Online identity expert loses control of NSFW R-rated online pics

David M Williams
Sunday, 22 March 2009 17:05

Your IT - Home IT

It's a classic faux pas; someone puts their personal raunchy photos online and then finds they've spread beyond the limited audience for which they were intended. This wouldn't ordinarily be news - except this time it happened to someone who makes a living from telling others how to manage their online identity.

Let what has happened be a timely reminder to you not to put something online that you wouldn’t be willing for the world to see.

Dick Hardt is a well known in open source circles for a contentious Windows port of the Perl programming language as part of his company ActiveState which he subsequently sold for $US 23m in 2002.

Subsequently, Hardt became known for his work on solving problems related to online identity. These are issues like how do you prove who you are, can you associate credentials to your identity that grant access to online resources but permit privacy and more.

I referred to Hardt previously on iTWire when he, somewhat unexpectedly for a FOSS guy, joined the staff of Microsoft, relocating from Vancouver to Redmond.

Hardt is back in the news after a gaffe that saw personal photos released publicly instead of the closed circle of friends he had intended.

It began after Hardt’s recent wedding, and a conspicuous tweet on March 8th that “Dick would like to post the R rated wedding photos. @Jennx65 had another opinion” referring to new bride Jennifer.

Hardt must have been persuasive because on March 17th he tweeted “Dick finally got permission to post a couple of ‘special wedding photos’ for friends on Facebook.”

Oh dear! I’m sure you can guess what ensued.