When we were all children in school we were told not to do bad things because they would follow us around on our permanent record. In reality usually by the time we reached high school we figured out there really was no such thing as a permanent record, and it was just some bogey man used to scare us into compliance. However in the digital age of vanishing privacy there is a permanent record...

http://www.wolf-howl.com/ideas/lane-hartwell-richter-scales/