icarus | Fandom Security

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Fandom Security

I helped a college student from a religious family set up her "security" to keep her parents out of her slash (and before you ask, no, she had no interest in abandoning her religion, she just felt her interest in slash fanfiction was irrelevant). She had other people's advice but here were a few of my suggestions:

Consider computer crashes! An external drive is your friend. Stick a pile of books on top of it; the UBC cord only takes a moment to yank.

If you're in Windows, set up two administrative passwords, then "hide" folders under your password. When you have computer problems you give them the other administrative password. If you do this correctly, the folders will not appear for those logged in under the other password.

File names: there's nothing less interesting than a string of numbers for a filename. Labelling it PORN attracts attention.

If you receive zines, get a Mail Boxes Etc.-type box. Pick a branch that gives you after hours access, and then only go there after hours. Pay with a money order or cash (not a check). Make sure you have a box large enough for whatever you receive. They used to allow a made-up name on the box too (my own box still has one) but the U.S. post office cracked down on that. And, uh, you can get more than zines this way.

Set up a password-locked screensaver with a short timer, for those moments when someone drops by your room. Hello! Not such a big deal with stories, but that fan art can be a little obvious. My friend said she always had a cover file open that she'd toggle to.

It goes without saying that you should set your system to clean out your history file and cookies on every shut down.

Save no favorites (ha, always think of the obvious) except on external sites like del.icio.us.

Use public archives for your stories or, if offered, webspace registered to other people (the latter can be risky so be careful). Remember, if you pay for webspace, your ISP has your name. In an archive, the archive owner assumes all risks and all they have is your email.

I assume that I do not need to say something as silly as "use free email" and "don't use your work or home email" for your archive email address or other fandom interaction. But just in case….

The drawback to archiving in public archives is that you could lose control of your story or artwork. Most archives allow you to delete at will, and almost all archives will pull down a story at your request. But I do know of one case where the archive owner did not pull the story, and I had a webspace owner that periodically locked me and the other writers out. Some people prefer having their own webspace so that they control the content. For example, when an author turns pro they will often remove their fanfiction from online. It's your call which is more important to you: control, or anonymity.

If you like cloak and dagger, or are just more paranoid than the norm, consider using a anonymizer to disguise your IP address when posting stories or interacting in fandom. Though at this point we're getting into tin-hat territory.

Your fandom name should become your name in fandom under all circumstances. Do not ever give out your real name (even when I need something sent to me, people get my fake mailbox name). Here are two cautionary tales about this:

The cruel fandom grudge: An (adult) friend felt people were unnecessarily paranoid about using real names, so she used her real name on fics. Her boss was had a copy of the Klingon-to-English dictionary in his office and fandom wasn't a big deal. This worked just fine for years, until some fen got angry with her and set up a wiki (that they alone could edit) saying lots of unpleasant things about her. Now whenever someone googles her real name (including for work) -- that's on the first page. Great.

Fandoms have petty politics and grudges that can last for years. Fandom anonymity seems to create a psychological distance that allows people to do things they wouldn't do to someone they knew in person. The rule of thumb: Give No Ammo.

The possessive fandom loon: Another friend had someone out of the blue offer her webspace for her popular story (by the way, if the offer comes before you know the person, I've never seen it go well). They became online friends, and even exchanged some items through the mail. Then this person became a beta-reader for the story but was so pleased to be "in the know" that she started giving out hints. In addition, she built an archive around the traffic to the popular story. When the writer decided to not allow her to beta-read any more, the webspace owner panicked that the story might be removed (it was the lynchpin of her archive) so threatened to expose the writer to her employer if she did so (unfortunately, the writer was elementary school teacher).

There are plenty of wackos anywhere, and fandom spans the globe; unfairly, they don't come with warning labels. The guy in the SGC uniform who's worked out declensions in Goa'uld can be perfectly normal while the pleasant mother of two can be a psycho. Keep fandom and real life separate.

As they say in the S&M community: play safe, and have fun.

