View Full Version : Privacy
When I started my book project, the online course I took to learn how to self-publish advised going on Substack and inviting people to read your drafts. He said to invite 100 people. Well, all I had the stomach for was to invite about 15 people--my family. As you know, I haven't even given you guys the link, although at this point I probably will soon, now that the following has happened.
I love being on Substack because except for those 15 people I invited no one knows me. I do use my real name, but that's OK, because no one knows me. The nature of my project requires that I write it as a quasi-memoir of my own journey to a simpler life but I only use what I absolutely need to from my own life to make a point. The one chapter that I wrote that was really more "self-help" and less "self-indulgence" garnered criticism from my DIL who said she really wanted to know more about my story. So I've been working on that. It's hard for me. You guys are the only ones I blab to about all areas of my life. But again, this site is very comfortingly anonymous.
So anyway, a couple of weeks ago, an old friend from my teen years reconnected with me, and we did a couple of back and forth emails catching up on life. It was fun, but that was that. But all of a sudden I got an email that this person subscribed to my Substack! How did they know about it?? They must have googled me and unfortunately I forgot that if I'm on Substack, I'll come up in searches.
Now I'm very self-conscious. I know I need to get over that. On a scale of 1-10, where 10 is a "I'm an open book" and 1 is "If I throw a towel over my head, will you still be able to see me?" I'm probably a 3.
How about you? How private a person are you IRL? If you had to write a memoir of your life, would you enjoy sharing it, or would it terrify you?
iris lilies
4-8-25, 7:24pm
Anyone who wants to figure out who I am in real life, can figure it out. I have more than 23 years of posts on this website although the first 10 years disappeared when Dave Wampler took the site down. Or did it? Is it out there on the way back Machine? Beats me.
look at my post count to see how much yakking I do on this forum. And then figure that I do a bunch of yakking on Mr. money mustache, and on a couple other same-themed forums. Lots of yakking, but only some personal revelations.
Anyone who wants to figure out who I am in real life, can figure it out. I have more than 23 years of posts on this website although the first 10 years disappeared when Dave Wampler took the site down. Or did it? Is it out there on the way back Machine? Beats me.
look at my post count to see how much yakking I do on this forum. And then figure that I do a bunch of yakking on Mr. money mustache, and on a couple other sane-themed forums. Lots of yakking, but only some personal revelations.
Yeah, but do people know who you are behind your user name? Could they find you in Hermann? I've known you for 20 years, and I couldn't. That's why I try to keep my online presence as private as possible. I realize that you and Alan, as moderators, know how to find me, and that's OK. It's just that i was shy as a child and I'm still pretty shy.
iris lilies
4-8-25, 9:55pm
Yeah, but do people know who you are behind your user name? Could they find you in Hermann? I've known you for 20 years, and I couldn't. That's why I try to keep my online presence as private as possible. I realize that you and Alan, as moderators, know how to find me, and that's OK. It's just that i was shy as a child and I'm still pretty shy.
catherine, you are so nice. You couldn’t find me because you are not devious. Believe me, I’ve dropped enough hints over the years here that anyone with a detective mind could find me.
You have talked about your kids and their film careers. You are findable through that. Just sayin’. And probably your husband‘s current business would reveal you.
iris lilies
4-8-25, 10:03pm
I realize I didn’t answer your question. My life is not a “open book “because I don’t reveal super personal stuff, but other stuff I put out on the forums, I assume the world is reading it. Sure it’s semi-anonymous but not entirely anonymous and I assume it could be tied to me personally and that’s fine.
iris lilies
4-8-25, 11:15pm
Stories about privacy on forums:
Two other financial related forums I frequent have “journal “sections that are not indexed in Google so that provides a bit of a shield, but really all anyone has to do is register on those websites and they can access the journals.
Spartana had a terrible problem with a real life stalker. He’s in jail now. Fortunately, she carries a gun and she knows how to use it, being ex military. She closed her account on MMM for a while.
On MMM someone in the military got slapped down by military for writing stuff, but it’s not clear to me what she wrote that was improper, it certainly wasn’t revealing any secrets. I don’t know if they were monitoring her output or what, but that was something I found very strange.
On another forum I have been…shocked… at what one person revealed that led to that person‘s Instagram account that led to Nude Selfies. I mean, full frontal nudity. I suppose there was a compulsion to show people his stuff but… Yeah, there’s so much wrong with that situation. I can’t even go into it, and I don’t shock easily.
And then there are the therapists who think they are circumspect with their identity but again, anyone with detective brain could figure out who they are. The two I am thinking of never talk about their clients, tho.
The lesson is that we really aren’t anonymous on these personal chat sites.
I believe I could be chatted up and scammed by an AI bot who follows me around the Internet, sees what I write about, groks my interests and then befriends me. If they made me laugh enough, I might send them money. I find comfort in the fact that by the time AI gets this sophisticated, I’ll probably be dead.
