Being evil online is fun, but is it really worth the thrill?

WIRED:It turns out that sinning, geek-style, is even more exhausting than being a nerd saint, writes DANNY O'BRIEN

THOSE OF you with an unhealthy interest in the personal lives of columnists may have noticed that I’m no longer working for the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), Silicon Valley’s civil liberties outfit.

I’ve moved on to a slightly narrower though equally worthy cause at the Committee to Protect Journalists. As before, I’ll try to highlight when my day job clashes with the topics I discuss here, although frankly I think it will be a bit easier. Journalists don’t like to talk much about journalists, at least until the third pint.

At the very worst, I may get my dual roles confused and end up trying to protect myself.

As it is, one of the guilty pleasures I’ve had since leaving the EFF is the opportunity to become far more evil online. The EFF is, in some ways, the geeks’ conscience, stepping in to highlight ethical quandaries even when us nerds are all set to have a lynching party (or happily sell out our futures for some cool new toy).

I admit that I’ve already indulged myself. The Apple iPad? My long-term sensibilities know that its walled-garden approach, restricted access and digital rights management make it a terrible precedent for future computers.

Shamefacedly, I bought one anyway.

In my defence, I was considering buying a Lenovo ThinkPad and then realised that 34 per cent of Lenovo is owned by the Chinese government, which really does imprison, spy on and harass online journalists. So in some ways, the iPad was the lesser of two evils.

The other indulgence is that I’m no longer trying to set a good example to my friends.

For the past few years, I’ve always tried to use Linux because I wanted to see what a freely created, communally built operating system could do.

Right now, I’m using Mac OS X on my laptop, because I can. Once again, it’s an operating system built by Apple (which just this week is in a face-off with a journalist who bought one of its prototype phones and published details of its hardware).

But, honestly, I think I prefer Linux: my MacBook’s fans are whirring off their axles in an attempt to chill OS X’s overenthusiastic feature set, whereas with Linux the whole thing stayed cool and responsive.

I’ll probably stay with OS X though, because Apple has rigged the iPad so that I won’t be able to use Linux with it – the worst possible reason to stay with the Apple platform but, hey, I no longer need to have good reasons.

What else have I done that’s borderline immoral? Well, I sent a lot of friend requests on Facebook. The social networking website has recently changed its privacy settings so that, although most members don’t realise it, they’re now sharing far more information with the public, advertisers and their friends than they may realise.

For instance, I wrote a quick program that scanned everyone I’ve chatted with via e-mail recently and checked with Facebook to see if it had their picture or profile on file. Now, whenever I e-mail them, I have all of this additional information at my fingertips.

It’s not exactly evil to do this, but it’s certainly not something I would have considered before now.

Of course, I am guiltily aware that I understand Facebook’s obscure privacy settings, so most of my information is under lock and key. (You can still find my picture, though. Facebook won’t let you hide that.)

I’m also considering a sideline in immoral earnings. Nothing too shady – just a few advertisements on my website maybe. Or perhaps some side business that takes advantage of my high Google rank. People do it all the time, but there’s still something not quite right about it.

I got my Google rank because people trusted what I said and linked to my website.

Is it right that I should commercialise their trust and even sell them out to advertisers, who will harvest their clicks and track their movements through my website?

Honestly, it’s only a few weeks in, and I admit the delicious illicitness of it all is being to fade.

The iPad is fun but buggy and its closed set-up is beginning to grate.

I’ll probably jailbreak it, even though that’s against the law – evil upon evil – and, of course, Apple will still get the cash.

My proprietary software bill is beginning to mount: I’ve now bought two or three applications for OS X that would have been free under Linux, and I’m already far more irritated with their bugs than I would have been with a free (and just as buggy) alternative.

The amount of information I have about relative strangers on Facebook is creeping even me out.

And, no matter how careful I am, I know they’re collecting just as much information on me.

And those online business plans?

Well, I may make some dollars, but I can’t help feeling I’ll lose just as much in the reputation and credibility I worked so hard to build.

Honestly, you can’t win. It turns out that sinning, geek-style, is even more exhausting than being a nerd saint.

Maybe I’ll just give away all these toys and join the priesthood instead. That seems pretty straightforward.