I have been following this thread with interest. Initially, I did use a pseudonym, but the quickly changed to my full name.
Ok, there is a lot of information in my profile about me and my life history, but, as far as I can see there is nothing there that will allow the more degenerate of our world to perform some sort of fraud on me. I have also published my county, and my country – information which is readily available to anyone who wishes to do a search. And yes, my profile does indeed come up as the first item under Google. But so what? There is nothing there that I am ashamed of – other than being described as a Model Engineer and hence being classed in the same world as, eg Tubal Cain.
One interesting point is that I have been approached by a number of people, both through this forum and another forum, wishing to discuss our lathes, and to a lesser extent, our milling machines. I cannot see anything wrong with that.
I do get quite a lot of attempts by various people attempting to gain access to my computer both electronically via the internet and via the telephone, and hence access my personal data, but so far they have failed. I have survived one (known) computer virus attack when two of my friends did indeed succomb to the same virus which does suggest that all in all I am reasonably safe. In fact, the only known attempt on my financial account was a general attack on a large number of accounts and was done, we think, by a brute force attack via VISA DEBIT account numbers. This, we think, originated from America and the stolen money was ultimately replaced. But, and this is the important point, it was nothing to do with my usage of the internet.
Comments have been made about rudeness. I may have been one of these people complained about in that I have pointed out quite strongly on occasion that I don't like, or disagree with, the writer's method of writing or view. Again, I see nothing wrong with this – disagreement is nothing new and happens all the time. In fact, I do strongly believe that there are people around who, to be blunt, need to grow up and accept that they will be criticised. There is too much of this appeasement going on in our society today.
Now I know that last paragraph will not go down well with some people. Tough – you take me as I am.
Regards,
Peter G. Shaw
ps. Well, not really, it's just to add a bit more separately. In general, I have found this forum extremely friendly and helpful to me, and I have, insofar as I am able to, have always tried to respond in return.