Yesterday in my podcast I talked about the fact that this whole thing with lifestreams as being pushed forward by the likes of Steve Rubel and a few others could have a dark side to it that people are ignoring.

Now as much as Mr. Rubel might like to think he has come up with something new the fact is that as pointed out by Brian Solis this really isn’t that new. The only thing new about it is the ease in which you can now do what both he and Emily Chang experimented with back in 2006 and early 2007 because of things like Twitter, Pownce and Tumblr.

The idea that you can with the use of RSS feeds from disparate sources tie all your various online information and writings into one unified stream can seem to be a very enticing thing to do; albeit a self-absorbing and self-assuming of one’s own importance in my opinion.

At first this idea of lifestreams might seem to be nothing more than ego puffery and a legitimate way to keep track of what you are doing around the web but what happens when some-one other than you creates your lifestream. After all who else could care enough to know what you are doing all over the web.

At one time that might have been a good question because of all the work that would be required to pull all the varied data together and then siphon it through to a manageable and readable format. That has changed with lifestreams and already companies are jumping on the idea or varieties of it. As Freddie at Freddie.Dot.See.Eh posted just this morning there is a company called RapLeaf that allows you to search for online reputations for any email address. On top of that they also have a commercial product called TrustFuse that allows marketers to created email mailing lists based on interests.

Then you have services like Spock coming online which allows you to search for information on any person. As Jason at webomatica said when he tested the service

Spock is a little scary. I say this because after I logged in for the first time about a month ago, I’m pretty sure more information about me was dug up - seemingly automatically. I think Spock checked out Technorati and added the people that consider my blog a favorite, and it seems to be pulling in information from MySpace, LinkedIn, and other sites.

What Spock is doing is now no different than any individual going out and creating a lifestream for some-one that they are interested in - just simpler.

Sure this might all seem to be benign but what happens if some-one with intentions other than curiosity goes out and does this especially if creating a lifestream for some-one becomes more automated - which you can almost be assured will happen. What happens if the person creating the lifestream is a stalker, what if the person is an identity thief.

Then on top of this we have increasing government surveillance of it’s populace under the guise of homeland security. At one time they might have relied on things like the Carnivore; or Echelon or Magic Lantern, program(s) which was used by the FBI, or they might have relied on the complicity of telecom’s and any number of NSA data mining projects.

But all this could easily fall by the wayside given the ease of creating this thing called lifestreams and to boot it is all legal - you have absolutely no way to fight back. With something like lifestreaming we are handing the keys to our lives to people who will use it for ways we probably can’t even imagine all the ramification but the picture isn’t pretty.

I am sure that there are folks out there that will say … but I have nothing to hide and besides I am careful… Well that might be the case except for two simple things about human nature. First off you never know what will be of interest or useful to some-one else and second we all let personal things slip at one time or another and on the internet nothing is every really deleted.

This informational Pandora’s Box is now open and with its RSS feed your life is an open book. How much is there for the world to read is entirely up to you.

Listening to: Enigmatic Obsession - Secret of Seduction - Northern Horizon

Conversation Tags: lifestreams, Steve Rubel, Brian Solis, Emily Chung, Twitter, Pownce, Tumblr, Freddie.Dot.See.Eh, webomatica, Spock, Carnivore, Magic Lantern, Echelon, Pandora’s Box