I have announced that I don't accept phone solicitation to every such call I've gotten for almost a decade, and yet I still get calls. I got one recently from my local phone provider, selling me an offer I'd already gotten by mail and email...

Privacy is hard to come by these days. It's bad enough having nosey neighbors peeking in your windows, but invasion of privacy has become epidemic and the power of our modern networked paradigm isn't helping. Unwelcome entities are clamoring for your personal information. What they already have is being disseminated. You do what you can to prevent it, but that leaves you on eggshells in the cases where you want or need to share something about yourself. Are we destined to live in forced isolation? Who can you trust?

A business is a legal fiction. Although I maintain Mentata Systems as my professional presence, I am a person and you can trust me. I want you to feel safe reviewing my materials, interacting with my applications, sending me email, or calling me on the phone. The only way I can do that is to demonstrate solidarity with you and build a reputation for protecting your privacy. I'll start by making you some promises.

Mentata Privacy Statement

There are three major threats to privacy on the internet: malicious hackers, unscrupulous businesses, and the United States government. All those patient records, member lists, log files, and customer databases sit like sheep before wolves in cyberspace. Hackers enjoy the challenge of penetrating even the most robust security schemes to steal your identity and wreak havoc with your life. Companies buy, sell, and swap your contact information to deluge you with spam, telemarketing calls, and countless useless mailings. Meanwhile, instead of protecting you from such menacing forces, our goverment and legal system is instead working feverishly to get a bigger piece of the action by granting themselves new authority to *surreptitiously* monitor *all* your communications and records *without* due process or proof of warrant. Together, these groups are the bullies on the internet playground. When you interact with me, I plan to protect you from all three.

On the other hand, I'm not going to great lengths to protect my own privacy. In the content of this site I am and will be open about my intentions. I share my strategy, my work history, my advice, my opinions, and the source code of my software. I've published my phone number and put mail links on virtually every web page. This is a conscious decision. Some things stay personal, but this business is a glass box. It's your information I'm determined to protect.

So be not afraid. I have a reputation for developing systems secure against intrusion and misuse. I have integrity and will never seek to make a buck by betraying those I know. I intend to keep sharing, and will fear no man... even this one.

Look for a new LDAPHttp example in the next two weeks. Thanks for dropping by.