Naked on the Net

In an earlier post, I discussed an article about how common it is now to see photos of nude people on the Internet to the point that it isn't, and shouldn't be, a big deal if someone sees your nude photos there. Be that as it may, most people still feel vulnerable when they're naked, even though that feeling quickly goes away when people get used to being seen that way.

I've often felt that singers and actors reveal more about themselves through their emotions and actions and are thus more naked (as in exposed and thus more vulnerable) than I can possibly be just being seen as me.

What's strange is how exposed and vulnerable people let themselves be on the Internet to the point that being seen naked should be the least of their worries.  I know a lot of people who expose their opinions, their religion, their politics, their preferences, their bad habits, their whatever freely on Facebook.  These same people would never allow themselves to be seen as their body simply is.  I guess I don't get it.

Seeing me naked doesn't make it easier for you to steal my identity.  You can't use it to get money from me.  Trying to blackmail me by threatening to reveal what I look like to my friends and family will only be doing me a favor by then having an excuse not to have to hide my preference to be nude from them any more.  Seeing me nude doesn't reveal my politics or my opinions (though reading those posts will).  You won't get my social security number, the dirty little secrets I told the government to get my clearance, usernames or passwords, my account numbers, my net worth, what I do for a living, my sexual preferences, or anything else naughty or nice about me.  Instead, all you'll see is skin and the shape and form of my body.

People leave themselves vulnerable on the Internet in so many more ways.  Ashley Madison cheaters and cheater wanna bees are learning that lesson the hard way now.  It used to be if you didn't just leave your information out in the open, you were OK.  Or rather, you thought you were.  You trusted your bank, your broker, your Email provider, your cloud backup server, your dating website, and your favorite forums, blogs, or other chat space with your real identity and your innermost secrets.

Between the NSA playing peeping Tom (because who knows what you're into), the Chinese and other foreign agencies looking for what secrets you might have that they can use to get you to do things for them, to hackers breaking in to your services to get your stuff, to just malcontents who want to embarrass the owners of the services that you use.   Look who's naked now, chump!

What people should have learned is NOT to trust important sensitive information to plaintext communications and storage.   Your service providers promises of privacy and security mean nothing when THEY get hacked and they've left your information lying around unencrypted on their server.

Listen up peeps.  If you say something to someone on the Net that you don't want anyone and everyone to hear, use end-to-end encryption.  Learn to use Textsecure, Redphone, TOR, PGP and other tools and force those who you communicate with to use them.  In many cases, using those tools is transparent, or nearly so.

Before you give your personal information, opinions, or other sensitive information to others, ask yourself how do they store it, how do they use it, and how they are going to protect it.  The answers often are, sloppily, too widely, and not hardly, if at all.

Does that mean you shouldn't do banking over the Internet?  Banks and brokerages are rich targets for hackers.  But they know that and they know they have a lot to lose themselves if they're too sloppy, so they often limit what they store and use.   Even so, balance how paranoid you are (or should be) against the convenience.

Do you let others store your backup files and passwords on-line?  If so, is that information encrypted before they get it and do they have any keys to decrypt it?   If so, think long and hard before you do it.  Remember that even if others have the key, if you don't give them physical access to the information, they can't get at it unless they break into your house.  And if someone breaks into your house and steals your laptop or PC, you did encrypt it.  Right?

To keep yourself covered on the Internet and on computers in general:

1)  Limit physical access to sensitive information as much as possible (don't let it be on other people's computers and servers).
2)  Use trusted strong open source file encryption on your computer.  Better yet, make it easy and use an OS that supports it by default (MS Bitlocker, Linux home folder encryption, and newer Android and iOS operating systems on phones).
3)   Use strong passwords (something only you know) and a trusted password manager.  Consider not using anything that isn't open source and proven, and think twice about leaving passwords, even encrypted ones, on other people's servers.
4)  Consider requiring "something that you have" and can't simply know.  Use second factor authentication or a security dongle (Google Authenticator, a Yubikey, or RSA dongle).

But most of all, stop being naked on the Internet.  Be that way physically and post images of yourself that way if you like.  But stop revealing more about yourself than others have a need to know.

Nudity and Forgiveness

Most people don't like the way they look naked.  They're too tall or too skinny.  Their butt, their boobs, their dick, their nose, their belly, or their whatever is either too big, too small, to light, too dark, too prominent, too distracting, or too whatever.

A lot of nudists talk about the benefits of accepting each other's bodies.  "Acceptance" has a ring of resignation to it.  As if we should just learn to put up with other people's nudity in trade for being able to enjoy being nude ourselves.  The problem is that most people are more willing to put up with other people being nude, than they are being comfortable about being nude themselves.  We are, by far, our own worst critics.

The Christian concept of forgiveness isn't unique, but it's central to how we view our relationship to God and with each other.  Forgiveness is more than acceptance.  It's about putting behind us those things that we'd otherwise only accept, and move on from there.

We need to stop just putting up with being human.  We should forgive ourselves for being human, and move on, enjoying it.

De Blasio's Problem and Our Problem - Nudity in Times Square

It seems to be a pattern.  We make gains trying to get nudity accepted in more places, and other people come in and ruin it.  YNA does some body painting events in Times Square and the world doesn't come to an end.  People seem to be OK with it if it's not all the time, it isn't in their face, and they're not being hustled for money over it.  A World Naked Bike Ride through town, a Bay to Breakers run, or people getting their bodies painted in public once or twice a year, and people begin to accept it.  But do it every day in a high rent district where you're scaring away customers.  That won't last and someone's going get hurt.  Namely us.

But no, there's a buck to be made.  Women can go topless in NY, panhandling is protected, and YNA and others have shown that you can push the boundaries and get away with it.  People don't mind having to walk around street performers with a tip jar, but they don't like topless ladies approaching and offering a photo with people for a tip.  That doesn't make the wife happy and it confuses the kids.  Once again, think of the children!

Giuliani supposedly cleaned up Times Square by being heavy handed and people liked the result.  I suspect that the citizens of Gotham will be happy if de Blasio comes up with some way to put and end to the "naked women" problem, even if he skirts the law to do it.  Enough, I'm afraid, that if YNA or others do in the future what they've done in the past which was tolerated, they'll get hauled away.

Go back a couple of years and nudity was tolerated in the Castro district in San Fransisco.  But no, some guys had to be obnoxious about it to the point that the once tolerant city felt they had to have an ordinance against it.

Go back about 8 years and some teenagers started going naked around town in Brattleboro VT.  A few of them probably got the idea hanging out at The Ledges, finding that being naked is cool and that people can be cool about it.  Then it probably grew as an edgy thing to do until enough kids were hanging around naked that was beginning to freak out too many of the locals.  Wham...  another ordinance.

Nude beaches are often tolerated until they become popular enough that they draw in the crazies, the sexually desperate, and the religious gadflys.   Too many of our beaches have been closed down because of lewd behavior, real or imagined, regardless of how rare or easily discouraged it often is.

So what's the solution?  Don't back down.  Don't let the crazies, the hustlers, and the religious fanatics steal the platform.  Insist that what you're doing isn't wrong, don't tolerate others who are ruining it for us, and stand your ground.  That's easy to say when most of us can't afford to have our pictures in the paper supporting causes our families, coworkers, and bosses don't understand.  But we can at least do a better job of supporting those who do.