|
Pseudonyms, Anonymity, and Your Web Presence P.O. Boxes and Mailboxes, Etc. Back to the White Ribbon Campaign
|
Before I begin, let me state something clearly: People who are stalked are the exception rather than the rule. Even most NYT bestselling authors never have a real stalker, despite the occasional brush with a far too creepy fan. But most people will never have have their house broken into, either, yet good locks and security systems are still a good idea. I am not trying to be an alarmist. I am trying to keep authors safe. Authors are more vulnerable than most public figures because many of us have turned to the web to network and for publicity. Therefore, there is usually more information about us on the web than there is about other people. Think that no one knows what city you live in? Well, as more and more newspapers turn to electronic archives, you may discover that an article from five years ago calling you a "local author" is now readily available on the web through a search. Do you belong to a local club with a website? If they have a page of members, you could be at risk. If you write under your real name and your stalker knows your state, in most instances, all he needs is an internet connection and a half hour of "social engineering" to find your location. Even worse, with nothing more than your name, your state, and your approximate age, it's now a trivial matter for a stalker to pay for a public records search that makes available huge amounts of information about you. Networking is great; publicity is also great. What isn't great is that we can accidentally give potential stalkers more information about us. Whether a stalker is someone you knew first "in the flesh" or someone who became fixated on you through your writing, you want to give then as few ways as possible to get your private information.
"I've Done Nothing Wrong And I've Got Nothing to Hide!" Welcome to the club! If you were absolutely honest with yourself, there is probably something you don't want the world to know, whether it's the graphic details of your sex life, your sister's mental illness, or your own income. But even if you actually are that one person in 1000 who wouldn't mind if every detail of her entire private life were broadcast to the world, keep this in mind: Having nothing to hide would keep you safe only if everyone else in the world also "did nothing wrong." But the truth is that there are scary people out there. This resource is here to tell you what kind of information a stalker could get hold of--and how to keep him from doing it.
Pseudonyms, Anonymity, and Your Web Presence (source: personal experience and personal communication with the U.S. copyright office) Pseudonyms are a great way to put a layer of anonymity between you-the-person and you-the-writer. If a stalker is a stranger or mere acquaintance who knows you in the flesh, without knowing your pseudonym, he will be unable to feed his fantasy by reading about you online or by fixating on your books. He will be unable to use the channels of communication that authors like to leave open for their fans in order to harass you. If a stalker is a fan, then all he will be able to do is harass you online. He can't find your home or your family without knowing your real name. Some authors (and many non-writers) believe that they must be identified on the copyright notice under their real name or that they must incorporate and copyright the work under the name of the corporation. This is not true. On the copyright form, simply have the line "Was this author's contribution to the work pseudonymous?" checked. On the line where the author is to write her name, simply put your information in the form of "Jane Smith whose pseudonym is Esmeralda Windsor." Then, on the copyright notice inside your book, your name may be listed as Esmeralda Windsor. Put this in your contract with your publisher! Remember that a pseudonym is worthless if it links to your real name. So that means that even if you are unpublished, when you talk about your writing in a public forum, you should always use only your pseudonym, whether it's online or a face-to-face workshop. You might feel a little foolish if you don't have any books out yet; however, it's a lot better to feel silly than to regret it ten years later when a stalker finds an archived reference to the connection somewhere. It is very, very, very easy to make a comment somewhere on the web linking your real name to your writing. It's even easier to forget about it until it comes to haunt you months or even years later. So get in the habit of being careful now. Once your information leaves your computer and goes onto the internet, it will be around for a long time.
Your author site should be about you as an author--and nothing else. Little personal bits are fine, but always be extremely conscious that if you give away too much information, you could be giving tools to a future stalker. NEVER connect your personal family site to your book site, and, in fact, do not have a family site that ever mentions your location or your last names no matter who you are. And no matter how much you love genealogy, don't post your family tree on the web! Don't give an address. Not even a P.O. box. If your fans can email you, they have no reason to send you a letter via the post office. Better than an email address is a contact form. It keeps stalkers from sending you harassing emails. If you have a problem with a harasser, all you have to do is have the right software installed on the server, and then you can start logging a record of the IP addresses of everyone who visits your site--that is, you can have strong evidence of what machine(s) the stalker is using. Then you can ban them. Anonymous remailers and header-spoofing emails might let and emailer hide, but by accessing your web page at the same time that a harassing message is sent via a contact form, a stalker provides proof of his actions. Make sure that you have an anonymous registration for your domain name--or that it is registered by another company. Otherwise, a WHOIS search could reveal your real name, your address, and your phone number. If you don't want to pay for anonymous registration, you can always lie about your information. Don't know what I'm taking about? Visit this site to find out.
