RE: Pocket Gopher / RE: Pseudonymity [solderpunk]
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Recently I read two phosts by solderpunk: one about Pocket Gopher[0] and another
about online pseudonymity[1]. Former referenced me, the latter is something I am
really interested in. So a couple of thoughts about these.

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Let's start with Pocket Gopher.

If you guys remember, I referred multiple[2] times[3] to the fact that I'm a
relatively new parent and this changed my life completely. Essentially my online
activity is limited to my smartphone, as when I am home I am either doing crazy
shit with my son, or -- usually when he's asleep -- trying to quickly catch up
with the day's happenings.

And here lies the real value of Pocket Gopher to me.

It is far from perfect. Yes, random line breaks drive me mad sometimes. Even I
know the theory of a possible solution for the issue: parse text, ignore/remove
single line breaks (but preserve doubles) then apply soft breaks according to
device width. Unfortunately I am far from an app developer -- otherwise I'd fork
PG and start changing stuff I dislike.

Also, frontpage bookmarks. I want to change their font size. I can change the
font family to serif (I don't want to, since I am all about monospace), but not
the font size. Also, I want to rearrange my bookmarks, possibly group them like
"servers", "collections", "phlogs" etc. Now it is only an ever-growing list of
mass.

And so on.

But for the reasons mentioned above, I still like PG and I'm still kind of
greatful for its existence, because it makes my life easier, it allows me to
check out your phlogs while the kid's asleep and it is, as solderpunk pointed
out, it makes browsing gopher on a smartphone suck less.

---

Now, pseudonymity.

As you've probably already figured it out, my name is Adam Paszternak (yes,
really) and I usually go by the handle "psztrnk", which is derived from my last
name by removing all the vowels. What I post using this handle (or under my real
name for that matter) is a vital part of my life -- stuff I'm doing day by day,
problems I encounter, opinions; stuff you read if you open my ph/blog, my
Mastodon page, my Diaspora. Everyday stuff from an everyday guy. I feel that
none that I write or reveal can/will have a negative impact on my life. I have a
fairly weak online presence -- I am not on Twitter or on Facebook any more, I
use google very close to none and I block what I can when surfing the internet.
I am a straight, white, mostly apolitical, boring guy from a country that is
anything but significant. For me, it doesn't make sense to publish these kind of
stuff under a handle. It really doesn't matter, if this piece of text is written
by Adam, or pussymagnet69.

But of course I have an online identity. Hell, I even wrote an Random Identity
Generator[4]. And of course I won't let you know who I am (not pussymagnet69). I
use Tails, Tor, VPN and all that shit when my "other identity" goes online. I
even use to renew my real IP before and after. No, s/he doesn't do anything
illegal. S/he doesn't buy drugs or sell weapons or re-post ISIS crap. S/he
doesn't even google weird stuff or read furry porn. S/he is probably just as
boring as I am.

But still, it gives me the sense of freedom to have that other handle. You'll
probably never find out who s/she is or that s/he belongs to me.

I use fake online identities for a ling time now, some 20 years. I abandoned a
lot of them, some were connected to me later (like the handle "702"), some were
never associated with my real identity. Soon, in a year or two, I'll also
abandon the current one and start fresh again. Because let's be honest: it is
just as possible (and easy) to build a profile for a handle than build a profile
upon your real name. And let's be even more honest: if someone has the tech, the
power and the time: solderpunk will be associated with IRL you.

I am not saying that it is pointless to use a handle. As I said, it gives me a
sense of freedom. Everyone needs a certain level of privacy, or at least an
illusion of privacy. But I'm not having high hopes that this privacy doesn't
have limits.

I don't actually care whether you are "solderpunk", or John Smith or Meg Ryan
IRL. For me the value is the content you produce, not the name under you produce
it. For me, your credibility is not affected by you using a handle.

That's it. Not sure if this adds anything to your thoughts tho, Meg-- sorry,
solderpunk. :)

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[0]
gopher://sdf.org/0/users/solderpunk/phlog/pocket-gopher-grumpy-old-man-phone-rant.txt
[1] gopher://sdf.org/0/users/solderpunk/phlog/pseudonymity-woes.txt
[2] gopher://sdf.org/0/users/psztrnk/log/20171219.txt
[3] gopher://sdf.org/0/users/psztrnk/log/20180102.txt
[4] https://paszternak.me/rig/

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