I am a system administrator. Not a programmer, although, that is what I sometimes tell people if I don't have the time to explain what I do.

That means, wherever I am working - I see everything. Every website people visit, and in some networks, the emails and slack messages too. A sysadmin can see what people type, even when they think no one else knows. Noobies in the business tend to be overwhelmed with their sudden power and knowledge. Shamefully, they will snoop through other peoples business, learning secrets about their coworkers and friends that not even their parents know about. As time goes on however, you get used to it, and no longer snicker at the contrast between your bosses smiles and nods and the websites he visits on lunch break.

Gaining this power, of course, got me stuck in a loop during quiet moments, thinking about all the things I regretted saying as a teenager. I often racked through things I said back then, thinking about, what, if it ever came up would embarrass me if my parents found out. Nothing I could come up with would have really raised too many eyebrows, especially considering my later activities, but there was a paranoia that would be instilled in you after finding yourself in such a position. I grew up on the internet — my generation was the first to do so in fact, and if you haven't typed or searched for something shameful than you haven't been on the internet long enough. Being a system administrator will quickly teach you two things:

1. Everybody browses social media when they are supposed to be working,

2. Everybody looks at pornography.

And for those of you reading this and shaking your head — don't worry, your secret is safe with me.

But I wasn't worried about the porn - my fears were more abstract. I specifically, was worried about my forum posts, all the airheaded and edgy or misanthropic opinions a teenager with unfettered internet access is likely to post in the process of growing up online. Especially, one who grows up online believing he is anonymous.

It was when I came to run many of these forums myself that the fears set in, seeing an unending stream of anonymous posts and messages, written freely — and thoughtlessly, by people with no idea the digital footprint they were leaving behind — started the gears of my own paranoia. And, since a major component of anonymous forums and chatrooms was the constant competition over who could post the most inflammatory or offensive opinion, I also would jingoistically type out loads of brainless opinions, ones that nobody took seriously (least of all myself), but that nonetheless left a record.

I don't believe this is anything new. If microphones and chatrooms had existed since the dawn of time, every single famous man would have an entire wikipedia subsection on jokes he had made as a teenager with his friends or at the bar. In eras past, these comments were doomed to be forgotten, but nowadays, every utterance is recorded and irrevocably sealed. I often wonder how politicians of the future will grapple with this problem.

My being thrusted rather suddenly into the public light, the scrutiny over what I have said and haven't said, who I am and am not, brought all these once-forgotten fears back to reality. When a rogue hacker targeted one of the largest image boards in the world, a website that I at the time owned, leaking user data for the sites 20,000+ users, I froze. While the leaks didn't include much personal data of mine (The IP address associated with my posts was used by up to 4-5 active staff and employees depending on the time of day), I did find myself having to answer for some of the bone headed things I had written.

As it would turn out, the hack was rather insignificant, the worst that came out, was that my users now knew that sometimes, the person trolling them in their thread was their own admin. I nonetheless decided that I had had enough of running internet forums, and handed everything off to a trusted moderator.

Since them, I haven't engaged in any public projects. In my absence, certain actors muddied the waters, injecting falsehoods into sometimes valid criticism. But all of it was never what I wanted. Running internet forums was my way of indulging my love of data and big numbers. It didn't matter to me what was posted, I got lost in the pride of managing big enterprises, and somehow ended up with several essay-length wiki pages detailing my youthful antics.

Now, with the eons of time that has elapsed since then (2 years), I look back and shake my head. I find myself not alone, but living in a society full of people with cringeworthy digital footprints over their head. And I do not know what to advise them - should they embrace their mistakes? or become digital hermits, refusing to confirm or deny whether, at 2:00 AM on a Thursday 5 years ago, they said everyone who doesn't like anime should be corralled into concentration camps?

I have experimented with both paths - but I am none the wiser on which is the better choice.