Bathosias wrote:Be careful with associating who you are here and who you are in the "real world."
Within the past few hours, one of our fellow members did a Google search for "demonosophy" and discovered that under the images tab many of our profile pictures appear. This includes the profile pictures utilized by our fellow members that are actual photographs. This raises some security concerns that I hope you all will consider when selecting your profile picture. From a bigger picture view, this highlights some Issues and considerations on why you should consider sanitizing your SnS (or any other meta or forum community) presence.
Before I get into the specifics here, I'm not suggesting that you're not allowed to be "you" or stifle your individuality. Y'all are a wicked sensitive bunch, so I just want to be clear that I'm not saying not to express genuine thought, sentiment, or emotion. Nobody is here to stifle your creative or censor your speech (with some extreme exceptions). And I'm not saying that you should never let members you are close to deeper into your own personal, real, life. I would say use caution there, but trust who you are willing to trust. What I am saying is that you need to be smart and safe (as safe as possible) about who you let into your life and the extent to which your presence here is attributable to your real life.
The Google search example above only used one search term. I'm sure there are other terms that could have been implemented that would have yielded the same results. Many terms that would be common to search for within this field probably will also show those pictures or other members pictures. The reason for this, at least in part, is that SnS has some areas that are open to the public and some that are closed to the members. Most of what happens here is posted in areas that are closed to the public, but not all of it.
So, what are some of the potential issues with someone seeing those pictures (the "so what" effect)? What about names, or other specific identifiable information? Well, the information that is out there can be gathered and used in several ways (I'll discuss a not all-inclusive list below).
1. Religious nuts. Believe it or not... SnS has haters. It really shouldn't come as a shock to you that certain religious folks actively seek out and target "satanists." What flows next is usually hateful messages, e-mails, etc. Sometimes these rise to threat level. And other times these people will do their research to learn as much information about you as possible. Add in a little motivation and a dash of mental instability, bake until golden brown, and you have a problem. Think the "but I'm just a spirit keeper, not a satanist" argument will get you anywhere here? Ummmm... Did I mention they were religious nuts? Haters gonna hate. Try to make sure they're hating you without them knowing who YOU really are.
2. Don't get cursed. Guess what? Witches can be a very petty and catty bunch. Who would guess that shit right? But, y'all can. And do. And when witches get angry, they sometimes get cursey. I still haven't figured out this dynamic of petty cursing behavior, but it does happen. And who is surrounding this forum? Witches. And are there witches outside of SnS who disagree with our paths? Yup. Are they petty and bent on cursing you? Probably not. But, it only takes one witch, internal or external, with an axe to grind. Maybe you cut her off in traffic the other day. Maybe he doesn't like your face. The reason doesn't matter. What does matter is that pictures, names, locations, etc., all give the witch access to potential avenues for cursing you. Those pieces of information, called tags, are like gold (or nightshade) to the cursing witch. Try not to get your head shrunk.
3. You might want a job. Increasingly, employers and prospective employers will use an array of data seeking software and experts to pry into your personal life. Odds are good that you signed away your "privacy" when you signed up for employment, logged into SnS on their network, or in a number of other ways. The point is, unless you work for some super progressive free thinkers, most employers are going to be all
to your satanic ways. Think that your anti-discrimination policy will save your ass? Ummm... I strongly doubt they'll write "satanist" on the justification for your termination. If you're all about that cash money life, you probably need to keep the money coming in. Don't become unemployed "Craig" from "Friday"... Keep your job, have something to do, there isn't a reason to get high today. (Though as a side note, I really find it funny that "bye Felicia" has become a thing after 20 years.)
4. Maybe you like family. Most satanists, witches, other practitioners of the LHP walk kinda lonely existences. It's due to the fact that this path is not generally accepted. It's a taboo. Most of us don't wake up and have this conversation: Hey, what ya doin today? Oh me? I'm playing with demons. If your family is cool with it, great. But, most folks here probably aren't in that open of a situation.
5. Your government doesn't like satanists. Many of our members come from countries that have religious views that could be best described as.... Closed minded. I'm not going to create a list or risk singling anyone out. You know who you are, where you are, and if this applies to you. But, the fact of the matter is that in many parts of the world witchcraft is a serious thing that could result in (in the extreme cases) death. Yup, there are parts of the world today where chilling with demons can result in execution. It's all fun and games until someone chucks a rock at your dome. Try not to get all inquisitioned.
6. Other shit. My list isn't all inclusive. I can probably think of other shit that would make this list, but I'm all out of effort.
Something else to consider is that the information might not always be something that taken by itself could be used against you. But, sometimes these items are pieced together in the aggregate to paint a picture of an individual. Once they have created that image of you, all of that information can be used against you in one of the methods described above. In other words, with very little training and an appropriate amount of motivation, an individual can get to one thing (a profile picture accompanied by a user name), then expand their searches based on that information which leads to additional pieces of information, repeat process.... And in the end have mapped a pretty good amount of information about you. Once that is done, there are ways that the information can be further utilized to gain access into almost every aspect of your real life. And a dedicated individual can really data mine pretty deeply. I'm obviously not going to provide the "how to" here - I'm not trying to educate a new wave of cyber stalkers, but trust me - it can be done. I'd venture to say that given about 15-30 minutes of solid effort, I could have a pretty good course of action into locating the real you - all of you - where you went to HS, who your friends are, etc. I don't do this because I'm not a dick (at least that kind of a dick) and I have no valid reason to do it. This type of data collection is a skill set that exists, however, and you should be mindful of it. Sometimes it is used for legitimate reasons, and sometimes for nefarious reasons (cyber stalking, bullying, cursing, etc). Don't be a victim based on your own stupid.
Now before you all run off and get paranoid, remember, most of you are witches... Try not to burn each other. "She's a witch! BURNnnnnnnnnnnn HER!" --- let's just not do that. Don't change how you act as a whole. Trust those who have earned your trust. Let people into your life when and where you trust them. Most of the people on this forum are obviously good folks. But, BE SMART. Remember, anyone can create an account. Unless we start paying for membership to our club here (not suggesting that) which allows Akelta to scrub who all of the members are, we need to be mindful of what we post openly. After all, literally anyone can just create an account and see what you've written. So, try to leave some plausible deniability into your online presence and outright avoid placing those things that can be connected to you (like names or personal photos) out for the world to see.
Remember, don't burn each other. All burninating will be handled by Trogdor.
(P.S. - please forgive any grammatical or spelling errors - it's seriously late and I'm up due to a few factors when I normally would be asleep).
