Sunday, June 26, 2011

A Great Visit - Hide My Search

A Great Visit by Lulú De Panbehchi
A Great Visit, a photo by Lulú De Panbehchi on Flickr.
I have almost 900 photos on Flickr about several topics. None of the photos are rated “R” or intended for adults only. In fact, my Flickr account has been classified as “safe” for a long time. When you have a pro account, Flickr lets you see statistics of your photos and albums, what domains they use to search for images, etc., I have been paying attention to the descriptors or search words that people use that en up in my photo stream. One of those has been the site hidemyass [dot] com, which offers to hide your identity while you are online. A few days ago, somebody visited or at least saw the above photo.

The name of this picture is “A Great Visit,” and the tags—folksonomy—are: “birds, pájaros, pajaritos, wires, cables, cables de la luz, electricity, electricidad, Richmond, Virginia, RVA, power lines.” If the person who is hiding her/his identity is looking for ways to use electricity in Richmond, Virginia to kill birds or people, well, I'm sorry. You got just a lots of birds on the power lines by VCU. Funny! If that person hides his/her ass to look for birds, then that's funny too, but more in a sick way. Why do you hide to search for birds? However, if they hide to look for ways to use electricity in Richmond to do something illegal, then I'm glad you lost your time by finding my photo.

I have this image of a serial killer or a desperate person trying to find a way to electrocute somebody in Richmond, and then they find this photo.

What do you search for when you are an incognito Internet user? Birds?