Stay Safe Online, Blogging from Emails
Hopefully, you already think to strip any visible personal information like your real name or email address from things you might copy paste from a mail into a blog. If you blog things sent to you from an organization you belong to or non profit group, and it clicks you through to a page where your address is automatically filled in, please note that link if copy pasted in to a blog may allow anyone who clicks it to be able to see this information. It used to be that most data bases recognized your unique computer address. Now there are several methods of tracking that are used and those that aren't ip related may pull up your own distict account information. Always check before you blog. If it does show your address prefilled, back track the site and find where a person who happens to visit would find the same link to arrive at the form. Use that link instead in your blog post. Due to the way some search engines log links, making the mistake of not doing this first, even if you change it later, may leave your vital information exposed for - well - who knows how long. YOU CAN NEVER BE TOO SAFE OR TOO CAREFUL ON THE INTERNET.
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I just wrote this on one of my blog sites after having to check through the entire thing to be sure I removed all such blogs. As a time saver I recently started copy pasting excerpts from political and non profit mails to share in the blog post. BIG MISTAKE! Whew - thank goodness I realized it at all! It is really a subject that I now think should be addressed amongst web masters and I plan to contact all related groups to let them know what happened. This would also apply to passing on such emails. No telling how many such mails I have passed on over the last few years that took anyone down the line to my home address!!!! Wow huh? Some of the site links while showing up prefilled on my computer did not when others clicked them. This would be a much safer way to go for those who entrust their private information to any online service that allows one to write letters quickly through their interfaces. Just something else to think about.
