data-mining

[julesjones]

Most of my online activity is in the name of my online identity, as it were. I do have one account in the name of my meatspace identity, originally for job-hunting purposes. I find it interesting that in its efforts to work out who I know, that social network site is now asking me if I know X and Y, where X and Y are the meatspace names of glitterboy1 and esmeraldus_neo.

There are a handful of people on my account I know through fannish connections, so I suspect that it's a 2nd/3rd order link via those people. But I had to think about it to work out where the connections were coming from...

Comments

[esmeraldus-neo.livejournal.com]

I'm trying to work out whether I think that's funny or sinister. I'm going to go with a little of both. [waves]

[julesjones]

Pretty much my reaction.

My guess is that with you it's going via da-pol, although I can't be bothered looking up my password to log in to check. (I only log into it about once every six months, but it likes to send me regular emails about who it thinks I might want to connect with...)

[agentxpndble.livejournal.com]

I think it has more to do with the cookies on your computer (being accessed by the sites you are viewing) than any online data they have stored about you. I'm struggling to understand it all myself, but that's the gist of what I've been reading. There are various ways of clearing out and preventing such things, but I'm no expert. Those "smart ads" work the same way - they creep me the heck out.

[julesjones]

No, this one does it largely by network analysis (it's not Facebook). If I log into the account it will actually show me why it thinks I might know someone -- "you know X and Y, who both know Z, do you know Z?" or "you worked at A and so did X, who now works at C, Y also works at C, do you know Y?"

What's eye-opening is how rapidly it picks up this stuff as soon as two or more of your mutual acquaintances friend each other.

[agentxpndble.livejournal.com]

Ew. That's so evil. I feel like a dinosaur these days - I understand SO LITTLE of this stuff and I used to be the "go to" gal when it came to technology... I need to do some homework.

[neyronrose.livejournal.com]

Sounds spooky to me. My given name is associated here and there with Neyronrose, but any of my "real life" friends who know how to use a computer know about my reading tastes, not to mention the GLBT groups I'm involved with. I don't need to worry about work, considering what I edit. I can understand why it might be of much more concern to others who don't want their employers knowing about what they're reading or writing.

I hope you can work it out so it doesn't get any more intrusive.

[julesjones]

I knew it was a risk when I originally linked to a couple of fannish friends with a view to job-related networking, so it's not a complete shock, but it's still a salutary reminder that you have to have a total firewall between different identities if you want to keep them separate -- and that even that isn't always enough, because network analysis can still pick up stuff if there's the slightest overlap. Or sometimes from the absence of overlap...