The title of this post was taken from Einfield’s comment in Sammyboy forum. I couldn’t help but feel that he drew an extremely funny, but accurate analogy on the nature of blogs.

A private blog is, for the most part, an oxymoron. The moment you put something online, there exists a chance that someone will see it. This is mostly caused by search engine technology. Search engines use robots, which are automated programs that continously move through cyberspace, archiving every webpage that it comes across and then stores that information.

If you have used Google before, you would have noticed that along with every search result that is turned up, you get a link that says cache. That is the snapshot of the webpage taken by Google’s robot the last time it visit that web page. In principle, this is the general process that other search engines or indexing services employ.

The implication of these robots constantly crawling through the cyberspace is that few information are immune from being archived. This is why Wee Siew Kim’s assertion that his daughter’s blog is private is a totally misinformed assertion.

By setting up a personal blog, it is akin to leaving one’s personal diary lying on the table. Anyone that passes by can just read it. Similarly, when you have a blog, anyone can stumble upon it and read it. By not keeping the diary under lock and key, you open up opportunities for other people to read it without your knowledge. The same goes for a blog. Therefore, claims of privacy carry no weight when it comes to blogs.

The surest way to keep a blog private is ”lock it up” with a password. It’s like locking up a personal diary in a safe. Only the right key or code combination will allow access, thereby keeping intruders out. If someone breaks the safe by employing improper means, then there’s a good case of invasion of privacy.

The bottomline is that if you do not lock your door, it’s your own fault if someone enters and steals something. This is a fundamental principle that applies not only in the offline world, but the online world as well.