Break This: Stalkernet

Have you ever visited a school website and found yourself in a student directory? Sure, it's fun to find yourself and a few of your friends, but do you really want your information to be available to anyone on the internet? Some colleges and universities post disclaimers about how information shouldn't be used for commercial purposes, but they cannot provide any guarantee that someone won't just look you up on your student directory and send you commercial email despite the warning.

Worse than the occasional SPAMling attack is the potential for some wacko with too much time on his/her hands to use the directory wacko who has found a great new way to meet new people on the college directory. For this reason, I hereby dub open college directories "Stalkernet," which I will continue to refer to through the rest of this post.


Stalkernet has a legitimate purpose: college and universities need to retain student information so they can collect on registration, maintain academic records, and keep in contact with you after you graduate from college. The problem comes when the colleges and universities decide to post the information to the internet. In some cases, the information is only available to students who have logged into the school's web portal which, although better than no security at all, is not particularly desirable.


The solution in many cases is simple: check that box on your personal information page that keeps your contact information from being posted. In some cases you may also need to talk to the administration office in order to resolve this issue, but the personal privacy and peace of mind is worth the effort. So go ahead: Break Stalkernet....