On Secrets
Can I tell you a secret?
I'm serious, can I? Can you be trusted with something I don't want people knowing? Most people consider themselves pretty trustworthy, and I'd say for the most part most people are. But, it's just as easy to leak someone else's info as it is yours, if not even easier. And the consequences can be just as dire. Today I want to talk about secrets. The ones that you're trusted with. But first, let me explain why I want to talk about this in the first place.
I was recently (at time of writing) at BLFC, a large furry convention over in Reno, Nevada. I was sharing a hotel room with three other people. All of us were zoos, but two of us are active in the community, and two of us had never interacted in a zoo space in their lives. For the sake of the story, I'll be calling the other community zoo "Deer" and the primary non-community zoo "Fox" It was a very fun group! There were some other zoos at the convention as well, and at one point me and Fox were sharing a meal with one of them. It was going great, it was fun to finally meet up in person and chat with this zoo I'd only ever known online. But then something happened. Fox referred to Deer by their community name and not the name they were presenting at the convention. To Fox, this seemed totally harmless. Of course the online zoos would know each other and be comfortable with each other, they thought. But Deer and this other zoo didn't know each other. And in a moment, the eyes of the zoo we were eating with widened, as they exclaimed "Wait, Deer is (person)?!" I immediately felt a surge of panic go through me as I struggled to come up with some way to get out of the situation, but Fox nodded and laughed. "Oh," they said, "I figured you two knew each other!" "No," said the zoo, "well, yes, but online."
The conversation moved onto other topics, but I felt a pit in my stomach at what had happened. Deer had a secret, and Fox had unknowingly revealed it to someone else. As soon as we finished eating I went to talk to Deer about it, and understandably Deer was NOT happy. It led to a few very frustrated conversations, explaining the importance of secrecy.
Thankfully, there was no harm done in the end. Deer and this zoo got along fine, and at the end of the day everyone walked away generally happy and safe. But that moment during our meal stuck with me.
If you're a long time reader, you may already know that even among other zoos I like to keep my identity separate from the name Tarro. I would much rather meet other zoos as just another random animal enjoyer, just due to how controversial activism can be sometimes and how big of a target there is on my back. But, there are some zoos that know all my identities. People who I've worked with closely, or who I consider close friends. And I think that my desire to keep my identities separate is a goal that not everyone would understand. How easy would it be for someone to ask a friend of mine "Hey is Tarro coming to this zoo party" just for them to nonchalantly say "Oh, that's them over there!"
Here's one more example. I'm extremely closed off with my location. Even to the extent that I don't tell people what country I'm from, or what time zone I'm in. But, I think I'm fairly uncommon in that. Most zoos are happy to say what country they're in. Plenty are even willing to bring it down to a specific region in the right circumstances. Recently in a conversation happening in the Zooey Dot Pub Discord server, someone asked something fairly unique to the country that I'm in. Immediately, a friend of mine said something like "Oh, you should ask Tarro." Thankfully, they pinged me to get my attention, and as soon as I saw the message I was able to delete it. But, it didn't change the fact that the people who were looking at the chat at that time all suddenly learned a piece of information that I consider to be highly sensitive.
And the thing about secrets is that it's impossible to ever unlearn something, but it is always still able to spread. I asked all the people in that conversation to not reveal that info ever, but I have no way of knowing what level of security they'll assign to my information, or what circumstances might lead to them feeling justified to reveal info to someone else.
Which brings me to the point of all of this. We talk a lot about opsec, which makes sense considering how important that is to the community, but something we don't talk as much about is how we also have a responsibility to provide opsec for our friends, and how every time we share something with them, we're theoretically giving them another burden to have to deal with. So, how do we keep each other safe? The solution isn't just to stop telling each other anything, that might solve the problem, but it goes too far. I had a fantastic time at BLFC, I wouldn't want to give that up.
Step one, as it is with many things, is communication. When you get to the point where you're sharing personal info with another person, before actually coming forward with anything, stop and explain what your privacy standards are. Don't be afraid to get into details either, it's a complicated world out there! Explain what information is public, what isn't, and if you're a filthy liar you can even let them know what information they can help you seed out in order to throw bad actors off your trail.
Also, as part of this conversation, don't be afraid to tell people that you'd rather not know their personal info! If you know that you might not be able to live up to their privacy standards, or if you just don't want that burden, then realize it's okay to say that you'd actually rather not know their address. I know as zoos our info is our most private thing, and so sharing it with a friend can be a huge display of trust and faith, but you don't NEED to be sending each other selfies in order to know you're best buds. And, conversely, don't be offended if someone doesn't want to share their info with you. It might not be that they don't like or trust you. It's very possible they just understand the weight of secrets and don't want to give you that burden.
If you don't know what someone is comfortable with sharing, the best answer is to share nothing. You can always ask situation by situation, but if you don't know, don't risk it. It's so easy for a secret to spread.
There's another angle to this as well, and that's what your lack of security can reveal about other people. If you were to get hacked right now, how many other people would get doxed as a consequence? How many other people's info do you have lost in DMs and small group chats? If you make bad opsec decisions that put yourself at risk, and that puts other people at risk as well, it's your responsibility to plug those holes for the sake of your friends.
Outside of just generally staying safe on the internet, there's a few other simple things you can do as well. Any time any personal info is sent in a chat, once it's no longer relevant just delete it. That way, it's not saved in the log. In fact, setting your chats to automatically delete after a certain amount of time is a really easy way to do this. I know it can feel kinda frustrating to lose all your chat logs every month, but let's be honest here, how often are you really going back and reading messages from months ago? You can also do your best to be a good example as far as opsec goes. Make good decisions, and if you see people making bad ones explain to them why they might not want to do that. You can't force other people to have good opsec, but you can at least try and help them figure out best practices. And, at the end of the day, if someone has bad personal opsec it might be worth questioning how much of your information you really want to trust them with.
Secrets are dangerous because they can be exponential. Say you tell 5 people a secret, and one of them leaks something. The going to know your level of privacy as much as your friends you're trusting in the first place. And so they might go on to tell another 5 people. And at that point, those people might just think it's common knowledge, and spread it to another 5 people each. And so on and so on until that secret just isn't a secret anymore.
I'm going to be going to MFF pretty soon (again, at time of writing), and of course I'm going to be meeting up with a lot of other zoos. Some of them I'll be meeting as Tarro, and others I'll be meeting under another name. But no matter what, I'm going to physically be there in person with them. That's an automatic level of risk that comes with going to any kind of zoo gathering. And the only way we can feel comfortable doing that kind of thing is if we trust each other. And the only way we can trust each other is if we really take everyone else's privacy seriously.
Before you share anything, and I mean ANYTHING about someone else, make sure you treat their info as confidentially as they would. Consider, what does this say about that person? How could this information be used against them? And should I ask them before saying this?
We're a community at siege, and the only way to truly make sure we're safe is to keep our friends protected too. Let's keep our secrets secret.
Article written by Tarro (October 2024)
Find Tarro at https://twitter.com/hereforthezoo