I’ve been trying to be more anonymous online. That’s why I like Reddit. Sort of a fresh start.
iris lilies
4-8-25, 11:45pm
Reddit is a hellscape of fun. Unfortunately, for me, there too in the St. Louis sub Reddit I couldn’t keep my mouth shut about where I’ve lived and people I know, so once again, someone could suss me out if they worked at it.
Reddit is a hellscape of fun. Unfortunately, for me, there too in the St. Louis sub Reddit I couldn’t keep my mouth shut about where I’ve lived and people I know, so once again, someone could suss me out if they worked at it.
There’s a group relevant to my industry that’s quite helpful.
I have a friend who had his DNA done by 23andme. I understand you can delete your data, but asked why it matters. One response I got was that insurance companies could get a hold of the data and use it to research and determine insurance rates based on chronic disease indicators. I don't know how true that is. I'm not sure what anyone would want to learn about me, but it probably pays to keep a low internet profile in case big brother is watching. I ordered an item via Amazon from vego garden and suddenly my TV has been giving me vego garden ads when I use certain streaming services. I suppose the Fire Stick knows.
IL: You actually shared something here with your name on it at one point. I think it was related to a flower show award or some similar recognition.
I've shared enough that I assume someone could figure out who I was if they really were all that interested in the identify of an older, middle-class, book, garden, & pottery enthusiast. I don't really worry about it.
iris lilies
4-9-25, 7:54am
IL: You actually shared something here with your name on it at one point. I think it was related to a flower show award or some similar recognition.
I've shared enough that I assume someone could figure out who I was if they really were all that interested in the identify of an older, middle-class, book, garden, & pottery enthusiast. I don't really worry about it.
Yes, I do remember posting something and probably multiple something’s with my name.
Yes, I do remember posting something and probably multiple something’s with my name.
I do remember that, and I do remember tne first name but that's not really your first name. Your first name is iris ;). That experience was like when your father has a beard and they come out of the bathroom and it's shaved off.
IRL I'm pretty much an open book, very much an extrovert, but online I prefer anonymity. I don't have many secrets worth keeping, but do lean towards being a private person.
iris lilies
4-9-25, 9:55am
I do remember that, and I do remember tne first name but that's not really your first name. Your first name is iris ;). That experience was like when your father has a beard and they come out of the bathroom and it's shaved off.
Haha yeah that’s it!
rosarugosa
4-10-25, 6:35am
Stories about privacy on forums:
Two other financial related forums I frequent have “journal “sections that are not indexed in Google so that provides a bit of a shield, but really all anyone has to do is register on those websites and they can access the journals.
Spartana had a terrible problem with a real life stalker. He’s in jail now. Fortunately, she carries a gun and she knows how to use it, being ex military. She closed her account on MMM for a while.
On MMM someone in the military got slapped down by military for writing stuff, but it’s not clear to me what she wrote that was improper, it certainly wasn’t revealing any secrets. I don’t know if they were monitoring her output or what, but that was something I found very strange.
On another forum I have been…shocked… at what one person revealed that led to that person‘s Instagram account that led to Nude Selfies. I mean, full frontal nudity. I suppose there was a compulsion to show people his stuff but… Yeah, there’s so much wrong with that situation. I can’t even go into it, and I don’t shock easily.
And then there are the therapists who think they are circumspect with their identity but again, anyone with detective brain could figure out who they are. The two I am thinking of never talk about their clients, tho.
The lesson is that we really aren’t anonymous on these personal chat sites.
I believe I could be chatted up and scammed by an AI bot who follows me around the Internet, sees what I write about, groks my interests and then befriends me. If they made me laugh enough, I might send them money. I find comfort in the fact that by the time AI gets this sophisticated, I’ll probably be dead.
So for whatever reason, I decided to take this as a challenge to figure out the identity of a very prolific MMM therapist/journal keeper who tries to be quite circumspect about her identity, and it took me about an hour. At first I had some maybes, but once I got it, I 100% knew I had an accurate ID. There is absolutely no question in my mind that I could have put this time to better use, lol.
iris lilies
4-10-25, 9:05am
So for whatever reason, I decided to take this as a challenge to figure out the identity of a very prolific MMM therapist/journal keeper who tries to be quite circumspect about her identity, and it took me about an hour. At first I had some maybes, but once I got it, I 100% knew I had an accurate ID. There is absolutely no question in my mind that I could have put this time to better use, lol.
Good for you, Miss Detective Lady! That confirms what I said about ease of identification.
I haven’t tried my hand at that particular therapist, but another one who thinks she is low key bought a new house and I had it ID’d by the description. It had some unique characteristics.A few days later she linked the Realtor.com listing and that verified my sleuthing, but then she took it down (I think? Can’t remember)
iris lilies
4-10-25, 9:40am
People sure have different tolerances of space invasion, both digital space and physical space.
Our garden is open in June for Hermann’s garden tour. I will invite tour people to go through our house to easily get to our deck in the back. The ladies organizing the tour were uneasy with this and cautioned me to close doors to other rooms and etc.
