Google offers the ability to create custom search engines that limit the search to certain web sites on specific topics.

I put together one that searches EA and Epinions.com (I can add more Epinions-related sites too. Just give me urls)

The link is :

Google Co-op - Custom Search Engine

This might come in handy when looking up some Epinions member or for a certain review.

Amy - that is REALLY cool!!!

And, Folks - this may be a GREAT tool for when SantaWorm comes to town!

OMG! Amy, that's amazing. I can't wait to play with it!

I needed this today and forgot to bookmark it. Added it to my toolbar now.

Personally, I don't think that what's written on message boards should be available on search engines. Period.

It creeps me out.

And since I've learned that everything I write is part of a huge paper trail I've been much more circumspect in what I write, and feel as if I am a little bit less authentic because of it.

So, Amy, while I appreciate the hard work you do for this board, I don't appreciate the work you have done to make whatever we say more accessible to Big Brother...

Sorry.

Frazz, absolutely everything that you type online is searched unless you belong to a private board, and since EA is a showpiece for Amy's paid gig doing support, it's unfair to expect it to be private.

There are ways to protect your anonymity online that keeps the real you separate from the online you. Which is why you might find a HUGE pile of stuff for pippadaisy or pippa but if you search my real name, I don't even exist.

In order to have total online anonymity, you need an unlisted phone number and no references anywhere to your real name. Aside from that, you'd probably be surprised where you'll turn up, and online forums under a pseudonym are the least of that problem.

Ditto what Pippa said, Fraz.

• Magnitude Media •• Mashable •• Face Book• • Twitter

And yes, I have taken steps to do all those things. Except for the unlisted number.

Even then your name is part of public record on various documents, such as real estate sales and the like. My name's been in the newspaper and the paper's online version. Hubby's been in the records of public school board meetings when they made personnel decisions. All you can do is try not to give out enough info to link the real name to the online pseudonym - or give up being online altogether (but you still can't block the public record stuff).

That's where the hyphen helps.

I can't even find myself on our real estate records. It's INSANE!

Quote:And since I've learned that everything I write is part of a huge paper trail I've been much more circumspect in what I write, and feel as if I am a little bit less authentic because of it.

My first experience with the internet was with a dial-in bulletin board. I used my name (first + last) as my username, and never thought twice about it. It was a small board, with maybe 100 people, and it was local.

After several years, the board owners (a local alternative newspaper) put the board up on the then-blossoming internet. There was a huge protest. I freaked -- this was a free-wheeling board, and some of the thread titles, which popped up on a search engine search of my name, were outrageous, not the sort of thing I wanted associated with my name to the world at large. So for the first time, I adopted an alias.

Moving the board to the web eventually killed it. And that was pretty much the end of the chance to write on boards while having one's privacy protected from those who weren't board members.

Since then, I've felt very self-conscious about the open nature of the internet. I do have personal info, address and phone number, online under my name, and I can't do anything about that, but what I try and do is to keep my casual writing -- writing on boards including EA, on blogs, on writing sites including Epinions -- separate from my name, so that someone who read one couldn't trace it back to the other. It's difficult. I'm involved in enough fairly quirky things that I think that if I were specific about what I do, and at the same time signed my posts with my first name, which isn't a very common name, someone who knew me might recognize me right away. But it's hard to stay general about personal stuff, especially in situations where that type of sharing seems to be the norm. Then I feel as if I'm coming off as aloof.

I've also gotten into the habit of using different names for different online purposes, which gets a little confusing, especially when sites want you to publicize your stuff by pointing to it from your other online places, or when I do things that are related that I would like to cross-reference. I'm getting tempted to just chuck it all and start afresh, using my real name again just as I did in the beginning, but this time showing a more formal public face. I don't know -- I like letting loose on the internet, but it's starting to feel like maybe too much trouble.

There are folks in the Barbie community who know me only as pippa. No idea I have a real name, and I met some of them in person at the Barbie Convention in Atlanta some years back.

And ask Cindy what happens when I call and give my real name. :happy0194

you're a member of a barbie community.....

LOL.

Haven't kept up with it much, but yes... I used to have one of the biggest Barbie collecting web sites online before I had the kids.

pippadaisy Wrote:LOL.

Haven't kept up with it much, but yes... I used to have one of the biggest Barbie collecting web sites online before I had the kids.

I didn't know you were a Barbie collector!

You don't want to know how many I have.

Custom dolls... little playsets... Ken with the cock ring...

pippadaisy Wrote:... Ken with the cock ring...

wasn't familiar with that one.

