«

1) You probably cannot change the important information that allows
your ISP to know who you are, e.g. your MAC address, because if you
do your ISP will not know that your computer is yours and not let
you onto the net at all. Your ISP knows which customers are paying
it and only lets those customers users its facilities. Trying to
protect your IP at your home is a losing proposition.

2) If you go to a hotspot, you can probably spoof your mac address and
still be let onto the net (the hotspot vendor won't care, because
they are providing the service for "free") and you will probably
get a unique IP address (if you don't always go to the same
hotspot).

3) If you want to send anonymous emails and postings (such as
alt.personals), then you probably should use the appropriate
anonymizing services and/or "free email accounts". Note that there
are sites that convert emails into postings, so you can email from
such free accounts and still post into newsgroups. If you want to
be paranoid about that, use such accounts only from hotspots.

However, seriously consider your motivations for being hurtful.
It's really poor behavior. Are you really proud that you insulted
some woman who is now overweight that used to call you Twiggy?
Personally, I would find such behavior worse than the people who
send me spam. So, yes, you are abusing the system when you use
anonymity to do that.

4) Don't worry so much about your privacy at home. "We wouldn't care
what others thought about us, if we realized how seldom they do."
Your kids probably aren't that interested in your internet habits.
Moreover, the stuff which you should be embarrassed about, they
probably already know, since most of the important things about us
are things we can't hide at all. You just told the world that you
were willing to spite someone because they insulted you long ago--I
suspect that people who know you already knew that about you.

Hope this helps,
-Chris

************************************************** ***************************
Chris Clark Internet :
Compiler Resources, Inc. Web Site : http://world.std.com/~compres
23 Bailey Rd voice : (50 435-5016
Berlin, MA 01503 USA fax : (97 838-0263 (24 hours)
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On Wed, 18 Oct 2006 04:37:29 GMT, in alt.internet.wireless , Aluxe
<> wrote:

>On Tue, 17 Oct 2006 23:50:14 +0100, Mark McIntyre wrote:
>> The question is, why do you care? There are two possible answers:
>> 1) you're clinically paranoid
>> 2) you have a guilty concience
>
>Hi Mark McIntyre,
>
>Wanting privacy doesn't mean you're clinically paranoid.

Agreed. However insisting on idiotic security measures with no benefit
is either paranoia or ignorance.

>Are you saying everyone who closes the bathroom door is clinically paranoid?

You keep bringing this in as though it was relevant or comparable.
Here's a better metaphor:

Are you saying everyone who removes their mailbox and never answers
the phone is clinically paranoid? Or that they have a guilty
conscience?

>Are you implying

yadda yadda. Listing totally unrelated privacy issues is not going to
strengthen your case.
--
Mark McIntyre