Legal Commentary

Pretty Lousy Privacy Often May Suffice

By Professor University of Miami School of Law

Seth Godin writes about a way to have a convenient low-security privacy shield:

The internet is constantly, relentlessly public. Post something and it's there, for everyone, all the time.

Acar has come up with a clever idea, a small idea that makes things just a little protected. Trick.ly is a url shortener with a twist. You can share a URL but hide it behind a question that only insiders can easily answer.

So, for example, you could tweet, “Here's the source for my world-class chili: http://trick.ly/2L5”. Anyone can go there, but only people who can figure out the clue can discover the site you were pointing to.

It's not secure. It's sort of private. Neato.

For people who don't have their own servers and don't want to mess with .htaccess files, this probably is a great thing. Of course, some people will over-rely on this or a related service, and the blackmail will start…

Full post as published by Discourse.net on May 21, 2010 (boomark / email).