And I'm guessing that Beanie and Butter aren't allowed to play with them?

I so did not need that visual.

I'm sure its a rooster. Ken had no genitalia.
At least I didn't think so....I never had a Ken doll.

Somehow, "Pippa" and "Barbie" just do not belong in the same sentence.

Wow, if I collected dolls like that I'd have even more reasons to have a secret identity!:winking00

frazzledspice Wrote:Wow, if I collected dolls like that I'd have even more reasons to have a secret identity!:winking00

There's a "Things I learned from my patients" thread on a student doctor bulletin board that talks about "maintenance consults" when certain articles get stuck on certain body parts.

32 pages of "Things I learned" and definitely NSFWOK. Also not safe with liquids in your mouth and some of it is very gross.

OMG, Judy, I'm waking the kids up laughing so hard!!!

I sent it to my friend and her husband...she's a trauma nurse and he's an ER attending.

Some people would be offended by the dark humor in that -- and some of it is truly gross, but yes, much of it is really funny.

TOO funny. I love the "glass eye in the vagina for safekeeping" story. Can you imagine being the GYN going down there to take a look only to have the vagina looking right back at you?!

Oh Judy! They can't make this stuff up!

Quote:When attempting a self-circumcision do not use dry ice to numb the area... and when the dry ice sticks to the... a.... area, do not attempt to remove the ice with boiling water.
<!-- / message --><!-- SDNCODE Modifysig (need to remove standard if sig condition)-->

I can't pick a favorite.

Neither can I. Too funny.

On the question of how hard it is to find out someone's identity:

Here's an interesting story about someone who posted a comment, using an alias, on Daily Kos, and came home to find a business card from an FBI Agent on his front door!

The poster wasn't in any kind of trouble -- turns out the the FBI thought, based on his online comment, that he knew someone who knew something about Jack Abramoff, who they were investigating at the time. But this does show that using an alias doesn't necessarily protect your identity. And the agent didn't issue any subpoenas, or use any sophisticated spying techniques. He didn't have to do anything like that. He simply googled the poster's alias, as anyone could have done, and found a Livejournal using the same alias, and from there followed a link to an Amazon Wish List, which led to his address.

Daily Kos: FBI infiltrates DailyKos (a true story)

I guess the other lesson here is that tinfoil hat types who believe the FBI is scanning message boards are right.

There had to be a subpoena. You can't get an address off an Amazon Wish List. I've actually tried to get friends' new addys from their Amazon wish list, and it's not visible.

pippadaisy Wrote:There had to be a subpoena. You can't get an address off an Amazon Wish List. I've actually tried to get friends' new addys from their Amazon wish list, and it's not visible.

That's a good point!

I searched the comments on the thread to see if I could find any answer, and for what it's worth, this is what I found (below). It does sound like there was probably more to what the agent did than just a 5-second Google search.

(I don't think there was a subpoena involved, though, because it sounds like it all happened too quickly. Also, the poster wasn't a criminal suspect, so -- I hope! -- the agent wouldn't have been able to get a subpoena in this type of circumstance.)

Someone on the thread also made a point similar to yours (the last one that I quote below), and that was a recent post from this morning, so maybe there will be a fuller explanation posted later:

Quote:So did he send you a book?

Curious minds want to know.

Kidding, but hey. (Does the Amazon wish list really put your address up front and center?)

Welcome, and read away Mr. R, and others like him. If you're after Abramoff -- or anyone remotely connected to him -- I think dengre is the diarist to read.

Be good to each other. It matters. Bill Sali

---------
no, he sent me a live FBI agent

haha

I don't think your address is put front and center, but I think he either put something in the cart and went as far as to check which address to send it to, OR maybe got my real name from there and tracked me down that way. Like I said, I was already being investigated for a Public Trust clearance and have held security clearances in the past, so I already had an FBI file, I imagine.

---------------------- ......

Amazon wish list

I don't think you can get an address from the link to your amazon wish list. You would need a password too to get to other information.

Daily Kos: State of the Nation

It doesn't even come up in your cart...I've bought things for friends from their wishlists.

Possible to have Googled or white paged a name and location from a full name.

Hi i'm Jalee! my mom is cool. my mom is margo!!!!!!

Butter is a cute girl.!

I should really close my windows before leaving my computer.

But Jalee said you're cool. Isn't it nice to have that here for posterity's sake?

And she thinks Butter is cute. Can we keep her Margo?

I'm going to show her that in 3-4 years. Watch her gag.