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| I'm giving serious consideration to putting a major halt to my internet interactions. I've been feeling frustrated, depressed, whigged out, and overwhelmed for the past two days. This isn't a new feeling. It's been happening more and more and it's mostly brought on by situations that have happened to me on the internet. Just to give you a brief glimpse into what has caused these frustrations, these are the few things that have happened in the past few months.
- An e-mail I posted to a writer's e-mail list is being copied and shared on e-mail lists and newsgroups and message boards all over the net and I can do nothing to stop this because the person doing this doesn't live in the United States.
- I was kicked off an e-mail list for daring to say that I feel everyone is an artist. But wait, it doesn't stop there. The list's owner has informants who follow my blog and keep her abreast of my activities and leave foul comments for me anonymously.
- I discovered that conversations I had via an e-mail list over 10 years ago were made into an article, published in a print magazine and archived on the internet. I am also the subject of several letters to the editor as a result of this article. I can't do anything about it because I'm not protected by copyright. My e-mails can be shared for the sake of news, comment, or critic.
- My website, Found Art, was hacked every week in December. It was brought up, by the loving kindness of a wonderful friend who rebuilt it almost from scratch. He put in a lot of effort and time for which he was only paid my gratitude. (He wouldn't take money from me.) He put in every protection he could think of for my site. He has since lost his internet access and today I find out that some hacker found a back door and put an IRC bot/eggdrop (Do you even know what this is? I don't!) on my site. My web host happened to catch it; by the sounds it is something very serious. They want me to fix the flaw in the site's coding so that such attacks can't happen again. I have no clue and do not have the money to pay for a programmer.
With all of this happening at once, I'm feeling very vunerable and I'm also seeing that too much of my life revolves around the internet. Instead of sitting here nights posting messages that could come back to haunt me years from now, I could be outside enjoying the breeze or attending a MeetUp or reading one of the many books I have stacked next to my bed.
I can't cut off all internet access because I receive and send my work via e-mail.
I can't NOT journal on the computer. It doesn't work for me to write everything long-hand. My hand can't keep up with my brain. So I think I will keep my blog on LiveJournal, but close my Xanga blog. LiveJournal allows me to make posts that are only viewed by friends rather than anyone who happens to stop by. I will miss keeping up with the friendships I have made here on Xanga. If any of you decide to get a LiveJournal account, look up AshleyShea. Leave a comment and I will add you as a friend.
E-mail lists...sigh...I'm on too many. I can't keep up with them. I have made some wonderful connections and found awesome resources through e-mail lists. I will keep the ones I manage and protect both myself and my members through membership by approval and only active members allowed. I'll also stay on a couple of local announcement lists I'm on to stay connected to events I could attend. But I'll unsub from the rest.
I don't know what I'm going to do about my website. I'm waiting to hear from my web host to see if they have any suggestions for keeping the site safe. I'll back it up tonight while I know it is ok. If it should be taken down by another attack I will keep the files and bring it back up some time in the future when I can afford to pay for a programmer.
I have too many e-mail addresses. I'm going to drop all but my gmail account, my work address, and one address I have to keep up because of my ISP. I can stay connected with friends via these accounts.
While I know I need to get a thicker skin where internet interactions are concerned, I also know that I spend too many hours in the day here. I need a life outside of the internet. My life on the internet should be secondary so that what would normally be minor irritations will be so. | | |
| For my own protection, I decided to do a bit of research on copyright. To my utter dismay, I found the following --
"Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright."
If I'm reading this right, anyone can use the words I post to the internet for the purpose of criticizing me, commenting about what I had to say, or for news reporting. So, the author who wrote the article including 3 entire posts I made to an e-mail list did not break copyright. He can claim he used these e-mails to report the news. | | |
| Just for fun, last night I did a search on my name to find out what other people of my same name are up to. I found some very interesting people. I discovered a hockey player for Minnesota state who broke school records in the number of times she kept the puck from reaching the goal. I found a 7th grade math teacher (Wow! This feels like another part of myself staying on the path I left behind.). I found a woman who had won a contest.
But the fun discoveries quickly turned sour when I discovered that posts I had made to an e-mail list several years ago were included in an article and published in a print publication whose archives are now available on the internet. To make things worse, there were letters to the editor commenting about me.
I've done what I can about this. I've contacted the website owner and demanded that the article be removed. They are in breach of copyright because the author did not get my permission to use three entire posts I had made. I also attempted to contact the author and let him know that he is in breach of copyright and to reconsider using someone's words the next time he writes an article.
If the website refuses to remove the article, I don't know what I'll do. Is it really worth my energy to get an lawyer to send them a letter? Part of me screams YES! But the other part of me says, "The article was written over 10 years ago. What's the point now? And, doesn't this exceed the statute of limitations anyway?" The YES part of me wants this publication to take copyright more seriously. But after so much time, will they really care? They've gotten their use out of the article.
What frustrates me even more is that my words and, who knows, maybe even my art, could be "stolen" every day. I can't constantly search the net for my words or my art. I can't stop people from breaking copyright. So, what do I do? Do I stop putting my words and images up for display?
I couldn't stop writing blogs if I tried. I enjoy this too much. I couldn't stop participating in e-mail lists. I'd lose a lot of friendships and connections to awesome resources.
This leaves me with a feeling of helplessness. What are the individual citizens of the internet age to do to protect themselves? Nothing? I don't like that answer, but I have no other. | | |
| I have an e-mail subscription to a column by Mark Morford who writes for the SF Gate. He has some amazing articles that are right to the point. And I love to read his sentences that go on forever. 
This past week he wrote an article about this being the new "Dark Age." He pointed out that no one is mentioning anything about the economy turning around, the budget getting better, the environment getting cleaner, ... no signs of "rebirth." We just appear to be in a sinkhole.
At the end of his article, Mark gave a wonderful suggestions for those of us feeling the darkness these days. There IS something we can do.
"So, you do what you have to do. You focus inward and work on the self and radiate as much love and open-hearted support as possible, grit your karmic teeth and hope you survive this dark house of mirrors without cancers or tumors or bloodshed or getting stabbed in the garden by a vicious teenage girl as you ignore the fact that in all of North America, from Mexico to Canada's Prince Edward Island, there exists only one state, province or territory that does not yet have a McDonald's. (Nunavut, in northern Canada, inhabited by the Inuits at a density of one person per 3,300 square miles). Small solace, indeed.
So you pray your ass off to a forgiving and ambisexual and dogma-free pantheistic feminine god and you digest the increasingly nasty headlines as best you can, ever seeking that pinpoint, that tiny speck of light way, way down, at the end of this rank and desperate tunnel. Do you see it? Is it even there? It's one of those things you just have to believe."
So...keep the love flowing! Radiate your inner joy. Let's bring the light back into this bleak world as best we can, even if it is only in our own little corner of the globe. | | |
| After much feedback, I decided the Dance needed her own line of Cafe Press items. So far I've put her on a T-shirt with one of my favorite quotes -- "Work like you don't need the money, love like your heart has never been broken, and dance like no one is watching." I'm mulling over what other items to put her picture on. You can see my Cafe Press shop here. If there's something you'd like to see the Dancer's picture on, let me know.
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WeatherPixie
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