I wish that I could type this without coming off as a complete jerk, but I fear that it will be interpreted that way. I don't mean to be a jerk, I just want to give you all a hard reality check.

First of all, your expressed reticence to put an image of yourself on the internet is based on, dare I say, an inflated sense of how interesting you are to others and also a bit of a naive perspective on the nature of a networked society.

In a culture where 20% of teens have sent nude photos of themselves to their boyfriend/girlfriend/classmates and where the population of Facebook (the world's largest photo-sharing site), exceeds that of most nations, and a culture where home-made pornography is considered to be a viable source of extra income for over 4 million people,an image of some middle-aged folks sitting at dinner is hardly a triggering event for a nefarious stalker determined to snatch you or your loved ones.

Further, the availability of public records via the internet is probably wider spread than you think. I went here http://www.opcva.com/watchdog/RECORDS.html and got Colin Powell's Social Security Number. 113-28-4024.
Yes, THAT Colin Powell.

In terms of difficulty, getting what you think of as "personal" information is trivial. Hiding behind a "handle" on a forum such as this presents almost no obstacle at all to connecting the dots to a real person. I know that I personally de-cloaked an abusive poster here once, tracking them down in a matter of an hour, which included time to make a sandwich.

If someone wants to find you - they will. If someone is unconstrained by the 4th Amendment, they will find you all that much faster.

Privacy is a concept that has existed only for a few generations - it seems like it is a natural right, and indeed, having a Constitution that delineates boundaries for the government in terms of search and seizure is a clear indication that the basic right to something like privacy needed to be described and protected. But that's only the last 230 years or so, and in the last 12 years, we've seen the vary nature of privacy systematically gutted - both by the citizenry who decided that giving up their personal data to win fabulous prizes and to get lines of unsecured credit was worth sacrificing their privacy and by a government that decided that the 4th and 5th amendments didn't really apply in all cases.

Depending on where you live or work, you are photographed and video taped hundreds - even thousands - of times a day. If you drive a car, if you go to almost any store or ANY mall, if you visit an office building - your image has been recorded.

If you have ever bought a car or a house, if you've ever gone to a doctor and paid with insurance, if you've ever had a driver's license, if you've ever had a bank account, a credit card, or any form of investment - data about you can be obtained by the public, free and anonymously or for a nominal fee - and you will never know it.

So what of it?

We hear about identity theft, we hear about stalkers, we hear all these horror tales. The real news is that these things are, as a percentage of the total population, trivially small. Individually, awful, but percentages are all that really matters in risk assessment, and I'd worry more about the meal those guys ate as a real risk to their well-being, not their picture online.

Look me up on Facebook. Plenty of pix of me there.

Actually Martin, I think I read on CNN that it's closer to 30% of teens have "sexted." I only wish we had camera phones 10 years ago ... when I knew a few girls that probably would have done that.

That's funny . . . . . Until you are the father of a 13 year old daughter that has the measurements of Marilyn Monroe only a little thinner at the waist and has boys of 18 thinking she is about 16-18 on looks alone. Thank God she is severely body modest.

yup. this new world is great for teenage boys with raging hormones, hell for parents of both sexes...

If I may add one very important detail:

I'm not middle-aged!!!

I'm only 40...oh crap, that is middle-aged. When the hell did that happen?

-Blast

"...When the hell did that happen?..."

it happened while you were too busy having fun yo notice...

Wait, you sure you're not my girlfriend's father? I think she's a looker, but I don't think she has anything more revealing than a crew neck T shirt - both of you must be doing something right. For what it's worth I never dated until college, so all those girlfriends were 18 or older.

As for your daughter... uh... I guess my condolences? Sounds like puberty got a jump start, and hopefully she's level-headed enough to survive the teen years without too much damage from older guys. I don't envy your role as Dad with her. I have to say, if I ever get a daughter, I hope that she's super plain until she hits about 25, when her brain has been working for a few years and most guys' are just starting to come on-line. Then she can hit puberty

Thanks Blast! I turned 30 back in October and was in quite a funk. Glad that I still have 10 more years until I get "over the hill."

Remember, you're as only as old as you let yourself be. I love my "older than dirt" patients that are still fiesty and scrappy.

Before I say more... I hope that the doctor is right that we are having boys. After seeing these statements have me second guessing my wife's idea of trying to get pregnant again!

This is me shooting my Socom 16. AKA EBR (Evil Black Rifle)



Gotta get some optics for that bad boy.