I never viewed the internet as private. I hid my tracks not because I'd done anything wrong but because there are 'crazies out there', I have plenty to hide and why take a chance? Then 'wow' forums - I could say controversial things, play devil's advocate, really push the discussion farther than IRL with little fear of reprisal or even rebuke. Which was great for me because I'm the guy who parks the other way round in the car lot. I have always been a natural dissenter. Then my friends joined facebook - early days before it was humungous. It raided their contacts and my little cell was exposed. I had not used a separate email address for each person I had ever met. Silly me. Then Zuck said 'privacy is dead' and I remembered that even before that in college he had said 'I can't believe these idiots are trusting me with all this information' - or something like that I can't really recall - and I knew he was right. I wish it weren't so. We speak more guardedly now. Still get downvoted.