Using antionline to find out information about users

I thought this might lead to a semi-interesting discussion, but if it doesn't, just blame it on the fact that it's late over here :)

I was just having a look through the member functions available to me, and I thought I would have a look at who was online. In all the time I've been going to antionline, I never really thought to do that. While I was viewing the page, I noticed the fact that it shows what thread any logged in (and visible) user is viewing on the site.

What do you all think about the idea of someone using this to collect data on individual users. I would suspect that if you knew enough about intelligence (as in spying, and suchlike), you could find out a lot of information about people just by viewing that page. Does that interest anyone else, and has anyone else ever thought about it?

I have no problem with people seeing what I'm looking at, but do we ever really think how visible everything that we do is, and how easy it would be for people to figure out what each person is like simply by monitoring their browsing habits on this one site?

Anyhow...discuss away :P

ac

I haven't personally thought about it like that.

However I am not worried about it. When I joined AO I turned off my ONLINE options. I believe it is the very first one in your site options. Invisible mode I think. I really don't know why I turned it off. Perhaps I just like to lurk.

It doesn't really bother me that much. Its all publicly posted on the boards so the public can read them. This could be anyone... And I would seriously feel sorry for someone who would build a profile around me based on what I have been reading. As far as I care I just use it as a quick way of seeing who is potentially in IRC at the moment.

If you want a serious invasion of privacy then simply talk to peaple and then fish for info after that check sites like this But even then you will still be at a dead end if peaple feed you BS.

I dont think anyone can tell what kind of a person a member is by viewd what he is viewing, i dont even think i can tell what kind fo a person someone is by their posts. This has been proven right:). Nobody is online like he/she is in real life. Online you have annonimity)???spelled wrong i kow) and someone can cuss out every member online to look cool but in real life is just a little pussy hacker behind his computer. And if you can't tell what kind of person a member is by their posts, i dont hink you can tell that by viewing the "Who's online page". Besides, there is an option that you can be "Invisible".

edit: damn, you all replied while i was typing.

I realise that there is an option to become invisible. But what you were saying about not being able to tell what sort of person someone is because of what they look at because people act differently online, I wouldn't agree with. (ok...I would like one of the moderators to rearrange that grammatically. I know it's unintelligable, but it's too late just now).

Just because someone posts differently, it doesn't change the way that they will browse. The majority of people (myself included) will not generally think about/care about people being able to see what they are browsing, and so will not act differently than they normally would.

When a user is posting or is on irc, they are aware that people can see what they are posting and will sometimes change their behaviour because of this, but most people will not browse to threads that they find completely uninteresting simply because they don't want to appear like their normal self (unless they have some sort of complex :P)

I actually don't act much differently online than I do when I'm with my friends "offline" (I'm not sure if that sounds quite right), I got over saying that I'm 18/F/California years ago (ok, I didn't intend for anyone to take that seriously...I'm not saying that I've ever suggested that. Was just an example). The only way that I act differently online is that I generally find it easier to talk to people if I'm using a keyboard unless I know them very well.

I realise that most of you don't care whether people see what you are doing on this site or not, but that wasn't actually what I asked. I wanted to know if you had thought about this before, and whether or not you believed this was possible.

Thanks for the comments, anyhow, and MemorY...that wasn't a flame or anything there. I was just trying to explain my thread better.

ac

in my views, it is just the way you look at the stuff... if someone wants to learn he/she will learn... even you havent noticed that since such a long time, n i havent thought about this till now... but it was a good part of you that you noticed and told a flaw...

yes, there is an option for keeping your id invisible, but then again, not everyone uses that option (or activate that option)...