The societal issue I decided to write about was sleuthing. Sleuthing is the
piecing together of information that is left through surfing the web,
transactions made over the web, and such business. Essentially, the goal is
to be able to trace a person thru their activity over many venues of the web
and be able to put pieces together to get the desired information about that
person(s). Whether that information is an address, phone number, or even
your social security number and banking information, someone with enough
advanced knowledge of the internet and computers can trace your steps to
find this information. An article that I found particularly interesting was
âWho is âRobert Klinglerâ?â by Jack Shafer. This article is about
the tracing of two men with possibly the same identity. It goes over some of
the ways that you can gather information through e-mails and posting boards.
Although the article is long, it is also a very interesting story to read.
This article can be found at: http://slate.msn.com/id/2063114/. The idea
that people would spend their time or use a research company over the
internet to find this information out about you is intimidating and
reinforces the need for education about protecting yourself when using the
internet. However, sleuthing can also be useful for finding the source of
hoaxes and viruses on the internet. As stated in the above article, you must
be careful if you think you can get away with everything on the iternet.