... and I'll tell you who you are.
The music on my hard drive isn't only mine. My son, whose musical tastes are very different from mine (I can still hope he'll learn) keeps his files on the hard drive as well, and some of the music Tzippi uses for teaching is also there. Someone who, when using a P2P program, browses my hard drive could get a quite inaccurate impression of who I am simply by assuming that everything on the drive is mine, rather than a collection of music from three different people. Considering that anyone who browses me will probably remain a stranger, I guess that it really doesn't matter that much, but if we know the people we're browsing, it can represent a problem.
An article from Wired News reports on the possible pratfalls of being browsed:
Thanks to the ability of Apple's iTunes to share music collections over local networks, it is now possible to judge someone's taste in music -- or lack of it -- in a way that previously required a certain level of intimacy.
The ability to examine the music collections of co-workers, neighbors or fellow students is akin to peering into their souls: Someone who appears cool and interesting from the outside is revealed as a cultural nincompoop through the poor sap's terrible taste in music.
So we can't just listen to our music privately. Now we have to assume that people are peering into our playlists and judging us just as they might judge us from the clothes we wear.
Go to: They've got a little list.