Nutgraf

After my last screed about how there’s no such thing as online privacy, I got more wound up about this subject. Many of us are willfully ignorant about the deals we make with various companies every day. Each day that you surf, blog, shop online, check e-mail or conduct acts of commerce or socialization digitally, you are selling your personal data. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that every time you use a credit or debit card you are creating a trail of data for the marketers to follow.

1) Know the deal you’re making.

Every site you use has (or should damn well have) a comprehensive privacy policy and terms of use document posted prominently. Any site that doesn’t consider this important enough to post does not deserve your custom. Here’s the tricky part – it is incumbent upon you to read them. When you visit their site, you are bound by their rules. No, they prolly can’t take your first born just because they said they could in their policy, but do you really even want to have that discussion? And you might be consenting to virtual cavity searches, giving up way more information than is strictly necessary and making yourself vulnerable to scammers and thieves. Is Farmville really worth it?

2) Remember that your data is their currency.

And why do they have such complicated policies? Because your data is valuable. Content is provided to you free of charge, but the providers you deal with have to make money. They’re not charitable entities, and even the warm, fuzzy nonprofitty types make deals to keep the lights on. Make sure their deals are deals you can live with. Know what you’re parting with, how they’re using it, and where you draw the line.

3) Don’t do things of which you’re not proud.

Since we’ve already established that there’s no such thing as online privacy, the only solution is not to treat it like a mystery spot where there is no memory and no consequences. Any anonymity you think you have is cursory at best. If someone wants to hold you responsible for your actions, they can. And the funny thing about digital media – it is preserved forever. If you had any idea what kind of information is held about you in marketing databases, you’d drop your teeth (as my mom used to say).

4) On the other hand, how much does it really matter?

Are you really any more conspicuous than anyone else online? And is your digital hiney hanging out in any really notable way? Kind of like the principle of herd immunity when it comes to vaccinations, there is some safety in numbers. Unless you’re the slow wildebeest who gets nabbed at the watering hole. Which would truly suck. Every time the Office of Personnel Management loses a laptop and compromises thousands of Social Security numbers, we are reminded that there is no real security, so we should just relax. In fact, OPM has a pretty swanky privacy center, no doubt created in response to their big, embarrassing breach last year.

5) Know your sources and your recourses.

I shouldn’t have made this one last only because it is a good principle to live by in general. And honestly, it has a nice ring to it. Know where you stand and the motivations of the people/entities you’re dealing with. Critical thinking will stand you in good stead online, in school, at work, at home and anywhere else.

• Don’t do business with companies that look shady, that you haven’t heard of, that don’t have a high online profile and that don’t Google up nice and fresh-smelling.
• Don’t use stupid passwords. See Twitter’s list of banned passwords, for some bad ideas.
• Read privacy policies and About Us pages, and keep a low profile on places with which you don’t wish to be affiliated at, say, work.
• Keep a vigilant eye on your statements and credit report (get your free report every year – make sure you know what’s in there!). Start any credit report request from the FTC.gov Annual Credit Report page to be sure you’re not going through a commercial trap.
• Know the policies of your credit cards and financial institutions, and keep copies of that contact information somewhere you can get at if your wallet disappears.

Comments invited:

What did I miss? Any experts I should talk to? How do you protect yourself online?

I had the great good fortune to work for Smithsonian Enterprises for a few years – working for the magazine, catalogue and travel Web sites. My tenure overlapped with the grand reopening of the American Art Museum and Portrait Gallery, an incredible, beautiful building full of history and with a lot going on (tip for visitors: traverse it from the top-down). My Number One Favorite Most Awesomest Thing in the Smithsonian Institution’s Vast Collections is this.

The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations’ Millennium General Assembly

It was fantastic to feel a part of this great institution, and one of the perks was getting familiar with the collections. I’d seen this gem before, as a kid growing up in DC you visit the Smithsonian museums rather a lot, but for some reason it didn’t really stay with me until I saw it as an adult.

Nothing rocks in the museum more than this. It’s an incredible installation, given a lot of real estate in a back corner of the American Art Museum dedicated to folk art. Built over the course of 14 years in a DC garage by a guy named James Hampton, this piece of magnificence was only discovered after his death in 1964.

A couple of adjectives that come to mind every time I round the corner and see this thing:

• Magnificent
• Obsessive
• Hopeful
• Loving

It’s probably (okay, more than probably) the product of an at least somewhat deranged mind, but it looks to me like an enormous, elaborate, long-term act of love and devotion. It’s joyful and inspiring. It makes me happy not only that it exists, but that it’s been given such a place of honor in our nation’s collection. And the great thing about the Smithsonian – it belongs to all of us. My tax dollars go towards the painstaking maintenance of this gem. This I can get into.

