[Leica] re--privacy?

[Summicron1@aol.com]

Phong my friend, you miss MY whole point.

If privacy is what you want, then do NOT put your thoughts, feelings,
emotions, discussions or anything else on the Internet.

You are broadcasting your thoughts to the world, and then asking for privacy?

As to the guy (Alf Bruell, right?) who got caught with an alternate lifestyle
on the web, well, there you are, that's the danger  of this new toy
illustrated right there. You should NEVER expect privacy on the internet.
Don't believe anyone's claims that it is possible. Legions of hackers are out
there to make sure that never takes place. Did you know there is software that
can seek out, and find, everything you've ever posted on the web anywhere? And
probably can list every site you've ever visited? 

The internet is a technological monster and no amount of demanding privacy on
it will change it -- such a demand is antithesis of the internet, sort of like
going into a crowded room and asking to be left alone. 

So face reality and use the LUG for what it is, a discussion of cameras. Don't
take things so seriously, and guard your privacy in the best way possible, by
keeping it private.

I notice someone made a mention of the deterioration of the First Amendment
back there somewhere and how government interference was hurting it. I suspect
you have a bad understanding of that right.

As a daily practioner of the First Amendment's gifts and rights, I know that
freedom of speech always carries responsibility -- you are free to say
whatever you want, but you are answerable for it as well and responsible for
any damage you do. Sometimes what people say in the past is dredged up and
used against them, true, but that is the price we pay for the freedom of all.
Perhaps the worst thing about modern political practice, where that is done
often, is it doesn't recognize that, sometimes, people change their minds or
just put their feet in their mouths. Used to be it was good practice to write
what you wanted to say, stick it in a drawer for a day, look at it again and
then decide if you wanted to send it off. With e-mail that valuable process is
no longer followed, and the resulting bad feelings are another part of the
Internet we all have to live with.

As to DanC saying he can sign any damn name he wants to his posts, hey dan, go
for it. 

But you will notice I sign my real name to all posts, as well to everything I
write in the newspaper, columns and news stories, and at work I give anonymous
news "tips"  that are denunciations of people very little credence. I believe
if you want to practice free speech you have to take the hits that go with it.
Sometimes they're unfair and sometimes you learn something. Sometimes you eat
crow, sometimes you get accused of having something jammed up your fundiment,
but that's life.

Want some discussion on topic? Leica hasn't made anything worth a damn since
my personal M-3  (#853*** made in 1956) came off the line and I'm still mad at
them for putting weird flash plugs in it that cost a fortune to have redone to
PC plugs. Discussion?

  (If that doesn't carbonate some people's blood here, nothing will.)

charlie trentelman aka summicron1@aol.com
Ogden UT