 By Christopher Davin November 09, 2005
What's so sad here is the fact that this is not a made up statement. I pulled it off an actual bulletin board on MySpace. But let's take a look. First off, I really don't need to worry about the JPD, because I live in Philadelphia. Problem solved. But they're out to get you you say? Oh no! You mean they're doing their job, and your making it easier for them by telling them where you're all going to break the law? And they read it? How unfair! Invasion of privacy you say this is. I say, you're quite possibly the most linguistically challenged person I've ever met. So I'll go ahead and explain to you just why you're so dead wrong. Here's a definition of the word private: "pri·vate (prvt) adj. Secluded from the sight, presence, or intrusion of others." Now here's a definition of posting stuff on MySpace: Not Private. You see, MySpace, and Xanga/Livejournal are public places. Anybody with a computer can see anything and everything you decided to post. It is entirely within your power to make your profile on any of those websites private- all you have to do is set your profiles and journals so only your friends can read them - you simply choose not to, so therefore anything that happens to you as a result of anyone being able to look at your stuff is entirely your fault. Here's a neat little analogy. Suppose your parents are going out of town, and you want to have a party when they're gone. Alright, so you call all your friends up individually, and tell them when to be there, right? Wrong. Instead, you make a 15 foot billboard with all the information on it, and stick it in your front yard. This is pretty cool, but I didn't tell you about the best part yet. When your parents see this sign and ask you about it, don't admit to anything. Start screaming that they invaded your privacy, that nowhere on that sign did you give them permission to read it. Also ignore the fact that you probably used all your parents stuff to make the sign, and posted it in their front yard (that's a metaphor folks- you're using your parent's computer and your parent's internet access to do all that anyway). Look, the simple fact of the matter is you don't understand the difference between private, and public. So until you do, you will continue to get busted by the cops (Juneau is a small town, they can afford to bust you guys this way) when you make publicly available the information for where all the parties and etc. are going to happen. Come on. Use your head. Christopher Davin
P.S. Dear JDHS: You're going to have a lot of trouble stopping students from doing what they like on the computers in your school when some of them know more about computers then the people you pay to run them. Then when you add to that you're using a blacklist of websites developed by an ex-student, and are simply blocking by URLs, it's immensely easy to get past any of your rudimentary firewalls. MySpace was blocked in school all last year. But with a little bit of mirroring and a proxy browser, I never had a problem getting around your firewalls in school. But I digress. The more intelligent of your
students are so far ahead of you, you don't even know we've
already beaten your system. But then again, the kids you are
dealing with here are in the less intelligent category, so I
guess that makes you about even. Go ahead, block MySpace. But
treating the symptoms instead of curing the problem is the most
surefire way to get nothing accomplished while spending plenty
of money. Related News:
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