If You Had to Disclose Your True Identity in SL...

Sigh. If you must know, I'm actually Aishwarya Rai and I'm a famous Bollywood actress. So there.

I like to think I'm an immersible in RL and SL. My RL identity doesn't say much more about me than my SL identity so I'm fine with telling folks my RL name if necessary.

I'm fine sharing details with SL, and a year ago I'd probably have said no to sharing with everyone, but now I think I'd be ok - as long as I didn't have to share personal details which would affect my safety. I don't have an issue with sharing my name/age.

Saying that, I'd still fight to be able to keep anonymity available in SL. I think being able to be who/what you want is an important part of this world and changing that would not only lose some valuable people in SL and valuable customers for LL, but would also cause SL to lose my interest sooner or later.

It's not as bad as it sounds. At least, not the way I see it. (^_^)

In fact, If I had to take a tally, I think more people know that I'm Immy than know Immy is me. (^_^)

Over all, and in sweet irony, I find people in SL to be far more intolerant in these regards. (^_^)y

THIS!

^^^ THAT ^^^



OMG! and I'm that short, pudgy production manager you hosed last summer to get that bigger dressing room. Small world, aint it?

If someone has your name and they use a sig with an image they have your IP address. With that information they can find you IRL. If necessary with $50 to get a BI run on you that would provide all the info needed to exactly ID you and your details and your address and where you work, what car you drive, and where you live, and how much you pay in property taxes and a nice aerial pic of your house.

And what your mothers maiden name is, where you were born, what's your date of birth...........which are often enough to get past the 'secret answer" for the "forgot my password" option to get into your real life checking account.

Sounds paranoid..........but it's real. Very real.

My RL situation isn't so pretty:


I had an agent in the 80s who tried to help, but I just ended up... well, see for yourself:

The commute must be hell.

An IP address won't give anyone much. Mine will show me somewhere within circle with a radius of 150 miles or so. That takes in 6 states. The two cities it most often puts me in are at the outer limits of that 300 mile circle.

They have several dozen to several hundred IP addresses, one of which is probably yours (unless you're using a proxy), and they might be able to narrow things down by comparing their logs with the time you posted some article in the same thread as yours (and if you're not using a caching proxy, or if you didn't just open a bunch of tabs and then respond to them over the next hour).

You can legally change your name in RL too in most places.

For some of us our "professional" names hide even our real names but even so, I just dont think anyone in sl (or any other reality) has a right to probe beyond the screen. We should just accept who we all are in our world here - why drag real into our recreational garden of eden?

We have teh Interweb in India too.

One of my sl "daughters" lives there (in India).

I haven't voted in this poll because there is a shortage of choices. It doesn't say who the RL identities are revealed to. For instance, I am willing to reveal the real me to LL (I've done that, of course), but not to all the users. There's no option for that answer. Option #2 seems to suggest revealing it the users, so my answer would be option #1 ("No. I value my privacy", but that means I wouldn't reveal it to LL, and so it's the wrong answer for me.

The "who to" is flagged in the OP

"If you had to disclose your true identity in sl (or make it clearly available via Facebook or something else) would you do so? Why?"

We're talking about the hypothetical situation of having to make the information public.

Anyone pointed Wallace to this? Does he have an office hour?

I just assumed peopel didnt mind revealing to LL as part of course with credit cards etc. I was referring to allowing other avatars to see teh real you behind the persona. I hate too many options. Dont spit hairs. Jigs.

LL has my RL info. No one in SL does. They don't need it and I don't need pervs looking for child-like girls hanging around my forest. Well ... come to think of it - maybe the cougars would like them better than baby deer for lunch.

The poll was quoted -- and maybe even linked -- in Wallace's "Real You" thread, so he knows of it, and has a rough idea of the results, even if he hasn't read this thread.

I sure as hell wish he'd drop by, though. I'm beginning to get paranoid about what can only, at this point, be a deliberate snubbing of this forum.

Hasn't it been at least semi-official Linden policy to snub this forum since the Blogs went up?

I mean, it's not as though Wallace's job duties have anything to do with communicating with Residents, so it would be plausible that he WOULD observe the (semi-official) snubbing policy.

I don't think Phil IS splitting hairs (let alone spitting them). There's a genuine, meaningful difference between a LL policy that all avatars must have RL information on file with them, and a LL policy that all avatars must (say) go by their real names and post an email, revealing this RL information to everyone in SL.

I think the Lindens have been making them self scarce here -- with the sole exception maybe of Torley -- since well before the new blogs went up. It would be interesting to know why, wouldn't it?

I had hoped, given that there have been numerous direct appeals to Wallace to drop by here, including at least two from me, that he'd see fit to poke his head in. The fact that he is ignoring (and it can only be deliberate) said appeals does not bode well. How hard would it be for him to pop into one of the appropriate threads and wave?

I remain utterly perplexed about Wallace's "job description." Early on, in his "Hello" blog thread, he suggested it was largely about marketing. But his post on social networks and identity had me hopeful that he was also going to be directing his gaze inward, to those already here. Now, to be honest, I just don't know. He really seems to have had his legs cut out from beneath him by the announcement of Avatars United.