the opposite of privacy

today, in an after-lunch walk with a colleague of mine, he told me that he used to be totally into online privacy and all, and used to promote/develop software that helps keep your identity secure online, till one day he realised that he wasn't using his own software. so he decided to pretend he didn't know anything about himself, and try and dig up as much info about himself as he could.

apparently he pinpointed himself within 10 feet of his actual location, found his full name, and found a way to get his telephone number (but didnt actually get it because of the potential side effects of hacking into his ISP's database - especially since his location could be tracked down to the last 10 feet :D )

then i told him that he could google my name and get my phone number, or vice versa. i forgot to tell him that he could google my name and get my home address and a pinpoint over it's location in a map too, but i guess i made my point.

so all this got me thinking - what does privacy mean to me today? do i really care if someone knows where i live and what's my phone number? (obviously not, cos i'd not have put it up then). what about my birth date, my parents'/relatives'/friends' names, my email addresses, my middle name, my school, my colleges, my employment history?

could a person possibly pretend to be me and get away with it? i think it's very possible. all these pages will also be cached in google for a long time. scary. i'm the only "kristopher noronha" on google. even scarier.