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Thank you for making me feel parniod tonight. *hides under her desk*

You're welcome! Always glad to be of service. :D

Not that my mum doesn't already know I write slash, porn and what have you (hell she keeps telling me to turn some of it into original porn and sell it), but I'd rather not my academic life be screwed up. Googling my name thankfully brings up nothing.

Here from

metafandom.

Not that my mum doesn't already know I write slash, porn and what have you (hell she keeps telling me to turn some of it into original porn and sell it)

That winz the intarwebz.

Heh. Agreed. And heck, PWPs are fairly easy to turn into Hustler-ready porn. ;)

Icarus

You rock my proverbial socks.

That is all.

Oh, thanks, and you're welcome. :D

Take it from someone who has been a slasher since she was quite underage - this is good stuff to know.

Set up a password-locked screensaver with a short timer, for those moments when someone drops by your room. Hello! Not such a big deal with stories, but that fan art can be a little obvious. My friend said she always had a cover file open that she'd toggle to.

These two have to be the two best ideas I ever thought up. My problem was basically just NC-17 stuff, because my dad understands fanfic in general, he was part of non-fic SF fandom since he was in college. I was just really, really paranoid.

Oh, and I can't second more the not-using-your-real-name thing. I graduated from high school last spring and all throughout high school we were told, "Never put anything on the Internet that you wouldn't want an employer to see." If you set up a job interview, the employer will Google you. That is a given nowadays. If you are writing NC-17 Dobby/Draco chan, they will find that. Even worse, if your name is anything other than, say, "Jane Smith", it will most likely be the first result. I am proud to say, to this day, that none of the results on Google for my name are actually me. I've been through every page. I can't say this is true for some of my RL friends - they're going to have a time of it when they actually have to get real jobs.

One more piece of advice: You can also tell LJ to not let your journal be returned in search engine results. This is of course not 100% fool proof, but it's a buffer. (They seem to hide this feature from you: Manage Account at the bottom of the page and then Additional Privacy Options. It's the last option.)

:D :D :D

Thanks for the reminder that I still need to get myself an external HD! I don't quite understand how to set up two administrative passwords - any words of wisdom?

The guy in the SGC uniform who's worked out declensions in Goa'uld can be perfectly normal while the pleasant mother of two can be a psycho. Keep fandom and real life separate.

No kidding. I was in RL fandom back in high school, and I learned that one quickly. And no way in hell will I let my RL name be associated with my fandom life. You will never see me at a con, for example.

Um, on #10: If you have a Yahoo account, they'll also give you a GeoCities webpage, where you can upload your own work/stuff to, and which doesn't have to be traced back to you by family members. It's not as pretty as your own personal website, but it's a good option if you're broke/in need of anonymity. You can remove stuff when you wish, but no one has to know who you are, too.

I've seen plenty of "psycho fandom mothers" too. I've made the mistake a few times of thinking, "Ahh... another mama in the fandom craziness... cool..." and then seeing someone do a total Jekyll-and-Hyde tranformation. It's very weird.

Seconded. There are a bunch of other free webhosts too, like Angelfire, Fortunecity and whatnot. It will look a bit "cheap", yes, but you have full control.

And it can be a handy training ground, if you'd ever want to set up an "official" website (like, what do I know, a lookit-my-thesis my-clean-original-art pages)

i love how you watch out for us all, sharing this stuff, putting up helpful things and whatnot. i learn so much :)

Gah, thank you, now I'm paranoid. The number of people on the internet who know my real name is...well, a lot. o.O

Although, thank goodness, only business and school stuff comes up when you Google me.

Also, I figure that anyone who digs deep enough/is thorough enough to connect my RL name and my online persona (which could be done, if you worked at it) deserves whatever they find. Kind of like eavesdropping--if you do it, you deserve whatever you overhear, y'know?

Hmm, I wonder how at risk I'm going to be when I try doing the professional thing? I have one story out there that I'm sorry I ever wrote. All of the other slash I don't really care if the world fincs because twisted as it is, the characters are appropriately aged.