Want to find out what's on the internet about you now? Follow these instructions--but remember to put quotes around your name. Google isn't enough, though, as I have learned. The other most popular search engines are Yahoo!, MSN's search engine, AOL, and Ask Jeeves. You might be surprised. (source) If you have another business that may be somehow connected to your presence as an author (say, you're a book publicist, too), then I would recommend that you use a false name for that business as well. In any capacity, though, don't put your real name on any site unless it's absolutely necessary. If you're in a business that is web-based, consider using a false name for everything. If the business is mostly face-to-face, think for a moment: Do you really need to have your name there? Would it work just as well to have yourself listed as "webmistress@thebestcoffee.com" or "president@comconnection.com"? If it would, choose the more anonymous solution. Remember: Don't let anyone tell you that you're being paranoid or silly. I bought into that lie, and I have suffered for it.
(sources: articles by Wayne Petherick and Rachel R. Hartman and personal experience) This is advice good for everyone, not just authors! -Email. For non-author-related contacts, choose a gender-neutral email address that doesn't reveal your age or location, and use an email address with a domain that is available across the United States. For example, if your ISP is AOL, it would be fine to use junis@aol.com because AOL addresses are available to millions of people across the US. But if your ISP is a small, local company, use a Hotmail or a Yahoo! address instead of one that can locate you so precisely. Never, ever use a name that reveals your last name in part or in whole. -False Names and Aliases. Use a false name for all online communications. If you have a pseudonym, use it for author-related contacts. If you'd rather not trumpet your writing to the whole world in a particular forum, use a different alias--one that is gender neutral. -Profiles. Do not fill out profiles about yourself for chat rooms or instant messaging programs. Do not allow strangers to instant message you. -Signature. Do not put any contact information (phone number, company name, address) in your signature if you use your email for non-business purposes. -Email Headers. Make sure you know what information you're sending! There's no point in using a gender-neutral handle if your email is being sent as being from "Mary Smith." -Listservers, Bulletin Boards, and Newsgroups. Be careful in where you choose to speak to people. Remember, even the internet has "bad parts of town." -Passwords. Use passwords that consist of a random collection of numbers and letters--and symbols, where permitted. Do not use dates, words, portions of words, or names. Use passwords of 8 characters long or more. Ideally, you should have a different password for every account that you have on the net. Realistically, you should have as many as you can remember well! Never share or write down a password. -Firewalls. Use a firewall. There are great programs out there, both to buy and for free. ZoneAlarm is my favorite free one. -Removing abusing cookies. Cookies can be used by webmasters to track all sorts of information about the sites you visit. Run AdAware and SpyBot Search and Destroy (with its Inoculate feature) once a month, downloading the newer versions as they become available.
Almost all authors, sooner or later, will get weird fan mail. Many authors feel obligated to answer everything they receive, but you shouldn't feel that way! If a letter or email makes you uncomfortable, don't answer it. That's all there is to it. You don't want to encourage a mentally unstable person to continue contacting you, so simply ignore any letters that are outside your personal boundaries. Do not send photographs of yourself to fans. Do not send signatures. Instead, make an arrangement with a small bookstore to allow people to order signed books directly from them. Always keep a comfortable cushion of space between you and the public!
Whenever you travel, if you have any reason to suspect that someone unwanted might try to come to your hotel room, you should register for your hotel under a false name. It is at time ridiculously easy for someone to gain access to your hotel room. Once, some friends and I were traveling in two cars. By the time the our car showed up at the hotel, the occupants of the first car had already gone to the room--and then left again for dinner! At the front desk, we said we needed a spare key. We couldn't give the room number and we didn't know under whose name the room was registered, so it wasn't until the second guess that we got it right. And guess what? We were given the key, no questions asked. Yes, that's against the policy at most hotels. But policy won't keep you safe.