I said “it is ok, how many people could there be on this tour, anyway? A couple hundred at most? “ They confirmed. I told them “we had 1,000 people though our house in the city when it was on the house tour, it is no big deal.”
I remember when I used to recruit houses for our neighborhood’s house tour so many people shuddered in horror at the thought of 1,000 people tramping through their house. But we thought it was fun.
ToomuchStuff
4-10-25, 10:34am
I have no doubt, that we really don't have privacy here. NSA uses supercomputers which I am sure while capturing everything on the internet, is able to us AI to observe language, typing, etc, to determine a persons connections online. I also don't doubt that due to security personal I know, I have at least a couple folders (heck I should have one from when I was a baby and relatives lived next to HST's cousin, shared driveway), and then of course his Presidential funeral I attended and my family worked.
We have also seen the warnings here to Packy, about his predatory behavior.
Had at least two gals I know stalked, and have reason to believe I myself have been stalked, by family that I either never met, or my uncle that was the suspect in my abduction, before I was found and it was the babysitters brother, fresh out of prison.
catherine
4-10-25, 11:28am
I have no doubt, that we really don't have privacy here. NSA uses supercomputers which I am sure while capturing everything on the internet, is able to us AI to observe language, typing, etc, to determine a persons connections online. I also don't doubt that due to security personal I know, I have at least a couple folders (heck I should have one from when I was a baby and relatives lived next to HST's cousin, shared driveway), and then of course his Presidential funeral I attended and my family worked.
We have also seen the warnings here to Packy, about his predatory behavior.
Had at least two gals I know stalked, and have reason to believe I myself have been stalked, by family that I either never met, or my uncle that was the suspect in my abduction, before I was found and it was the babysitters brother, fresh out of prison.
Wow...that is scary stuff!! And your experiences predate all of the technologies we have now to get information on anyone at the click of a button basically. I'm not even worried about being stalked.. I'm just worried about being known. Fear of being stalked is a whole other level, but you're right--none of us is really immune.
littlebittybobby
4-10-25, 7:40pm
okay---i keep summa my gov't surplus auction file cabinets plumb full o' dossiers with random information on each one o' you kids. Yup. But yeah---in case i need to track you down to avenge myself for some untoward remark you may've made about littlebittymee, i can just take the pieces of the puzzle out of your files, put them together, and determine your zact identity, location and even the names of famly members. Yup. Sounds scaaaaary, don't it? Ha. you can run, but you can't hide. Nope. Thankk mee.
iris lilies
6-16-25, 5:40pm
So for whatever reason, I decided to take this as a challenge to figure out the identity of a very prolific MMM therapist/journal keeper who tries to be quite circumspect about her identity, and it took me about an hour. At first I had some maybes, but once I got it, I 100% knew I had an accurate ID. There is absolutely no question in my mind that I could have put this time to better use, lol.
Since I am mostly through flower show season and have a little time on my hands, I decided to try my hand at sussing out the identity of that same prolific therapist.
BAM! Got it in ONE Google search. Yay me!
if ya’ll need to find someone please hire rosa and me.we are top notch sleuths!
edited to add: today she wrote about the specificity of her therapy focus and how she has a lot of clients due to that specificity.
Challenge accepted!
happystuff
6-16-25, 6:39pm
It's sad and scary how easy it is to find someone irl from forum posts.
rosarugosa
6-17-25, 6:46am
Since I am mostly through flower show season and have a little time on my hands, I decided to try my hand at sussing out the identity of that same prolific therapist.
BAM! Got it in ONE Google search. Yay me!
if ya’ll need to find someone please hire rosa and me.we are top notch sleuths!
edited to add: today she wrote about the specificity of her therapy focus and how she has a lot of clients due to that specificity.
Challenge accepted!
Lol IL, sounds like you got there a lot faster than I did!
iris lilies
6-17-25, 7:36am
Lol IL, sounds like you got there a lot faster than I did!
Well, I had the added information ( you did not have)/ that she was advertising a very specific therapy focus, and she has mentioned chronic pain before. I had no idea she was in dentistry prior to this, though, but it makes sense that now that I think of the various references to teeth care she’s made over the years.
rosarugosa
6-17-25, 8:42am
Well, I had the added information ( you did not have)/ that she was advertising a very specific therapy focus, and she has mentioned chronic pain before. I had no idea she was in dentistry prior to this, though, but it makes sense that now that I think of the various references to teeth care she’s made over the years.
Yes, I thought the same about the dentistry.
It's sad and scary how easy it is to find someone irl from forum posts.
I'm not too worried. Once they find me they have to swim across 20 miles of killer whale-infested stormy seas, then climb halfway up the tallest mountain for 60 miles. And then they will encounter my perimeter defenses :-)
happystuff
6-18-25, 7:24am
I'm afraid to even ask about the "perimeter defenses"! LOL. But definitely sound like a safe place to be.
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