Any hints about LJ? I was planning to change the name of my LJ and just keep all my fanfiction posts private. Should I abandon it and start an entirely new journal?

3. File names: there's nothing less interesting than a string of numbers for a filename. Labelling it PORN attracts attention.

*headdesk*. I thought I was being so clever labelling my fic folder with an innocent name, and supposed that would be enough. Then my mum acquired a radio which can get onto our network and play music off the computers. Great, no?

Unfortunately, once you give it the password, there is no way to limit it to only searching your Music folder, so it goes through everything, randomly throwing up the names of some of the files it's looking at. I did not know this when I gave it my password. I have quite a bit of fic saved hastily by description rather than title, so this means that yesterday, my mother could possibly have seen files labelled, among others, tentacle porn omg, stripping and rimming, hotel sex, phone sex 2 and pottersnogsmalfoy (I don't even know what that last one is, it's not my filename). I'm fairly sure she would be amused rather than horrified, but I would prefer not to find out!

The mp3 file of someone reading NC-17 fic has been relabelled as a .doc file, too. eek.

I'd recommend putting your stuff in a .zip archive with a really bland name. You'll be able to open the .zip folder easily and find things inside by name. Also, I believe .zip folders can be password protected.

Gee, now I thank the heavens that my family isn't exactly very computer literate. I don't have to worry about most of that. Besides, they all know I write slash (PORN as mum insists on calling it) but it was them knowing about the LJ that caused all the trouble.

Very nice guide. I just have a little thing to add, because I've seen people be careless here: Beware of Ebay/Paypal other selling sites. There a connection between a fandom name and an IRL adress is often present, not good at all.

Most web hosts now have an anonymizer service. They still have your real name obvz, but probably no one could get it from them without some sort of creds. http://samspade.org/t/whois?a=diagonally.org&server=auto&_charset_=UTF-8&btnGo=Whois

Also, consider changing your name to some shit like Mary Jones. Security through obscurity.

File names: there's nothing less interesting than a string of numbers for a filename. Labelling it PORN attracts attention.

...Hence why, when I was making my first tentative forays into the world of writing smut, I titled the document "Internet Setup" rather than, say, "Lance's Stories" or "storyratedR" (or "donotreadthis"). ((Grins))

I also made copious use of the "cover page" for pulling up when people walked by, and the cache-clearing stuff.

Favourites have to be saved, alas, because I just have so many of them... but I took an approach similar to the document titling, and they are all buried in innocuously-named folders, with any reference to slash or rating removed from the link name. (Same goes for saved fic and fan art on my hard drive-- buried about eight folders deep amidst the innocuous stuff, with totally innocent folder names at every level.)

While still at home I was also very much a fan of the password-protected screensaver set to one minute, and incidentally I can now go to the bathroom, fix a snack, answer a phone, or make tea in exactly 59 seconds. :D

Sadly, I like being paranoid, and I think I ought to be more so. (I need to come up with some infallible way from making screw-ups like using the fannish, pr0n-filled journal to comment in RL friends' journals because I forgot what I was signed in under! And things like that!) I do occasionally think I should use an anonymous-ISP thing, because while my parents are pretty technically inept, my RL friends are another matter, and of course there's employers and acqaintances and so on, and it would be deadly embarrassing, at minimum, to be "discovered"!

Favourites have to be saved, alas, because I just have so many of them...

One way around that one is del.icio.us or another web-based bookmarking service.

Thank you, exactly. The web-based bookmarking is also handy for computer crashes which seem to always wipe your favorites.

Oh jeeze, I'm behind on replies here, aren't I?

Icarus

There's also jump drives. Those lovely little USB drives that can store your bookmarks, and I think even your browser. I'm not sure if it was Firefox or some other Mozilla browser, but one of them can sit on your jump drive and run from there. So it's nicely portable.