For many of us, the absolute separation between a pseudonym and your real name isn't feasible, for one reason or another. And even if we think that it is, we all make mistakes. Not being listed in the phone book can keep someone from finding our number and address the easy way. Right now, most of us probably get published, and then after a couple of months, we think, "Hey, maybe my phone number shouldn't be in the phone book." Once, this was fine. You get published, you get an unpublished number, and then no one who calls for an operator can access information about you. When the new phone book comes out, you're gone. Unfortunately, there are two problems with that. First, you may acquire a stalker sooner than you think. Second, many online directories are not contentious about updating their records. I have even found a phone number and address for myself that was years out of date! To get yourself removed from the online directories, you will have to contact each one individually, jumping through their individual hoops. Less scrupulous directories pride themselves on having unpublished phone numbers. You if you're serious about getting published, the best time to get an unpublished phone number is when you move to a new house. The second best time is NOW. Don't wait until you have to run around plugging up leaks.
If you've ever bought a house, you'll notice that within a week of moving in, you'll get tons of junk mail congratulating you on your purchase and inviting you to take out a second mortgage. Property ownership is generally considered a public record. When finding such information required someone to first know the address of the property, then go to the correct county assessor's office, and finally to look up the address and find the name of the person to whom it belongs--then that's all well and good. However, there are now giant databases on the internet, and all that anyone needs to know is your name and your approximate (and I mean VERY approximate) location, and they can find your house in minutes. Department of Motor Vehicles (or the equivalent) records, birth certificates, marriage certificates, death certificates, court records, divorce records, and arrest records are also generally public. If you think this is no big deal, just consider: your stalker, from the internet alone, could use this information to find out your address, your phone number, the names of your kids, your marital status, and can even guess what grades your kids are in and what public school they go to. In some states, under some circumstances, you can seal all or part of a record that would otherwise be public. If you can, do it. If you can't, this is one more reason to keep relevant information--your real name, where you live, etc.--to yourself as much as possible. In the future, see if you can sign a variation of your name to record that will become public. If your full name is Virginia Ann Smith Jones and you go by Virginia Jones, see if you can't have your name listed as Ginny Smith Jones on your next purchase of a house. In most places, it's a perfectly legal for of obfuscation.
A P.O. Box is Good--Mailboxes, Etc. is Better P.O. boxes are good for any time you need to give out a valid address but do not feel like sharing your home's location. If you can have one in a neighboring town, that's even better. But post offices are notoriously lax is sharing your personal information--like your real name--to bogus individuals. In addition, when you have a P.O. box, it's obvious to anyone who get it that it's not where you live. Private companies like Mailboxes, Etc., are much more closemouthed with your information. Only a real subpoena ordered by a judge will get someone the information they want. In addition, if you have Box #1234, you can write it as Apt. 1234, and the mail will still get delivered, so most people never need know that it's not where you physically live.
Most of us give out huge amounts of personal information every year without a second thought. We order magazines and catalogs, we enter sweepstakes, we give our phone numbers or addresses to organizations raging from the public library to a discount clothing store. We sign up for accounts so that we can read the New York times or so that we can have an email address. Every time that we give out this information, there is a chance that at some point it will find its way to a publicly available database--or that a stalker will get the information out of the company or organization through manipulation, cajolery, or lies. For example, did you know that under Texas nonprofit law, RWA must make available to all its members a list of all other members upon request? RWA has made efforts to make this more difficult, but if you have your RWR coming to your house and a stalker knows your real name, you could be in danger even if he can't get the information any other way. What options do you have, then? Lie. It's none of a clothing store's business what your phone number is, nor does the New York Times need to know your mailing address. Use alternate contact information. When lying is not practical, use your Mailboxes, Etc. address or your cell phone number as contact information. Use a "doing business as" name instead of your real name. Omit. Give out only the minimum information necessary to complete the transaction.
Here's a start on other sources of information and support. http://www.cyber-stalking.net/ http://www.usdoj.gov/criminal/cybercrime/ |