Employers, Law Enforcement and other government agencies, legal professionals, the press, criminals and others with an interest in your reputation will be observing all online activity associated with your real name.
You must carefully balance your public and private personas. Give as little information as possible in your public persona, and be mindful that unknown entities who may be antagonistic toward you will look to use whatever you put online against you. For instance - you announce you're going to visit relatives for the weekend! Robbers and vandals may take notice (from Ars Technica:)
It is best to offer information of a more personal nature pseudonymously, and keep the pseudonym(s) carefully firewalled from your real identity. Avoid major social media services when participating online pseudonymously if at all possible.
Let us say that you have a blog or social network account with your real name. And you'd share information like the places you work/live, your likes/dislikes, your school/college/degree, photos, etc., it is an unending list.
This information can give an overall picture of you (of your real name). So there is a high possibility of an attacker(if you are targeted) misusing your name in such a way that you will have to suffer.
NOTE: I am not saying that you should not share your information online, i am just reminding you that it is at your own risk and there are better chances for getting hacked when you give out more information.
Using your real name is not only safe, it's important for you to do so. Just bear in mind that you don't want to simply attach your name to all your activities, you want to build and cultivate your online identity.
Take the sad case of hapless, hopeless Rick Santorum. He was (and possibly still is) a politician with hopes for fame and power and sights on the US Presidency. He also has extreme political views that make him extraordinarily unpopular with many people; including most tech-savvy people in particular. Rick never cultivated much of an online presence until his presidential campaign made it important to do so. By then it was too late. Google can tell you the rest.
His case may be an extreme one, but the root of the problem is that no online identity existed until it was created by those he disagreed with. This made it trivial for those people to craft his online image however they wanted. And while it's unlikely his political career would ever have gone anywhere to begin with, this issue helped bring about its early demise.
So, in answer to your question, I USE MY REAL NAME which is Gaetane le Grange. You can all go and google it now, I'm the only one in the world - thanks mom and dad :/. My nick here is only because it amuses me - links back to my blog with my real name (don't bother looking, I lost interest in it). My facebook: www.facebook.com/gaetane (don't bother looking, I lost interest in it).
Personally, I use my real name online or one of a select few handles that are easily and fairly reliably identified to my real name with a simple Google search. I also have friends who will give me nothing but their handle even after we've been friends for years. There is no right or wrong answer, it really comes down to personal comfort with your online and offline worlds colliding.
I chose to use my real identity online because of having several side businesses as well as having worked with a relatively large fan run gaming press site, so my I had a fairly public online presence associated with my real life identity to begin with. If you Google my name, I'm one of the first few people to come up. I also don't see Internet "anonymity" as something I personally desire and I manage my reputation online just like I would in real life.
If you don't mind having to be careful to manage your identity and understanding what implications of your actions could be, then it's a great way to build a reputation that is useful both online and off. There isn't any real risk other than you personally damaging your reputation.
On the flip side, keeping your identity private may prevent some damage from occurring if you don't bother to manage your identity, but then if your identity ever leaks or you ever actually get seriously investigated, your handles aren't going to hold up for long before a real name gets associated with it and the damage is compounded.
Regardless of what you decide about using your real name, the real important thing from both an information security and a personal responsibility stand point is to manage your identity online. Imagine if everyone in the world knew anything you put online (even if you are posting it for just your friends). Consider your actions through that light and you'll be fine whatever you decide.
Please note that not using your real name online will not protect you from those, it only makes it a little bit harder and with other protective measure will hopefully allow you to not be one of the low hanging fruits.
Another less obvious danger of putting your real name publicly online is exposing yourself to cross-referencing. If you used your name to buy an adobe product and the adobe client database is stolen... A secure password policy is key to mitigate this kind of danger.
Then there is reputation, you have to be careful what gets associated to your real name, google has a tendency to return first the stuff that makes you look bad even it's all lies, also once something is online it tends to stay there and resurface at the least appropriate moment.
Using your real name online increases your vulnerability, and constrains your behavior. Being outspoken invites trolling. It's all good fun, until lighthearted harassment and death threats start getting real. You might face 200 pizza deliveries, or wake up to a SWAT raid.
It may also have long-term consequences. Joel Silver notes: "What you say on line lives forever." You don't want stupid things that you said in your youth to ruin your career. You don't want online flirtations to ruin your political career.
It's good practice to use your real name online where appropriate, and to mindfully build a reputation that furthers your goals. For inconsonant or controversial activities, it's prudent to use pseudonyms, and to appropriately manage their reputations. For that to work, adequate compartmentalization is essential.
While there is much potential harm possible when you use your real name, one thing you should not neglect is others using your name. And while some sites offer means to remove content that seems or seeks to harm your reputation, many don't.
So my take on this is, instead of (passively) fearing for your reputation, actively make sure it is a good one e.g. by contributing well to sites such as this one. Anyone searching for your name will then hit all the positive things you actually did instead of finding mud (and possibly lies) others claim.
(1.) While -- today -- in the so-called "democratic" countries, we do have a reasonable expectation of protection from government harassment based on our self-expressed political views, you should keep in mind that (particularly in crises), this can change very rapidly. Think, for example, of someone who advocated the overthrow of the Saudi government, prior to the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Using your real name on-line gives a suddenly-repressive government, a trivially easy way of identifying you as an "enemy of the state".
(2.) Children should not be allowed to use their real names on-line, under ANY circumstances. In saying this, I'm not repeating the rather tired (and greatly-exaggerated) fear of "cyber-perverts"; rather, I'm saying that it is not appropriate that every silly or immature thing that a child does or says on-line, should haunt him or her, for the rest of his or her life. The specific thing that you have to keep in mind here, is that the Internet does not have a way of telling an onlooker, "how old was the person, when he or she posted this particular vulgar YouTube video". This is a paradigm shift that no previous generation has faced and we need to err on the side of caution, where children's identities are concerned.
If real name, same email address and mobile number is used across social network sites and other websites, it is easy for a hacker to collect open source intelligence on you. A hacker will be able to understand your likes dislikes (example: based on the hashtags you have used in Twitter), where you are travelling, who you are communicating with.
Effective January 1, 2021, the names of corporations, limited liability companies and limited partnerships must be "distinguishable in the records" from an existing entity of the same type of record with the California Secretary of State and "may not be likely to mislead the public". Chapter 361, Statutes of 2020 (SB 522 Hertzberg).
When determining name availability, names are checked only against names of like entities registered with the California Secretary of State (e.g., a proposed corporation name is checked for availability only against other corporation names).
Not all business types can be filed online at this time. If your business falls into one of the following categories, you will NOT be able to file online. Download Annual Report and Personal Property Tax Return forms here.
YES, you can file PREVIOUS YEAR annual filings online. However, if your business falls into one of the following categories, you will NOT be able to submit PREVIOUS YEAR filings online. Download Annual Report and/or Personal Property Tax Return forms here. Business entities that are forfeited, or Not in Good Standing (other than dissolved, merged, or consolidated), ARE ELIGIBLE to file, provided they do not fall into the categories listed below:
After Filing Annual Reports and Personal Property Returns, it is recommended you use the Maryland Business Express online entity search to verify that your business status is Active and that it is in Good Standing. If your business status is not Active or is not in Good Standing, please review this Good Standing Checklist to determine the additional steps that may need to be taken. Please note that Sole Proprietorships and General Partnerships cannot have Good Standing status, but are displayed only as Active or Inactive.
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