unfair for others to lift the level of anonymity that most of us enjoy. I hope you don't feel too exposed

by this (guess it goes with the job a bit) and trust others will not abuse it.

Meh. We all know who he is, anyway. And this thread will fade into the mists of time, just like all the others that have identified most of the senior members in meatspace. Motorcycle forums are never truly anonymous. That's just not what they're about.

**madboy** · 31st March 2005, 14:02

I thought the performance was quite good for a first appearance, particularly given the time constraints of playing a supporting role.

However my nomination goes to Hilary Swank in the Least Supporting Dress category

**Wolf** · 31st March 2005, 15:29

Originally Posted by jrandom

Meh. We all know who he is, anyway. And this thread will fade into the mists of time, just like all the others that have identified most of the senior members in meatspace. Motorcycle forums are never truly anonymous. That's just not what they're about.

The following is from Microsoft Corporation's "Ten Immutable Laws of Security"

Law #9:
Absolute anonymity isn't practical, in real life or on the web.

All human interaction involves exchanging data of some kind. If someone weaves enough of that data together, they can identify you. Think about all the information that a person can glean in just a short conversation with you. In one glance, they can gauge your height, weight, and approximate age. Your accent will probably tell them what country you're from, and may even tell them what region of the country. If you talk about anything other than the weather, you'll probably tell them something about your family, your interests, where you live, and what you do for a living. It doesn't take long for someone to collect enough information to figure out who you are. If you crave absolute anonymity, your best bet is to live in a cave and shun all human contact.

The same thing is true of the Internet. If you visit a web site, the owner can, if he's sufficiently motivated, find out who you are. After all, the ones and zeroes that make up the web session have be able to find their way to the right place, and that place is your computer. There are a lot of measures you can take to disguise the bits, and the more of them you use, the more thoroughly the bits will be disguised. For instance, you could use network address translation to mask your actual IP address, subscribe to an anonymizing service that launders the bits by relaying them from one end of the ether to the other, use a different ISP account for different purposes, surf certain sites only from public kiosks, and so on.

All of these make it more difficult to determine who you are, but none of them make it impossible. Do you know for certain who operates the anonymizing service? Maybe it's the same person who owns the web site you just visited! Or what about that innocuous web site you visited yesterday, that offered to mail you a free $10 off coupon? Maybe the owner is willing to share information with other web site owners. If so, the second web site owner may be able to correlate the information from the two sites and determine who you are.

Does this mean that privacy on the web is a lost cause? Not at all. What it means is that the best way to protect your privacy on the Internet is the same as the way you protect your privacy in normal life - through your behavior. Read the privacy statements on the web sites you visit, and only do business with ones whose practices you agree with. If you're worried about cookies, disable them. Most importantly, avoid indiscriminate web surfing - recognize that just as most cities have a bad side of town that's best avoided, the Internet does too. But if it's complete and total anonymity you want, better start looking for that cave.

In chat forums such as this, the first part of that assessment comes into play. Whatever we reveal about ourselves can be pieced together - with the added advantage (to those doing the piecing-together) that what we "say" is held on file for a long time and can be referenced later (much better than relying on memory).

It wouldn't take much work for most of us to ID each other's IRL (or in "meatspace" - love that term, jrandom) personas.

It's not such a bad thing - beats living in a cave, anyway.

And Hitcher, good on you. When I heard the news that Swank was kicking up a fuss and saying she should get some sort of preferential treatment, I thought "what a stupid bitch." Good to see she wasn't able to "Prima Donna" her way out of the fine.

**Waylander** · 31st March 2005, 16:34

Hey I just had a thought, maybe it's guys like Hitcher at the MAF office that are the reason that they, out of all the government and corprate offices I dealt with when trying to get my bike registerd, are the only ones who actually did thier job. Good on ya again Hitcher.

I'de give ya more good rep but I think that from me to you is nothing more than a novelty.

**matthewt** · 31st March 2005, 18:46

Originally Posted by Jim2

And YOU, Mr Mangell, were spotted in the latest issue of BRM.

Don't think you can get away with avoiding the spotlight.

Nice article Matthewt

Actually I thought Mrs Hitcher was going to be on there as well. BRM asked for the originals for a few other photos including one of Mrs H on the Maurader (RIP) getting it checked out prior to the event.