Personal Profiles and Other Publicly Available Information

Personal Profiles and Other Publicly Available Information
An Internet Hotlist on Detecting and Protecting Your Digital Footprint

created by Associate Professor-Librarian Robert J. Lackie
Rider University

Introduction | Notable Social Networking Sites | Notable Personal Information Search Engines | Online Identity and Privacy Information Resource Sites | Website Author's Information

Introduction
Do you know who you or your friends and family may be 'talking to' or what you may be 'sharing' online?

'Social Networking' sites (interactive networks of photos, blogs, user profiles, groups, and internal email systems interconnecting the people who join them, allowing for direct or indirect interaction with or influence on each other) have become some of the highest traffic sites on the Web in 2008. Hundreds of millions of people have joined many of the hundreds of social networking Web sites available around the world, and the number of these sites and those joining them seems to be growing exponentially.

Social networking sites have strong appeal to young adults because of the interactivity between users, and many members also discover new groups of people or bands by looking through other people's profiles and their lists of friends and contacts. Communication and picture-sharing is very easy, and these sites have become a haven for the creation of new trends and the dissemination of information.

But social networking sites are not the only Web locations to find 'public' information on individuals--besides the huge general purpose search engines (Google, Yahoo!, MSN), there are a wealth of 'people finder' search engines. These personal information search engines are attracting a lot of publicity lately for the particular type of sensitive personal information that they are easily sharing.

The following links will give you just 'a taste' of the notable social networking sites frequented by high school and college students (and others!), as well as personal information search engines providing publicly available data on many of us--probably even you!

Sites for online identity and privacy reports, articles, and protection organizations can also be found near the bottom of this site, but don't forget about your local university and public library resources, too. Our libraries, especially with their large number and variety of databases, contain full text articles from books, magazines, journals, and newspapers on detecting and protecting your digital footprint. See your librarian for valuable assistance.

