It’s like living in a house in the Everglades with no screens on the windows.

Best you can do is set up what defenses are possible, and at least reroute the crap so it doesn’t get in the way.

I have a doppelganger who runs a dude ranch in Texas. So far I haven’t gotten any of his mail.

Meanwhile, I am constantly getting messages from all these earnest, businesslike yuppie types who want to “network” with me, people who haven’t a clue who I am or what I do. I sense there is a vast community out there of people desperately trying to sell each other something, but nobody’s buying anything.

I suspect I somehow fell into the gravitational field of this ecosystem while I was working, and corresponding with lots of businesses and other gov agencies, or when I joined my writer’s union, whose rolls are constantly being browsed by companies and consultants who want their products plugged. Or maybe some ‘bot has picked up my byline from my writing and has identified me as being some kind of mover and shaker.

I keep on running into my name on the internet, sometimes there are clues its really me, other times it is obviously someone else with the same name (from the biographical scraps provided). Sometimes it is the amalgam of me with someone else

People with my name are both Civil War and Korean War casualties, court precedent-setting criminal defendants, race horse breeders, automobile racers, musicians, students, minor government officials in foreign countries, and minor league baseball players. Sometimes several, at the same time. I get around. There are hundredss of pictures of me on Google Image I do not recognize.

I’m training my junk mail filter for it.

LinkedIn seems to be kind of a legitimate Facebook for businesses and contractors, but that’s about the extent of what I know.