Giving in, reluctantly

I still hate and distrust you, Facebook, but it looks like I'm never going to be able to see my daughter's trip pictures if I don't join. Don't think I like it. Grrr.

Anyway, I gave in last night and opened a Facebook account. Under an alias. With no personal information and every privacy setting on max.

I now understand where all that *(^&%#-ing Facebook spam is coming from. When you start to open your account, the very first screen in the setup wizard cheerfully invites you to provide Facebook with not only your email address (required to confirm the account) but your email PASSWORD!!!! Apparently if you are stupid enough to provide this, FB goes to your email account and uploads your address book, which they proceed to use as their own personal spam resource. Oh. My. God. You can skip past this screen, as it turns out. But isn't it interesting that the very first piece of information that Facebook asks you for is a list of all your friends' email addresses? Hmmm.What does that say about their business model?

Anyway, now I need a few friends so I can see how that part works. So, beloved friends and family members, if you have started saying things like, "I've posted pictures of xxxx to Facebook," you may be getting a friend request from Agnes Gooch. If you friend me, I promise you that I will not be broadcasting your pictures, thoughts, personal information or email addresses to the world.

=== Love, Agnes

Figuring out Facebook

1) Account verification (as distinct from confirmation) is not possible if you don't have a cell phone that accepts text messages! I am appalled.

2) More explorations of Facebook privacy options

* I originally set all my privacy settings to ultra-paranoid, and even discovered a way to see my own page as others see it. Actually, I found it once, but can't remember how I did it. Oh well, I'm sure I'll run across it again eventually. Ah, here it is. Go to Settings ->Privacy-> Profile. At the top is a box where you can type a friend's name. This displays your page as that friend would see it. This is a handy feature.

* I was trying to find some way to give people a hint which Agnes Gooch I really was (I had no idea there would be so many on Facebook!), so I set my Network to Minneapolis/St. Paul. Whoa!!! Guess what, when you join a network, all your privacy settings change to "Friends and Network Members". I immediately set all mine back to Friends only. But I can now see all sorts of information on the pages of others in my network that are not my friends. Oh, okay, all the ones I've looked at are friends in real life. But I haven't friended them on Facebook. I wonder how many of them realize that everybody in Minneapolis/St.Paul network can now see their pictures and read their wall?

3) Who is out there?
* There are 16 Agnes Gooches, including Agnes L. Gooch (me), THREE of whom are in Minneapolis/St. Paul. Only 2 have profile pictures (neither of which shows the actual user).

* There are 14,000 Kahns.
* There are 43 Sharon Kahns, one of which is my googleganger and another of which is a man.
* There is one Sharon E. Kahn
* There are no Sharon Elizabeth Kahns