by LAmahogany » Wed Sep 14, 2011 8:48 pm
I feel your fear. Having been busted (and busting others), along with my short run at becoming a police officer has given me a bit of insight into what you might do to express yourself with like-minded individuals but without ending up fired, divorced or sued in the process. Hopefully, some of this advice will help people who want to reduce their chances of suffering damage to their reputation.
With Twitter, the trick is to go to https://twitter.com/settings/account and uncheck "Let others find me by my email address" and "Add a location to your tweets" and, most importantly CHECK the box marked, "Protect my tweets." Then, in your dirty account, go to the Twitter profiles of everyone your clean profile follows and then BLOCK them. This way, it wont suggest your profile to them. I also recommend not using an ID that could even be remotely associated with you in any way (like your initials, first name, a nickname that refers to your hobbies, etc). Obviously don't use a profile picture of yourself (or any part of yourself). When you fill out your profile, don't include any personally identifiable facts that, in combination, could be used to identify you. (There are a lot of painters out there, but how many of them, also, really enjoy juggling?)
Make sure to use a different e-mail address with a "dirty" account than you would for clean ones; the last thing you need is for Twitter or any other site like a forum periodically e-mailing your dirty login ID to an inbox that, potentially, will be viewed by someone that should not see it.
Consider using Google Chrome browser and then only use dirty accounts in "incognito" mode (Ctrl+Shift+N) to open a window that saves no cookies, deletes all cached files (like images) when the window closes, etc. Absolutely, positively NEVER sign into it from a smartphone or tablet; you may forget and your logged in session may pop up (perhaps accidental). Don't use it with social media aggregators like HootSuite or TweetDeck.
Even if by some chance you decide to follow or allow yourself to be followed by people you can trust, it's still a good idea to be careful with nouns when you do Tweet:
- If you're hot for Patricia Rollings, call her P. Not P.R., not Patricia, Rollings, etc.
- If you saw her on your way to work, you can say so, but not that it was on the I-95 toward Sanford an hour ago.
- If she just came from the gym, "the gym" is good enough--don't say "the Bally's."
Be careful when you post pictures. Some pic hosts don't let images.google.com spider their galleries; you must have the exact URL, or you wont be able to find it. That is ideal. Don't use sites will close your account for posting nudity. Never, ever send a pic that doesn't require a password if you must include a shot that shows both your face and your privates and don't ever send those to people you don't trust. Before sending any pictures, make sure to erase EXIF data in Jpeg files that may have been geo-tagged by your camera phone (http://www.labnol.org/software/exif-data-editors/14210/). Avoid sending pictures that depict you in a setting where the background identifies where you were and at what time of day (a closet is a good place to achieve that).
Never share your dirty account(s) with former lovers, mutual friends or coworkers (no matter how cool they seem). Don't post anything that could attract the attention of a site administrator (references to animals or children or violent, non-consensual acts--not that any of us think or would post such things--will bring the feds, and no matter what your privacy settings are, they can and will find out who you really are).
I generally don't recommend initiating contact with strangers you meet through a dirty social media account. However, if you do, and choose to speak by telephone, exercise caution. Only use pre-paid cell phones that were paid using Cash. Don't keep receipts, and don't keep pre-paid phones at home. Consider getting a PO box and leaving it in there. Make or take calls at times pre-determined via other means (e.g., Twitter DM). I recommend against texting, even with a pre-paid phone. I don't have any good advice for actually meeting up in a way that is totally untraceable.
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ma·hog·a·ny (mə-ˈhä-gə-nē), noun: the rather hard and heavy wood of any African tree.