It’s late, it’s late. My brain is fried from studying. Tonight’s review topic? The motivation and methods of hackers. Seems kind of appropriate, given the ezBoard woes.
So let me tell you about a WordPress plugin I won’t be installing. Does your mother know allows bloggers to designate certain posts private, and block them from certain visitor IP addresses. So if you know your mother is reading your blog and you want to keep something from her, you designate it private, with <!--private-->, and add her IP to your list.
Hmmm…this could lead to an interesting issue. What if your mother visits Great-Aunt Maisie, and wants to show her your blog (yes Great-Aunt Maisie is connected to the Internet, why do you ask? Well, let’s just assume, ok?!) Suddenly, Mum is confronted with all these posts you’ve been ‘hiding’ from her, because Great-Aunt Maisie’s IP address is not in your block list. “My little girl did what? And with who…? Oh my eyes, my eyes!”
Why write about something you don’t want people to see? Blogs are public by nature. At the very least, if you must, you can password protect bits you don’t want viewed. But still… why bother. If it’s private, keep it private. Personally, I’ve learned that lesson, via unwanted visitors to my diary as a teenager. And heck… in 20 years time, I don’t want to dig up my blog via the Wayback Machine and find anything I’ve written that embarrasses me! So if you’re looking for that stuff… it’s not going to be here!