I received this message about a week or two ago:
Dear Maxime Billick,
Your photo is of Cape Town. Did you like Bowdoin? To explain myself: Google indexes the whole wide public Internet, right? So with your Table Mountain image, you search Google, and from that you get your blog and thus your identity. And with a name, well, anything is possible. Like, if you want something, just let me know - I'll access your bank account and have it sent to your address. (Kidding! Kind-of...)
If you're so inclined, you can return the act - I'm very Google-able. Recently I bicycled 5000 miles across Africa (spent a month in Zambia) and as such put up a wee web site, www.toAddis.com. From there you can figure out my date of birth. Search facebook for the party / public event I created to get my mailing address, start calling banks (maybe BoA, then Chase) and you'll be well on your way to stealing my identity / money!
I apologize if this is creepy. (Clearly a poor strategy...) Thing is, when challenged, I like to succeed. (I only stalk when prompted, swearsies!) If you'd be interested in strategies to sweep up your digital footprints I'd be happy to oblige. It's rather amazing how much personal information is available these days.
Regardless, best of luck with your endeavors, sincerely,
S*@&%^$ M!C)$(^&$ [unlike him, I'll have the decency to remove his name]
THEN, 10 days later, once I didn't respond, he got the picture and came back with:
I'm being dastardly and double messaging. Apologies, it is reprehensible. But, my last message was pretty awkward...
In hindsight, probably would have been better off had I simply said, your photo is from Table Mountain, want to get drinks and trade tales of Africa?
What are your thoughts? Was he entitled to use that info in a message since it's all readily available on the internet? Or is it a little excessive? Where do our personal lives end and our public lives begin? I'd love to hear your feedback!
