If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed or email alerts. Thanks for visiting!
Everyone is a dog on the Internet – was an oft-repeated warning in the heydays of online chatting. Anybody who could type in random keystrokes and had an oversized (read unrequited) sex drive was on the umpteen chat sites, occupying precious bandwidth. When blogs arrived, it was considered a mature medium and tired of the entire chatting scene, I preferred to remain anonymous. After all, although there is no visual connection, there are umpteen clues on my identity and I don’t try too hard either. But after the Plain Layne episodes, no one would have thought that stealing someone’s identity would exist in the “more mature” world of blogs.
If you have seen the recent Citibank commercials on identity theft, you are definitely psyched. But what if no financial harm is done? Is it still creepy to have someone steal your identity, as in visual images? To have your personal pictures online is almost exposing yourself to the world’s evils. Flickr is a great tool but on the downside, it puts your personal pictures out there for everyone to see; some of whom may not have good intentions. I constantly fear for the people who put up pictures of their kids on their blog (Page 3 fears, if you know what I mean).
Amanda Doerty who calls herself as the Hot Abercrombie Chick in the blogosphere world obviously had her share of fans. Until Hengineer discovered that this “Amanda” person had, in fact flicked Marie’s pictures and was literally stealing her visual identity (a pretty one too!) [via Foreign Dispatches]. I am not even sure if that blogger is a male or a female. Stealing someone’s “visually attractive identity” to attract more hits? Can this be the new form of plagiarism to hit the blogosphere, after the one that Amit discovered? Check out both the hyperlinks to be amazed at the sicko’s cheap stunts.
I shudder to think if anyone would do that to me (would have to be positively insane though). But I am definitely not putting my personal pictures of family and friends out in the public domain. All my online photo albums are password-protected and I hope you do the same too. Especially the ones with children in their family.
UPDATE: It seems that the Hot Abercrombie Chick scandal had a longer history than I thought. Also Shanti writes about a loser guy posing as a hot Libertarian chick (is that an oxymoron?) The guy sure was a moron. What say, Cartel members?
by Patrix | on Tuesday, February 15th, 2005 at 11:05 pm | 
Weblogs . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
Both comments and pings are currently closed.
February 16th, 2005 at 12:48 am reply
I had once put up a picture of my kids by Hello on my blog and then some premonition, perhaps similar to yours, made me pull it off after 10 minutes!!!
February 16th, 2005 at 12:58 am reply
Thanks for the link, if you follow the links in the update, you will see I didn’t “debunk” her first. I just found those pictures somewhere else. Someone earlier actually traced IP addresses and another blogger followed HAC’s entire blogging history
February 16th, 2005 at 8:04 am reply
Aekta - I am glad you did. I hate asking ppl to do it myself coz of misunderstanding but am glad when they do it on their own.
Henry - Thanks. It seems like a thing that happened in the distant past (blogospheric time). It is truly disgusting the things ppl will do to gain popularity.
February 16th, 2005 at 10:49 am reply
I am definitely guilty of putting my son’s pictures on my blog, even if I don’t put myself on it. I guess since someone cannot gain much by pretending to be a 9-month-old, I don’t see the motivation for someone to steal his image. As an adult though, I wouldn’t post my pictures online.
February 16th, 2005 at 12:15 pm reply
Shanti - Actually pictures of kids online are more dangerous because they are likely to be flicked by some cheap sicko for unthinkable purposes.
February 16th, 2005 at 11:51 pm reply
Shanti wasn’t the only one who blogged about Libertariangirl’s weblog. I blogged about it, Wizbang blogged, too, and the Insta-of all blogs, Instapundit even caught on. However, you’re original link (to catallarchy) is valid.
February 17th, 2005 at 9:29 am reply
Henry - Aiyooo! I read it on Shanti’s blog and so referred to her post and provided the original link. I couldn’t list all the post that wrote on that…would be just too much.
June 6th, 2005 at 2:22 am reply
HAC has been active again. It’s fun to goof on him.