Let's be careful out there, because on today's Internet people do know you're a dog. Here are just a few steps you can take to protect your privacy.
1 Send email anonymously. See, for example, http://shuster.com/webmail
2 Protect your email with encryption software such as the popular Pretty Good Privacy (see http://www.pgp.com/products/). Even government agencies can't crack it. Philip Zimmermann, PGP's creator, says: "We live in a world that requires digital information to be moved around by everyone. This means that everyone needs cryptography. It isn't just for governments any more."
3 Remove your address from any email directory which might be used by spammers. Usually you have to write to each service.
4 Prevent your Usenet posts from being archived. Messages you post to any one of the 16,000plus Usenet newsgroups can be traced by someone using Deja News (www.dejanews.com). Its database contains some 90 million postings from about 15 million individuals. To exclude your messages from its index, type the phrase "x-noarchive:yes" as the first line of your Usenet posts.
5 Change your sig (the signature at the end of your email). Because software robots (or 'bots) can do automated trawls through postings to listserv discussion groups etc, you might want to alter your sig to defeat these pesky little critters.
For example, use something like:
Michael Cunningham, m&cunningham@iri&sh-ti&mes writes:
Please remove ampersands from address to reply. If you don't know what an ampersand is you're probably a spambot, and I'd probably just as soon not hear from your master in the first place.
6 Choose a safe password. For suggestions, see the end of the article at http://www.irish- times.com/irish-times/paper/1996/0701/ cmp1.html
7 Browse anonymously. The Anonymizer (http:// www.anonymizer.com) acts as a middleman between you and a Web page you want to retrieve. The Anonymizer retrieves the page without revealing your identity, then sends it to you. Prepare to be disappointed though - we found the free version to be slow and glitchy.
8 Don't give out your personal details. It's one thing for a Web site to want to know your modem speed. It's quite another when it asks for your shoe size and star sign. If the site says you can't you subscribe unless you fill in all the blanks, either think twice about subscribing, or, er, think about lying.
You wouldn't be alone either. According to the seventh GVU survey of Web users, 40 per cent of respondents gave false information in online registration. Either they couldn't be bothered, or they didn't trust the people at the other end of the Web.