You can run Firefox from a USB drive, but I've found it's very slow. I always copy the Firefox folder(which has the broser and my profile, with cookies and all) to the desktop while I'm browsing, then use Start->Run to run it from that folder with that profile(What goes in the Run box looks like this: '"C:\Documents and Settings\[name\Desktop\Firefox from E\Firefox\firefox.exe" -profile "C:\Documents and Settings\name\Desktop\Firefox from E\FFProfile"') and then delete it(or sometimes move it back to E:\ if I've changed something) when I'm done. Bit of a hassle, but it was incredibly frustrating dealing with the slowness and the pauses the other way. It might depend on the USB drive, though. (I have a SanDisk cruzer mini.)

I run Trillian from it, though(and, wow, there's stuff in my IM logs that I would NOT want someone to find :O but I've set it as just one huge, long file so that'd probably provide some discouragement.) and that works fine.

You could even save them in private or friends-only LJ entries.

RE: favorites--del.icio.us has an option to make bookmarks private now. It's a checkbox marked "Do not share this bookmark" and when you look at them while logged in it shows you which ones are private.

*applauds*

This is great advice -- it should be a section in the

newbieguide.

Oh, that's the first I've heard of

newbieguide -- and what a great idea for a comm.

Icarus

You can also put passwords on individual Microsoft Word documents. (I learned that one the hard way when my wacky religious father found my porn back in the day.)

I highly suggest boring folder names put somewhere else not in the My Documents directory. That always worked for me when dad got pissed about password protected documents. (Okay, I was 13 then.)

Ah. Good idea, yeah, password protecting documents is easy to do. Let me see if I still remember how to do this... it was Tools/Protect Document -- yeah, there it is.

Icarus

very useful. i've got the 'no search engine' think checked, and it still googles me right up top. -sigh-

Heh, I must say I've never had any need for such conspiracy for two simple reasons: a. my parents know very little about how to use the computer, b. they don't speak English. :P

That's always helpful. *chuckles*

A rather odd recommendation: when choosing your online name, make it something that sounds like an RL name. This cuts down on people poking you, wnating to know what your RL name is, and you also have a better chance of getting *name*@whatever e-mail addy or screen name. I've had three online names and never had to add numbers, underscores, etc, to get screen names or e-mail addresses. Also, when your screen name is something like "TrumpetPlayer" or whatever, your online friends are going to want something to call you besides Trumpy. This way you have a useful online nickname that isn't your RL nickname, but is still easy to remember. If you ever meet your online friends IRL, you still don't have to let them know your real name without having people look at you weirdly for getting called your oinline nickname.

Furthermore, when you get really tired and accidentally use your online name as a signature on an e-mail to your RL BF, you can pass it off as "oh, I was writing a paper about someone named Lanna. oops, guess my fingers got ahead of me." Which, uh, has happened to me.

Remember, if you pay for webspace, your ISP has your name.

Your name, address, and phone number may also be visible to anyone who wants to run a DNS lookup. That happened to me when I got greekedtext.org. Your webhosting company should offer some sort of privacy feature, but you have to make sure it's turned on.

Okay, now it's my turn to echo half the comments here: eeek! Good to know, I'm almost certain mine isn't.

Icarus

I was completely skeeved out the first time I checked the DNS records on my URL.

The guy in the SGC uniform who's worked out declensions in Goa'uld can be perfectly normal while the pleasant mother of two can be a psycho.

I know this is a serious topic but this line made me laugh like a loon. How true it rings to anyone who has ever had anything to do with parent-teacher groups at their school

Random comment:

If you're trying to keep things private against those who might walk up behind you, Window Key-M (the key with the flying window+M on Windows-ready keyboards) is your friend.

It immediately sends all windows to the taskbar.

*tries it*

Heeey... awesome! Thank you, what a great tip.

Icarus

If you have a lot of internet access, just put stories in text or html format and email them to yourself in-text(not attachments). This gives you a nice, password-protected archive that's not on your own computer or the family one, and you can do it for pictures, too. I like gmail because of the tags, and because their "conversation" grouping thing puts everything with the same subject line together, so you can put all the chapters of one story together.

