This was my 1st birthday, on November 29th, 1960.

As a privacy advocate I often caution people to be careful what personal information they release online.  Privacy isn’t about keeping secrets, but about controlling the flow of our own personal information.  Everywhere we go it seems there is always somebody asking for personal information.

In these days when identity theft is so easy, I don’t give out personal information unless it’s demonstrably necessary.  If I want you to ship me that book, I have to give you my address.  But retailers have neither a need nor right to know where I live if I’m just looking around in their store.  If they insist, I don’t shop there any more. 

And so, of course, I never used to give out any of my primary identity information, like my real birthdate.  But once my birthdate became part of the ISBN record, there really wan’t any point to keep it dark any longer.  I just have to try harder in other respects.  Maybe over Christmas I’ll find the time to give email encryption another try.

Meanwhile, happy birthday to me :)