The Internet Resources

Notable Social Networking Sites

America Online Instant Messaging (AIM) - As of February 2008, AIM (America Online Instant Messaging) is the world's 327th most popular website (according to Alexa Internet - http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details/aim.com), 28th in the U.S. with... ‘The most recent version of the AIM® software includes many new and improved features to increase the compatibility and flexibility of your instant messaging experience. AIM is now compatible with Windows® Vista™ and Windows XP 64-bit. However, please note some features may require additional components or services. The AIM software includes: Instant Messaging, Talk and Voice chat, Video IM, E-mail, and Text Messaging. Additional features of AIM software include: AOL® Radio With XM, File transfer for pictures and documents, Buddy List, Address Book, Integration of Address Book with Plaxo®, the industry leader in Web-based contact management, IM forwarding to mobile phone, AOL® Alerts and Reminders, and Browse or search the Web through AOL® Explorer.’
Bebo - Bebo is a social networking website created to enable friends to stay in contact. It has developed into an online community where friends can post pictures, write blogs and send messages to one another, and is similar in format to MySpace. The site has been increasing in popularity since the end of 2005 to mid-2007, but as of February 2008 (according to Alexa Internet - http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details/bebo.com) it has an Alexa Internet traffic rank of 107th in the world, which is down from 92 in April 2007. It has a United States rank of 166th (down from 158th), but it is most popular now in Ireland, with a rank of 3rd. Users create an account (or respond to an invitation), then invite their friends to do the same, so that they can see their account. In the event that a friend changes their postal addresses, email addresses, phone numbers or other details should change, he or she will be notified of the fact, and will therefore always have up to date contact information. Bebo also allows users to post comments in various sections of a users account such as pictures, blogs, white board and the users account home page. February 3, 2006, Bebo integrated with Skype, a popular VOIP service. Newest updates with Bebo came on November 1, 2007 when Bebo “…announced that it will be joining OpenSocial, a set of common APIs for building social applications across the web. OpenSocial is a single programming model that empowers developers to build universally accepted social applications for users to enjoy regardless of the websites they use. OpenSocial efforts are spearheaded by Google. In addition to supporting the OpenSocial model (For more details go to http://www.bebo.com/Press.jsp?PressPageId equals 4956881450), Bebo announced its plans to launch a Developers Platform that will make it easy for Facebook developers to port their applications to the Bebo platform.” This announcement is the first in a series of major announcements planned by Bebo before the end of 2007. Bebo did make further platform announcements on November 13, 2007, when they “…unveiled Open Media, a radical new vision for social media and entertainment that gives media companies free and open access to Bebo's 40 million users worldwide and the Bebo community free and open access to thousands of hours of premium entertainment content from some of the world's best known media brands (For more details go to http://www.bebo.com/Press.jsp?PressPageId equals 5037676804). Maybe these series of format changes will improve their current in Alexa rankings.
Facebook - The new Facebook “is a social utility that connects people with friends and others who work, study and live around them. People use Facebook to keep up with friends, upload an unlimited number of photos, share links and videos, and learn more about the people they meet (http://www.facebook.com/about.php).” They use to be an online directory that connects people through social networks at schools. Then they developed two Facebooks: one for people in college and one for people in high school. Facebook was founded by Mark Zuckerberg in 2004. According to a July 17, 2007, TIME Interview article with Zuckerberg “Facebook is undergoing a huge period of growth. With more than 150,000 new users signing up daily, it is growing three times as fast as rival MySpace.” The TIME interview also showed in July 2007 Facebook had “30 million active users.” As of February 2008, Alexa (http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details/facebook.com) considers Facebook to be the world's 7th most popular website, 5th in the U.S., with South Africa listing it as 1st. I have used it to communicate with my public speaking students, after I figured out that they were communicating with each other via its network - that's how they knew when someone's birthday in class was coming up before I did! “Facebook has a new answer to the portal question. The “social graph,” or your network of relationships, will push information to you. You’ll learn from your friends. Thanks to Facebook’s new developer platform, the types of information being disseminated now include not just news, photos, events, and groups but also music, videos, books, movies, causes, political campaigns — and the list is rapidly growing into almost every conceivable category (http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/05/31/the-new-portals-its-the-bread-not-the-peanut-butter/).” “Facebook is working on translating the site into new languages. We want everyone to be able to use Facebook.” So, Facebook is not just for students anymore.