And the words it’s crowned with – Fear Not – are almost universally applicable.

I’m thankful for a lot more, of course (Spouse, health, kitty cats like Ms. Lucia who has her claws lovingly embedded in my leg right now, and so on), and that’s all great, but pretty dull. So, have a great one everybody. Eat well and don’t let the crazy people bug you. And if you look around the room and don’t see someone who is the most crazy, it could be you.

Habitat. Just like nature.

I have longstanding love affair with DC’s National Aquarium. Now, if you’re thinking of the luxe, massive, well-funded landmark aquarium in Baltimore, think again. Its location, the basement of the Department of Commerce building, is an unlikely one for one of DC’s hidden treasures. But the aquarium is the real deal, and has been in operation since 1931. Incredible.

When I first went, it seemed halfway abandoned. The entrance is in the side of one of those major monolith buildings downtown. One big, dark room of tanks with a bunch of boring, boring fish. It looked like something that was a temporary exhibit that just never got dismantled. Hard to find, harder to fathom.

Much to my delight, the kind people at the aquarium have agreed to answer a few questions for Nutgraf. So I went down on Saturday to see what they’ve been up to since my last visit a couple of years ago.

Recently remodeled, it maintained roughly the same shape as in its previous incarnation, but it seems bigger somehow. The aquarium is now in partnership with the one in Baltimore, which I suspect has opened them up to a whole new world of resources. While I’m sure the DC Aquarium doesn’t intend to be a feeder tank, as it were, for Baltimore, this partnership has to be a great help.

On my way through security (Commerce building, remember), I passed a family on their way out who said “This is the smallest aquarium in the world.” But, unlike my last visit, they didn’t sound perplexed and disappointed.

I was really glad to see that the octopus is still there. He (no, I didn’t check) has a beautiful, dark habitat with a special sign forbidding photography. I guess the flashes make him nervous. The last time I visited, he floated in the middle of a starker tank, staring straight ahead (as near as I could tell) and obsessively dismantling a Mr. Potato Head doll. I love that octopus. Beautiful, delicate and mysterious. And kind of neurotic.

I did my bit for the planet today – or a partial bit, anyway. I took up a green plastic bucket in the name of Bethesda Green, and mercilessly annoyed the good people (and everyone else) of Bethesda who were thoughtful enough to bring their old, obsolete, broken, or busted electronics to the neighborhood high school for recycling.

Unload 'em if you got 'em.

When I wandered off, a mere third of the way through the event, there had been 261 cars through the line already, and cars were lined up down the street. The guys were already loading up a 2nd tractor trailer, having already filled one and sent it on its way. Incredible. I’ll get some final numbers when the total weight is tabulated, but I think that last year they collected just shy of 100,000 pounds!

Does this sound familiar?

Would you like a postcard about the organization? [holds one out]  We’re inviting people to sign up for the e-mail list [waves clipboard, clicks pen] so you can find out about these events. And the fine people from HonestTea are giving out product at the bottom of the hill [points]. How about making a donation [rattles bucket]. Right this way; please don’t get out of your car, the gentlemen with the muscles will unload for you. Thanks so much for participating! [friendly wave]

I was the one who’s definitely not a teenage girl in a matching t-shirt, which is why I took off early. I figure they have advantages in the pestering you with clipboards and plastic buckets department that I don’t. I decided to go make some pixels on the subject instead. Besides, I do hate a plastic bucket.

Here's what the back of a teenage girl in a matching t-shirt looks like.

Congrats to everyone who lined up on East West Highway and a great big set of kudos to the fine, fine people form Montgomery County’s Division of Solid Waste Services who were doing an awesome job of unloading, organizing, packing, and schlepping the tons and tons of recyclables that can now be stripped and reused.

Monitors by the dozen

We use so much stuff, and I know today’s event was just a drop in the bucket (get it? bucket?). It’s cool, though, to see hundreds of people of all ages, kinds, car-choices and grooming habits all convene on this one spot to do one thing for no compensation. Good for you.

And sorry about the bucket.

Photo by Jeff Gates (Smithsonian American Art Museum - @AmericanArt)

The fine people at the Smithsonian American Art Museum created what is possibly the coolest exhibit going – a short-lived installation in the Luce Foundation Center (which is pretty great in its own right), created in honor of President’s Day.

More than 5,000 cupcakes were used to create these portraits of Presidents Obama and Lincoln, and the process was streamed live in this interminable video.

Eye Level, the blog of the American Art Museum, has produced time-lapsed video, which promises to be almost unbearably cool.

Live video by Ustream

I must admit, Washington is coming along nicely.