Anonymess
Submitted by doc on Thu, 12/08/2005 - 20:06.
When we were driving back from Thanksgiving up North, I gave my wife the rundown on What's Up With Identity. She's not a techie, and she doesn't care much about the topic. But she does care about her anonymity. So, when she hears about more, or better, "identity services", she guards her purse. "I don't want more identity," she says. "I want less."
Specifically, she likes her anonymity, and prefers to keep that as a default as she makes her way through the world both online and off.
I think we're all like that. Sure, we can't help being unique. And it's clear that "identity services," whatever they end up being, will respect what makes each of us a sovereign, independent and unique individual. But they also need to protect our wish to remain Joe or Jane Blow, until the need to idenify ourselves becomes necessary.
All this comes to mind as I read Ross Mayfield's Freedom of Anonymous Speech, which was provoked by potential unintended consequences of changes to Wikipedia (following the Siegenthaler Affair), new anti-libel legislation and the consolidation of telecom (which I wrote about in Saving the Net). Ross fears a loss of anonymity, increased government interference with the Net (and our lives), and worse.
The first cost might be highest. Ross:
Anonymity is a critical facet of society, and it's value is more than whistle-blowing. I wouldn't call it a right, but would call it a feature of the virtual and real worlds (we don't walk around with name-tags)
Identity without anonymity is like math without zero. Just a thought.
Anonymity is a big issue. Problem is, it's also easy to sell out. Especially when you cast it in stories as a Big Threat.
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Identity and Anonymity
Doc,
I think item clearly shows an interesting and important question that everyone who is working on identity, online and off, has to take into account.
So I wrote about it at http://blog.opinity.com.
Tom
tom@opinity.com
Anonymity = Responsibility
Doc:
While I agree that legitimate users of online services (such as you and your wife) should be protected from exposing too much information about your identity, not every user of those services is responsible.
Everyone has the responsibility to ensure that anonymity is not perverted for dire purposes. Unfortunately, the history of the Internet has shown that there are too many people out there who would use the openness built into the system for less than responsible purposes.
I therefore think that until a solution is proposed that can provide identity with accountability, no one will be safe on the Internet. I base this not just on the Internet, but on the BBS system that preceded it. On a BBS, you were pretty well protected (at least in my experience) -- most sysops would want to "go voice" with you at least once, to try to ensure that you were who you said you were. Even then, though, people fell through the cracks and were able to do damage to those systems.
Thus, anonymity can work both for and against you. Instead of advocating anonymity vs. total disclsure, we need to find the "middle path" (Darn...I hate Aristotle) that will allow us to preserve our rights without giving criminals the chance to take advantage of us.