Flickr - Owned by Yahoo since March 2005, Flickr has been touted by many as the world's best online photo management and sharing application site. They have picture galleries available with social networking, chat, groups, and photo ratings, which includes an interesting companion blog, as well. Which may explain why their popularity has risen as we can see on Alexa.com. As of February 2008, it is the world's 38th most popular website (http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details/flickr.com), which is an increase from the 42nd place in April 2007, and it remained fairly constant in the U.S. staying at the rank of 21st in February 2008. Flickr is most popular in Qatar with a traffic rank of 8th.
Friendster - 'Friendster, which began in 2002 as a simple social experiment conducted by entrepreneur Jonathan Abrams in Mountain View, California, had become the fastest growing brand in Internet history by late 2003,' according to an article from Inquirer.net in Inquirer Lifestyle. Friendster was probably the king of social networking sites in 2004, but it has since lost ground to MySpace and others. Currently Friendster says there are over “54 million members worldwide” (http://www.friendster.com/info/index.php). Friendster considers itself to be the best way to stay in touch with your friends and it is the fastest way to discover the people and things that matter to you most. Headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area, Friendster aims to make the world a smaller place by bringing the power of social networking to every aspect of life, one friend at a time. As of February 2008, Alexa ranks it 16th in the world (http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details/friendster.com), which is up from 25th in the world in April 2007, and here in the U.S., it has gained ground to 66th in U.S. from not even being in the top 100 most popular at the end of 2006 and 85th in April 2007. It is most popular in the Philippines and Brunei, both ranking it 1st. So, the trend seems to be continuing.
LiveJournal - “Six Apart acquired LiveJournal in January 2005 from its founder, Brad Fitzpatrick. From its founding, LiveJournal popularized many of the fundamental innovations of social media, such as friend’s lists and powerful privacy controls. Under Six Apart, the number of LiveJournal accounts nearly tripled from 5 million to over 14 million, and dozens of new features were introduced to the site, including: a powerful email/IM/web notification system; LJTalk, a completely open-source Jabber-based instant messaging platform; user-to-user messaging and tremendous improvements in comment management and editing; a vastly expanded mobile feature set, including a dedicated mobile client; and dozens of new visual themes and a completely new, simplified site design and navigation system. Six Apart will continue its active investment in and promotion of the signature open source platform technologies created by the LiveJournal team, such as Memcached, Mogile, Perlbal, and OpenID, all of which have been adopted by other leading web properties from Craigslist to Facebook to Wikipedia. LiveJournal, Inc. will also carry on LiveJournal's strong open source tradition.” Even though, On December 3, 2007 “Six Apart…announced that SUP, an international media company, has acquired LiveJournal (LJ), the pioneer of social networking communities online used by millions of people around the world to connect through personal journals and topic-based communities. SUP has launched an American company, LiveJournal, Inc., to manage and operate LiveJournal globally.” (For more details go to http://news.livejournal.com/104520.html) “LiveJournal (LJ) is a simple-to-use communication tool that lets you express yourself and connect with friends online. You can use LJ in many different ways: as a private journal, a blog, a social network and much more. LJ is built on open source software.” It is mostly popular in the U.S., but there are many people registered from Russia, Canada, and the UK, too. Alexa ranks LJ as 62nd in the world and 24th in the U.S. as of February 2008. It is most popular in Russia, with a rank of 10th. (http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details/livejournal.com), which is up from 70th in the world and 25th in the U.S.
MySpace - “MySpace (or MySpace.com) is a free service (social networking site) that uses the Internet for online communication through an interactive network of photos, blogs, user profiles, email, web forums, and groups, as well as other media formats.” The current MySpace service was founded by Tom Anderson in 2003. Amazingly, according to the Alexa Site - which provides web traffic information - (http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details/myspace.com), in February 2008, MySpace was listed as the 3rd most popular site in the U.S., ranked 6th overall in the world, with Puerto Rico ranking it as 1st. MySpace celebrated its 100 millionth member registration on August 9, 2006. There have been a boatload of articles about MySpace recently, including those dealing with safety especially because of the detailed profiles that many publish there, so there's no shortage of coverage for what is, for now, the king of personal, social networking sites. Interestingly, Google has signed a $900 million deal to provide search functions and advertising to MySpace, so look for the familiar Google search boxes on MySpace.
