Online Identities

What is important in terms of how we present and manage online identities?

I think our awareness as to how open our identity information can be is important and also to know the terms of use and default settings and how they can be generally accepted yet may give out more information that we would like. Its obvious that to not be on the social networking sites can be a big disadvantage so there are measures and custom setting that can be made to manage our online identities as to how much information we give away.

An understanding of the advantages of the open web should also be taken into account, that our networks can be expanded and information sources and knowledge enriched through those connections. Our own authorship and creative talents can also be displayed and disseminated to a wider audience when our identities are open and more detailed.

What can we share and what should we retain as private to the online world?

This question cannot be given any one right answer. The decision we make may depend upon our need to share information and build up a network. Obviously there are incidents reported where giving too much information has lead to negative experiences, but there are also advantages to opening our profiles to the public.

Again awareness is important as to the terms, and default settings of our social platform, and also that we are not naive to the dangers that can come from different levels of disclosure for example location trackers.

There is a belief that people are concerned about their welfare but are willing to trade it for the value of being able to connect through the Internet (Raynes-Goldie, 2010). I think this has a great impact on the generalisation that the new generation is more open and less guarded or carefree about their privacy.

We accept terms these days because we want to get on with things. Every kind of web platform used comes part and parcel with its own set of guidelines and terms of agreements, do we read them? If we don't accept then we are not able to participate. Is this accepting under duress? Negating the effects of a so called 'terms of use agreement'? Well, that could be said, but the fact remains that the only way to develop privacy and security policies is through public debate to find a delicate balance between the moral expectations of the users and the amount of control the facilitators will allow, (ie - facebook have just announced they will allow more control over the group function (Chapman, 2010)) in the mean time we must accept and get on with it, and deal with security issues in our own way by awareness to default settings or manually manipulating the software to protect ourselves i.e. regular wall wiping and the use of an alias (Raynes-Goldie, 2010).

Chapman, C. (2010). Facebook reveals new 'groups' feature to bring cosy cliques back to online social networking. Technology. News.com.au, October 7, 2010. retreived from http://www.news.com.au/technology/facebook-reveals-new-groups-feature-to-bring-cosy-cliques-back-to-online-social-networking/story-e6frfro0-1225935349578

Raynes-Goldie, K. (2010). Aliases, creeping, and wall cleaning: Inderstanding privacy in the age of Facebook. First Monday 15 (1) retreived from http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/viewArticle/2775/2432

Open clouds

Internet security and privacy are important issues to all who use the Internet particularly in more recent times where we attach profiles including personal information and images to our social network sites. Clouds are a metaphor for online storage of data as opposed to working with software and data stored on servers of the owners of that information. It has been described as a platform for computing and communication linking millions of users to thousands of computers simultaneously (Nelson 2009)

'Building an open cloud' (Nelson 2009) explains that there can be three ways we go about the creation of this cloud Internet framework.

1. 'Many Clouds' - in which separate unconnected cloud platforms based on proprietary software in which the author asserts that the potential for new applications and closer collaboration would be lost.

2.'Hazy Skies' - in which data but not software could move between the different clouds which would make it difficult for the users to combine data and services operating in different clouds.

3.'Open Cloud' - in which there is a single global cloud to maximise the collaboration enabling users to assemble software and data easily to meet their needs.

As far as security is concerned, with the open cloud the author suggests that privacy enhancing technologies could be dispersed through out the cloud, it is easy to understand that although most concerns lie with the most open varieties of web use, this is also the easiest way to attain a central and consistent policy basis that is more easily distributed.

Users favour a more open approach to the availability of software and data on an open basis, the freedom that comes from breaking away from proprietary technologies, restricting the transfer of data over different platforms, however they are also concerned with privacy, copyrite and security.

Government policy to restrict access and collaboration by censoring the Internet could thwart the benefits of an open, global cloud which supports the economy, social interactions and innovation. The concerns of privacy and security would be best addressed in an open cloud instead of tailoring separate policies for separate clouds resulting in inconsistent policy and application.



Nelson, M.R. (2009). Building an open cloud [Cloud computing as platform]. Science, 324(5935, 1656-1657.