I don’t associate my real name with this website. I also don’t associate my employer (or any previous employer) with this website. This way, I can complain about whatever I want here, and not worry about who reads it. Additionally, I don’t have to worry about my employer becoming upset with having my name, thoughts, or opinions associated with them. However, I haven’t always been this diligent about maintaining this separation.
A few days ago a got an email from an “Investigator” with my company’s “Security” department. The email was blank except for his name, telephone number, and position… basically, his signature. I’m sure the email was sent as a mistake, since there was no text in it. However, I immediately wondered why someone in my company’s Security department would have that email address. I checked my web server logs at around the same time and found the IP address of one of my company’s proxy servers hitting my site from a search result from google images with my company’s name as the search terms.
Three years ago, I got a new badge at work. Through a huge accident and misunderstanding the words “PROPELLER HEAD” were proudly writtein above my name on my badge. I scanned my badge in to show it off to my readers. I didn’t consider this a huge problem since, search engines don’t (usually) read words in images, and, even then, the company name is a logo which would be difficult to detect the words from. Unfortunately, not thinking, I named the file with my company’s name, hence the reason google’s search engine found it.
I took the image (and the entire post) down immediately. I also did a few extra searches to make sure there was no additional screw ups that would link my company’s name to my site. I didn’t think anything bad would happen, as it was a simple mistake and I meant no harm to anyone. Regardless, today, my boss was contacted by security and informed of the offending material. It was already down, and my boss isn’t too upset by it, so that’s good. Security is only asking that it be removed and nothing more. I’m not sure why it’s a problem for them. Apparently, the logo on the badge and the look of the badge itself is copyrighted.
I don’t think any more trouble will come of it. As soon as google’s cache forgets about it, the problem will go away. However, because of this, our “Security” department and my boss now know about this site. That’s not entirely bad, but it also means I may get paranoid and go through a run of mass censorship.
So… again, I’m stuck. What do I do? Should I drop the site all together? Continue my plans for separations of all personal content from this site? Or, just not care and keep on posting? I could block all access to this site from IPs owned by my company. That would at least force any “snoopers” to have to do so from home on “their” time. But, I don’t think that’s the answer.