Tagged - 'Tagged is a social website designed specifically for teenagers between the ages of 13 and 19. Users can build online communities, start blogs, upload photos, and build a Tag Team, which is a social network of people that give each other Tags, which are marks indicating user's personal opinions of their personality and attitude. When a Tagged member invites a non member to join and the person responds, the Tagged member gets 100 points. Points are essential to Taggers. When you get a certain amount, you are eligible to enter the Casting Call for the Ultimate Tagged Team. The Ultimate Tagged Team is group of Tagg members from across the nation who participate in a reality show on Tagged. These members are known by many Taggers and have the most points. Alexa Internet gives this site a traffic rank of 166th in the world as of February 2008, which is down from 115th in the world as of April 2007. Their rank is lower in the U.S. with an Alexa rank of 325 in February 2008, with it being the most popular in Qatar and Jordan, both listing it with a rank of 14th. (http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details/tagged.com).
Xanga - “Xanga is a community of online diaries and journals. You can easily start your own free journal, share thoughts with your friends and meet new friends, too. The Xanga service is a blogging & social networking site - it exists to promote sharing and community.” According to Wikipedia, Xanga is “operated by Xanga.com, Inc., based in New York City,” and its “users are referred to as “Xangans”.” It first started out as a book and music review site. As of February 2008, this social networking site is ranked in the world by Alexa as the 106th most popular site (http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details/xanga.com), but here in the U.S., it is not as popular as others” it is ranked 186th, although it is most popular in Hong Kong, with a rank of 4th. It has 40+ million registered users.
YouTube: Broadcaste Yourself - YouTube is one of the fastest growing Social Networking Sites that is built around posting videos, and sharing video experiences & critiques with others. According to YouTube, it is 'the leader in online video, and the premier destination to watch and share original videos worldwide through a Web experience. YouTube allows people to easily upload and share video clips on www.YouTube.com and across the Internet through websites, mobile devices, blogs, and email. Everyone can watch videos on YouTube. People can see first-hand accounts of current events, find videos about their hobbies and interests, and discover the quirky and unusual. As more people capture special moments on video, YouTube is empowering them to become the broadcasters of tomorrow.' Alexa.com ranks YouTube as the number three most popular site in the world in May 2008.
hi5 - According to hi5 itself, 'hi5 offers a popular destination for the teens and twenties demographic around the world. Over 50 million members around the world have registered for hi5 to discover friends with similar interests, to reconnect with friends from the past, and to express their personalities. In less than two years, hi5 has built one of the fastest growing online destinations. Internet media has become increasingly important, especially to the generation that spends time on hi5.' hi5 does have over 50 million registered members, with 'a unique, global footprint that touches North and South America, Europe, and Asia.' It is ranked as of February 2008 by Alexa as 8th in the world, which is up from 17th in the world in April 2007. The U.S. population didn’t seem to know much about it in April 2007 because it didn't make the top 100 in the U.S., but as of February 2008, it is ranked as the 52nd most popular, although eight countries list it as 1st (Peru, Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Portugal, Honduras). (http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details/hi5.com). Something I found interesting about it was that several high profile singers and models are confirmed to be members, according to the “hi5.com” Wikipedia article.
orkut - 'orkut is an online community that connects people through a network of trusted friends. We are committed to providing an online meeting place where people can socialize, make new acquaintances and find others who share their interests. Join orkut to expand the circumference of your social circle.' The name may sound strange, even though I am sure that we are used to strange names on the Web. However, there is a reason: this social networking site, owned by Google, is named after Orkut Büyükkökten, the creator of the site and a Turkish software engineer at Google. By the way, even though Alexa ranks it 10th in the world (down from 8th in April 2007. http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details/orkut.com), it is only 38th in the U.S. in February 2008. It is ranked 1st in Brazil and Paraguay. Over 52 million registered users (from over 24 million...huge growth).

