How many people are like me, so enamored of the latest technical plaything our personal sense of risk and reward is totally out of whack?
In what I am readily recognizing as my continuing quest to give up all privacy, I have been playing with Google My Maps feature that lets you create and make public maps that reflect your own interests. In my case, it is the start of my autobiography in map form. It’s both interesting and disquieting. I have tried to place the markers as close to the actual locations as possible. For Example, if you zoom into New Delhi close enough, the marker is directly on top of the hotel I stayed in. So that’s cool, but something bothers me about it too that I can’t quite decode. Maybe what is disturbing about it is realizing just how much I am willing to give up in the name of technological exploration. How much privacy have I given up?
My DNA is on file with the Genographic project.
My DNA is also on file, with my full identifying information at FamilyDNA
All my purchases at Safeway in exchange for discounts
My life history from birth to the age of 32 or so to the Central Intelligence Agency
My current and former Blogs of course
My home and work address, birth date, credit card and personal credit information at numerous places
All my television viewing habits to Tivo and Comcast
All of my e-mail to Google before I went to a private ISP (and now the ISP has all of that).
That’s just the list off the top of my head. If I really sat down and did a census, how spooky will it get? Yet, I shred a lot of my analog Junk mail like bank statements and credit card offers. Yep, that’s making me feel secure.