Reading Report 5

Before I started reading this article, I thought it would be just another one of the science fiction like articles that were way out there, however, I found that as I read on it was much more than that.  It first talked about the “Star Wars Boy” and how his humiliation became worldwide thanks to the internet.  Granted, he shouldn’t have put it up on the internet in the first place, but it made the point of once something is on the internet, it can’t ever really be fully taken down, someone somewhere will always have a copy of it.  This really made me think twice about what I put up on the internet after hearing this and thinking about the consequences of it.  Next, the article talked about how our privacy is really ending due to all of the records that companies and the government keep and all of the people who have access to these records.  This makes it so much easier for people to steal credit card and identity information because you have to put down information like this for almost everything we do now a day.  After this the article went back to focusing on how what we put up on the internet can have an impact on our future, because in the old days you did stupid stuff when you were young, but eventually everyone forgot about it, but now it’s posted on the internet for almost anyone to see.  This affects us because when you go to apply for a job employers now check Facebook and MySpace to see if there’s anything on there to suggest that they would not be a good employee or that their reputation wouldn’t damage the company.  Therefore, after reading this article, I will really think about how I distribute my personal information and think more before I post things online.