Notable Personal Information Search Engines

LinkedIn - LinkedIn, a personal information search engine, could also be categorized as a social networking site, although it does cater to business people. It offers both free and fee-based options, and its goal is “to become the most useful business web site for millions of professionals across the globe.” This online network and search engine, as of the summer of 2006, connects almost 10 million experienced professionals from around the world, representing 130 industries. You join for free, create a “profile that summarizes your professional accomplishments. Your profile helps you find and be found by former colleagues, clients, and partners. You can add more connections by inviting trusted contacts to join LinkedIn and connect to you. Your network consists of your connections and the connections of the people they know, linking you to thousands of qualified professionals.” You may or may not have heard of LinkedIn, but it is certainly growing, with a world rank of 214th, and it is very popular here, as Alexa ranks it as the 33rd most popular in the U.S. (up from 38th in April 2007). (http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details/linkedin.com). I actually updated my profile (job title, education, interests, etc.) in LinkedIn while researching for and writing an article on this topic recently.
PrivateEye: Because you need to know - From PublicRecordsNow, this 'People Search' section of PrivateEye 'Searches 10 databases and 2,268,819,679 records.' (by the way, I haven't noticed any change in record numbers they provide)in a single search. Databases searched include real property records, voters' registration, current and historical phone records, magazine subscriptions, change of address, national drivers and other proprietary databases.' Remember, don't pay for anything! Alexa gives this a rank of 157,021 in the world, with its use going down sharply since April 2007. It is ranked 34,895 in the U.S., although it is more popular in Ghana at a rank of 15,272.
US Search: Be Informed - 'For over a decade, US SEARCH has given its customers peace of mind by providing the right information to make faster, safer, and smarter decisions for both consumers and Fortune 1000 companies.' They state that US Search ranks third (behind only Yahoo! Get Local and Superpages.com) as the most visited Web site in the 'Directory Category - Nielsen/NetRating' of the most popular directory and local guide sites. What I found interesting about this site is that the basic free search can provide you with the age of the person being searched. It was eerily correct for the people I tried it with. And a few people I know who have never used the Internet for anything, and never will, were disturbed that their ages were available - sorry!. FYI: Alexa ranks U.S. Search as the 8,448 rank in the world as of February 2008, which is down from it’s rank of 4,577 most popular in the world in April 2007. However, its popularity in the U.S. is better with a U.S. rank in Alexa of 1,333 as of February 2008. (http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details/ussearch.com/consumer/index.jsp).
WhitePages.com: Phone Directory with Free People Search - Who has not heard of ‘WhitePages’? Well, WhitePages states that they are “the leading provider of online directory assistance services to consumers. The company continually strives to be the single best source for finding information to contact people and businesses while respecting their privacy. The WhitePages.com Network is comprised of WhitePages.com, WhitePages.ca, PhoneNumber.com, and 411.com. WhitePages.com offers consumers a free, simple, fast and reliable way to identify the personal and business contact information they need.” It does seem to be fairly quick for locating personal information, such as spouses, addresses, phone numbers, and neighbors’ info and it links you to US Search for more. Alexa ranks WhitePages as of February 2008 at 1,633 in the world, which is down from 833 in April 2007 and it seems to be on a continued decline in popularity, although it is ranked as 285th in the U.S., still very high. (http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details/whitepages.com).
ZabaSearch: Free People Search Engine - ZabaSearch got a lot of publicity last year, much of it negative, and since then, they have changed the look and feel of their site dramatically. Still, they stress that they are 'The #1 Free People Search and Public Information Search Engine.' This fairly well-known and powerful people search engine can return personal information going back as far as 10 years, to include addresses (with satellite photos of the homes), phone numbers, birth year, and more. They claim that all of the material that they provide is available to the public (which seems to be true,) but they make it much easier for us by putting it all together for us. By the way, Alexa ranked this site as 10,958 as of February 2008, which is down from the rank of 10,308 in the world in April 2007. The U.S. rank is a lot better with a rank of 2,510 as of February 2008 (http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details/zabasearch.com).
ZoomInfo: People, Companies, Relationships - 'ZoomInfo, the premier summarization search engine (also called a vertical search engine) delivers fresh, comprehensive information on over 35.5 million business professionals and over 3.4 million companies across virtually every industry. How do we do it? Well, at the risk of being boastful, we have incredible technology that (Jonathan Stern) and (Michel Decary) and Jeremy Rothman-Shore invented. ZoomInfo finds, understands, and extracts information from millions of online sources such as Web sites, press releases, electronic news services, and SEC filings and summarizes the information into a comprehensive format'. What they did do on me and a few of my colleagues, for instance, is automatically create focused summaries of us using a wide variety of online sources, and it can do the same for a company as it does for an individual. I found it very interesting, although not totally correct. In case this still doesn't interest you, know that it “powers people search for Amazon's A9.com and Business Week,” according to Wikipedia. You can register and create a Web summary if you would like, if one does not exist or cannot be found. Interestingly, Alexa's world rank for ZoomInfo is 4,200 as of February 2008, which is down from the rank of 2,248 as of April 2007. It seems more popular in the U.S. with a rank of 860 from Alexa as of February 2008. (http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details/zoominfo.com).

