Fandom Security

[icarus]

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:

1. 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.


2. 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.


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


4. 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.


5. 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.


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


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


8. 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.


9. 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….


10. 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.


11. 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.


12. 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.

Comments

Here via metafandom...

[waywardoctagon.livejournal.com]

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.