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I like kids. No, scratch that - I love kids. Hell, not many people know this, but I actually used to be a kid. Infinitely curious with an imagination that knows no bounds, children have a way of seeing the world which is uniquely their own. They are nothing less than little people, with their own sets of rules, societies and laws, and one of the main reasons so many people find it difficult or awkward to interact with kids is that these people try to force children to step into in our "real" (ahem), man-made world, instead of working our way towards being accepted into the grand societies that children have built.

I must have been around 6 or 7 years old when I got my first computer; the family's Coleco Adam. Unlike most kids who had the marvelous opportunity to be exposed to computing at such an early age, I did not go on to become a hardcore, Godlike programmer nerd. This may have been due, in no small part, to my computer's tendency to "generate a surge of electromagnetic energy on startup, which can erase the contents of any removable media left in or near the drive." However, it did serve as a critically important introduction to the logic of programming, user interfaces, gaming, and science fiction. Several hundred "goto line"s and "run 80"s later, the path to personal technocracy had been laid.

Naturally, upon realization that my exposure to these themes was critical in shaping me into the strapping fellow you see read before you, I became a strong evangelist for the sort of exploration encouraged by these early computers. In his post “Tinkerer's Sunset”, Mark Pilgrim details his version of this shared experience many young kids went through at that age:

"As it happens, this computer came with the BASIC programming language pre-installed. You didn’t even need to boot a disk operating system. You could turn on the computer and press Ctrl-Reset and you’d get a prompt. And at this prompt, you could type in an entire program, and then type RUN, and it would motherfucking run.

I was 10. That was 27 years ago, but I still remember what it felt like when I realized that you — that I — could get this computer to do anything by typing the right words in the right order and telling it to RUN and it would motherfucking run.

That computer was an Apple ][e."

Announced today over at the Google Public Policy blog is "DataLiberation.org: Liberate your Data!"

We're a small team of Google Chicago engineers (named after a Monty Python skit about the Judean People's Front) that aims to make it easy for our users to transfer their personal data in and out of Google's services by building simple import and export functions. Our goal is to "liberate" data so that consumers and businesses using Google products always have a choice when it comes to the technology they use.

I may be wrong, but I do believe this is the first time I read about an entire team within such a big firm entirely dedicated to the issue of data portability. The irony here is that Google's track record in the past hasn't been perfect - as I've highlighted more than once - and as much as the decidedly non-Googlish branding and informal tone seem to conspire to lend the project a certain dissociation from the big G, it is very much real, as noted by the aforementioned Public Policy post and the wealth of information on how to delete / export your data from Google services.

So, some anonymous dude (who is actually not quite as anonymous as he'd like to believe) left some comments on my nearly 2-year-old post about closing my Facebook account, then decided to try and prove a point about his views on privacy by cleverly looking up my cell number (which is public) and doing a Google search to find a photo of me (which is also public).

The point he ended up proving, of course, is that he's a slightly creepy person who calls up random people about an old blog post they wrote when he disagrees with them. Also, he knows how to perform the shit out of a Google search.

I was driving Mir - much more stalker-worthy material than I, if you ask me - to pick up some food for her dog, when my cell rings:

• Is this Steven Mansour, from stevenmansour.com, about the facebook post?
• Yup, who's this?
• Just wanted to tell you that nothing is private, case in point I found your phone number, I'm not trying to stalk you or anything but you know how easy it is to find information about people on the internet.
• Ok...
• Ok.
• Goodnight!
• *click*

Followed by Mir and I looking at each other with a quizzical "WTF?".

So yes - it's true! You can find lots of information about people on the Internet, off and on Facebook. Especially if that information is, you know, supposed to be public in the first place. I don't hide my contact information from the world, and even if I did, a simple whois lookup on anyone (including Mr. "Anonymous") would be more than enough to get any more information about anyone else. That's why closed networks like Facebook are so insidious - people put more information on there than they would on an obviously public page such as this one, with the misconception that only their friends and family can access it. They - especially young people - are duped into jumping into bed with Facebook with the idea that they can retain control over who gets to access what.

They can't.

So what can we keep private? Lots. I'm pretty open - I make a point to use my real, full name in online games or on the handful social networks left that are genuinely useful to me; it makes it easier for me to keep track of and aggregate everything I'm doing. On others - ones where I prefer remaining private - I always use a pseudonym, encryption and TOR. There is data (music, videos, games) on my home PC that you'd probably be able to access without much difficulty if you really wanted to get at my Lionel Ritchie Paris Hilton Audioslave high-fidelity OGG files. Then there is other data and information that anyone would have a bitch of a time trying to find, decipher, crack and decrypt.

So, what's the point? Well, that problems with privacy control and things like identity theft have been around long before the Internet ever came to be, and will stick around long after the Internet has withered to dust copper flakes. That it's about corporate responsibility, education, and governance - not paranoia. That anyone with a phone book and fingers can find whoever they're looking for. And finally, whether you live down the street or in Florida, that you shouldn't look up my number and call me unless you've got something to say.

Or unless you're a blond-haired blue-eyed college cheerleader from the south. Then, you can just ask.

May 21st is UNESCO World Day for Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development.

Wednesday night Tonight! in the Viger Atrium of the Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec - one of the nicest lecture rooms I've seen so far in the city - I'll be giving a short lecture on the use of technology in the context of culture, knowledge and dialog.

I'll demo three videos as well, two of which are mine and another from the participants of Convergentes.

My talk runs from about 7:15pm until 8:00pm, though I'm also participating in a round table about "Issues of Identity" and "Cultural diversity and building bridges between cultures" from 6:00pm to 7:00pm.

Then from 8:00pm until 8:45pm we'll be treated to a sure-to-be-awesome multilingual spoken word performance hosted by my good friend Elizabeth Robert featuring Endre Farkas, Pauline Michel, Judith Munira Avinger, Alejandro Saravia and Dwayne Morgan.

BAnQ Auditorium
Centre d’Archives de Montréal
535 Viger Street East, Montréal

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