Also, (but this is only for if you only have non-computer-savvy people using your computer) you can set folders as hidden. (This is in Windows XP, but I'd assume it works in other versions of Windows, at least.) Right-click on the folder and choose Properties, then click the Hidden checkbox. It may also be a good idea to go to Advanced(still under Properties) and uncheck the "For fast searching, allow index service to index this folder". To stop hidden folders from being displayed, go to the parent directory of the folder you've hidden, go Tools->Folder Options, go to the Veiw tab, and look for the Do Not Show Hidden files and folders option. Also, check "Remember each folder's veiw settings". However, if whoever you're hiding your stuff from knows how to show hidden folders, this'll be suspicious.

You might also try putting it in a folder that's already a hidden one, like "C:\Documents and Settings\[login name]\Application Data". And maybe in one of the subfolders, as long as that won't make it unexpectedly show up somewhere else. Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles with a name that's a random collection of numbers and letters would probably be a good one... Just make sure you're not fuxx0ring system files, or something. Also, "Recent documents" probably wouldn't be a good place for stuff. Avoid anywhere that'll get automatically cleaned out regularly(temporary internet files) and anywhere that'll make stuff show up other places.

You can also rename files to a different file extension, like the one Excel uses. That makes them unreadable in many cases until you rename them back to the original file extension--although definitely check first. RTF renamed to .txt or .html is still readable, for example. Fairly sure that .docs are borked if you try to open them as .txt, though. Try opening it to make sure it tries to open it with the program that goes with that file extension, though, and doesn't do the "open with" dialog. The idea is to make it look like it's just a corrupt file--although this could get it deleted, that could be better than having it read. Again, though, if it's, say, a .doc renamed to a .txt, if someone computer-savvy opens it, they might recognize what happened and just change it. (If you can't see file extensions, go to Tools->Folder Options, go to the Veiw tab, and uncheck "Hide extensions for known file types".)

If you keep stuff in My Documents, I like the 'misc' or 'backups' folder with lots of sub-folders with similar uninformative names and lots of innocuous stuff. Text files may look more innocent than .docs, as well, and consider hiding things by putting two screenfuls or so of innocuous, boring text at the top and bottom. Definitely don't use one format for your porn and another format for everything else, though!

A way to name files if you don't want to use the string of numbers is to abbreviate titles and put them at the end of the string of numbers with the chapter number as the first part of the numbers. So, "A and B Have Lots of Sex(chapter 1)" becomes 01492741AABHLOS.txt. This is about as boring as a string of numbers, with the advantage that you can tell files apart more easily.

Good suggestions!

Two other thoughts: If you really don't want people to figure out who you are, pick a LJ/etc. name that has no relation to your real name whatsoever. And say as little about your RL activities online as possible; an innocuous comment on some odd event may make someone realize you live in their town or go to their school. (I haven't done either of these myself, but I'm an adult living on my own, don't work in a terribly sensitive position, and have no plans to run for political office.)

The "real-looking name that's not yours" is a good idea too, although you should pick a fairly common name; otherwise, someone who does have that name may come to hate you someday if they get into trouble because the first 20 hits on their name are tentacle porn....

An excellent guide. Thank you for taking the time to put this down.

Also, I'd like to throw out a suggestion. Getting a gmail, then get an account to www.writely.com. (I'm not sure how they handle it now but if someone 'invites you' to edit a document, you are given an account automatically. They've undergone a change and it may be that utilizing your gmail account, you can automatically use it.) It's a great online word processor that is excellent for working on and storing fics in text form, thereby circumventing keeping them on the home computer if you want to avoid that.

addendum:

A friend of mine just verified she was able to get into writely with her gmail account that wasn't set up for writely at all. So all it takes is a gmail account to access the site.

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Fandom Security

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Here via metafandom

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Here via metafandom...

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