On 10/17/06, Matt R <matt_crypto(a)yahoo.co.uk> wrote: People have been afraid of this stuff since online discussions started in the 1970s. It's easy to become paranoid about it, but that extreme stuff doesn't happen very often. Among other things, the people who get very aggressive online are usually not physically aggressive in person. I've only known one exception in 20+ years. If there is any way for anyone to figure out who you are from your online presence, then your address and phone number are out there in so many public databases that "hiding" is rather pointless. Either keep your pseudonym completely divorced from all identifying information, or accept that this is another minor risk in life and move on. Almost everyone I know has had their addresses online, associated with vanity domain names, for 10-15 years (in some cases, longer). So far, nobody has had anything more than occational snail mail spam. As I have said elsewhere, though it's currently Wikifashionable to stay pseudonymous, in the long term I expect that people will accept this and get over it, and start using real names more consistently. -- -george william herbert george.herbert(a)gmail.com