Online Identity and Privacy Information Resource Sites

Consumers Union: Nonprofit Publisher of Consumer Reports - 'Consumers Union (CU) is an expert, independent, nonprofit organization, whose mission is to work for a fair, just, and safe marketplace for all consumers. CU publishes Consumer Reports and ConsumerReports.org in addition to two newsletters, Consumer Reports on Health and Consumer Reports Money Adviser.' For those concerned about ID theft, see their FinancialPrivacyNow.org project, which strives to inform us all about personal financial information use and tips for regaining control over our sensitive financial information.
Creating and Connecting: Research and Guidelines on Online Social - and Educational - Networking - This is a report posted by the National Center for Technology Innovation (NCTI), that discusses 'How are kids using the social networking sites?' and give information for how to find out in this report on social networking by Grunwald Associates, conducted in cooperation with the National School Boards Association. 'NCTI staff is committed to identifying the most up-to-date information and resources on technology innovation and facilitating opportunities for partners to collaborate and work with [education] colleagues across the country.'
Cyberbullying and Online Teens - This is a report on 'Cyberbullying and Online Teens' by PEW Internet & American Life Project, which is 'an initiative of the Pew Research Center, a nonprofit “fact tank” that provides information on the issues, attitudes and trends shaping America and the world. Pew Internet explores the impact of the internet on children, families, communities, the work place, schools, health care and civic/political life. The Project is nonpartisan and takes no position on policy issues.'
Digital Footprints: Online Identity Management and Search in the Age of Transparency - 'In addition to providing national telephone survey data, this [summary of the free, full text December 2007] report includes quotes from online survey respondents as well as experts in the fields of privacy, online identity management and search.' This new study from the Pew Internet and American Life Project finds that more than half of all Internet users are not worried about how much info is available right now about them online.
Fighting Back Against Identity Theft - This Federal Trade Commission website is a 'one-stop national resource to learn about the crime of identity theft. It provides detailed information to help you deter, detect, and defend against identity theft.' Sections for consumers, businesses, law enforcement personnel, and members of the media are provided, as are state and national data reports, not to mention that all website info is also available in Spanish.
Internet Fraud: How to Avoid Internet Investment Scams - 'Established by Congress in 1934, the SEC identifies as its primary mission protecting investors, and overseeing and regulating the securities markets in the United States. The SEC also provides consumers tips on how to use the Internet to invest wisely and how to avoid cyberfraud.' Their site for registering complaints is http://www.sec.gov/complaint.shtml
NetSafe: Using the Internet Safely - This resource was created by the Illinois Library Association (ILA), who have been the voice for Illinois libraries and the millions who depend on them, since 1896. It is a collection of links, or bookmarks, that 'are designed as a series that will help educate youth and parents to make safe and informed decisions online. Each bookmark is aimed at a specific audience including kids, teens, and parents.'
Privacy Foundation - Affiliated with the University of Denver through the Privacy Center at the University of Denver, this foundation 'conducts research and educates the public about technologies that affect personal privacy when improperly implemented.' One of its main goals is to to identify possible threats to individual privacy, and it publishes its findings on this site.
Privacy Rights Clearinghouse: Nonprofit, Consumer Information and Advocacy Organization - Among its goals are to 'raise consumers' awareness of how technology affects personal privacy, empower consumers to take action to control their own personal information by providing practical tips on privacy protection, and respond to specific privacy-related complaints from consumers, intercede on their behalf, and, when appropriate, refer them to the proper organizations for further assistance.' I found their Identity Theft, Financial Privacy, and Internet Privacy links, fact sheets, and stories to be very valuable.
Social Networking Sites: Safety Tips for Tweens and Teens - This site shows a brochure created The Federal Trade Commission in PDF form that suggests some tips for Tween & Teen Consumers on how to socialize safely online.
Teens & Social Networking in School & Public Libraries: A Toolkit for Librarians & Library Workers - This site shows a booklet in PDF form for Librarians on Teens & Social Networking in School & Public Libraries created by Young Adult Library Services Association (YASLA), who 'for nearly 50 years' have been 'the world leader in recommending reading, listening, and viewing for teens.'

Website Author's Information

Prof. Robert J. Lackie's Directory Page - Robert J. Lackie is an Associate Professor-Librarian at Rider University, Lawrenceville, New Jersey, where he co-leads the Franklin F. Moore Library's Instruction Program and serves as Library Liaison to the Communication, Teacher Education, and Graduate Education & Human Services Departments. He received his Master of Library and Information Science at the University of South Carolina and his Master of Arts in Curriculum, Instruction, & Supervision at Rider University. In April 2004, Robert was chosen as the '2004 New Jersey Librarian of the Year' and in May 2004, he received the '2004 Rider University Award for Distinguished Teaching,' and in June 2006, he received the 'American Library Association Ken Haycock Award for Promoting Librarianship.' Selected for inclusion into the 60th Diamond Anniversary (2006) Edition of Who’s Who in America, and now also the 2007-08 editions, you can view his profile at [http://www.marquiswhoswho.net/robertjonathanlackie/], and for more detailed information on Robert's 2008 seminars/workshops, his curriculum vitae, short biography, presentations, publications, etc., follow the above link.

Content by Associate Professor-Librarian Robert J. Lackie, rlackie@rider.edu
http://www.kn.att.com/wired/fil/pages/liststudentpe3.html
Last revised Thu May 1 7:27:38 US/Pacific 2008