Internet anonymity - Revision history

Paul Herring at 21:08, 3 October 2012

2012-10-03T21:08:35Z

Paul Herring: /* Nicknames/Nom-de-plumes */

2012-10-03T20:59:14Z

Nicknames/Nom-de-plumes

Paul Herring: /* Jonathan Myerson - Guardian - 27 Aug 2012 */

2012-09-26T21:05:31Z

Jonathan Myerson - Guardian - 27 Aug 2012

Paul Herring: /* In real life */

2012-09-26T21:01:49Z

In real life

Paul Herring at 20:40, 26 September 2012

2012-09-26T20:40:06Z

Paul Herring at 20:23, 26 September 2012

2012-09-26T20:23:34Z

Paul Herring: /* Nicknames/Nom-de-plumes */

2012-09-26T19:59:43Z

Nicknames/Nom-de-plumes

Paul Herring: /* Nicknames/Nom-de-plumes */

2012-09-26T19:55:48Z

Nicknames/Nom-de-plumes

Paul Herring: /* Nicknames/Nom-de-plumes */

2012-09-26T19:55:04Z

Nicknames/Nom-de-plumes

Paul Herring: /* Anonymity? */

2012-09-26T19:54:08Z

Anonymity?

← Older revision		Revision as of 21:08, 3 October 2012
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	{{quote\|Commentators often attempt to refute the nothing-to-hide argument by pointing to things people want to hide. But the problem with the nothing-to-hide argument is the underlying assumption that privacy is about hiding bad things. By accepting this assumption, we concede far too much ground and invite an unproductive discussion about information that people would very likely want to hide. As the computer-security specialist Schneier aptly notes, the nothing-to-hide argument stems from a faulty "premise that privacy is about hiding a wrong." Surveillance, for example, can inhibit such lawful activities as free speech, free association, and other First Amendment rights essential for democracy. <ref>[http://chronicle.com/article/Why-Privacy-Matters-Even-if/127461/ Why Privacy Matters Even if You Have 'Nothing to Hide'] - The Chronicle of Higher Education - Washington DC</ref>}}		{{quote\|Commentators often attempt to refute the nothing-to-hide argument by pointing to things people want to hide. But the problem with the nothing-to-hide argument is the underlying assumption that privacy is about hiding bad things. By accepting this assumption, we concede far too much ground and invite an unproductive discussion about information that people would very likely want to hide. As the computer-security specialist Schneier aptly notes, the nothing-to-hide argument stems from a faulty "premise that privacy is about hiding a wrong." Surveillance, for example, can inhibit such lawful activities as free speech, free association, and other First Amendment rights essential for democracy. <ref>[http://chronicle.com/article/Why-Privacy-Matters-Even-if/127461/ Why Privacy Matters Even if You Have 'Nothing to Hide'] - The Chronicle of Higher Education - Washington DC</ref>}}
		+
		+	Of course, forcing everyone to use their real names won't solve the perceived problems of 'anonymity' as these two reports about Facebook show:
		+
		+	{{quote\|Judge Nigel Gilmour, sitting at Liverpool Crown Court[UK], said the site [Facebook] fuelled a violent attack by Daniel Cannon, 17, in which he used "his teeth as a weapon" to bite off a chunk of friend's ear.
		+
		+	"It is remarkable when people are communicating on Facebook that they say things they would not say face to face," said the judge.
		+
		+	"We are increasingly getting in court instances beginning on Facebook, it is becoming more and more."
		+
		+	He hit out over messages posted on Facebook by Cannon's brother, which provoked the attack.<ref>[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/facebook/9571086/Facebook-is-fuelling-violence-claims-judge.html Facebook is fuelling violence, claims judge] - The Telegraph]</ref>}}
		+
		+
		+	{{quote\|Jennifer Bristol recently lost [as a friend] one of her oldest friends—thanks to a Facebook fight about pit bulls.
		+
		+	[...]
		+
		+	The trouble started when she posted a newspaper article asserting that pit bulls were the most dangerous type of dog in New York City last year. "Please share thoughts… 833 incidents with pitties," wrote Ms. Bristol, a 40-year-old publicist and animal-welfare advocate in Manhattan.
		+
		+	Her friends, many of whom also work in the animal-welfare world, quickly weighed in. One noted that "pit bull" isn't a single official breed; another said "irresponsible ownership" is often involved when dogs turn violent. Black Labs may actually bite more, someone else offered.
		+
		+	Then a childhood pal of Ms. Bristol piped up with this: "Take it from an ER doctor… In 15 years of doing this I have yet to see a golden retriever bite that had to go to the operating room or killed its target."
		+
		+	That unleashed a torrent. One person demanded to see the doctor's "scientific research." Another accused him of not bothering to confirm whether his patients were actually bitten by pit bulls. Someone else suggested he should "venture out of the ER" to see what was really going on.
		+
		+	"It was ridiculous," says Ms. Bristol, who stayed out of the fight. Her old buddy, the ER doctor, unfriended her the next morning. That was eight months ago. She hasn't heard from him since.<ref>[http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444592404578030351784405148.html Why We Are So Rude Online] - Wall Street Journal</ref>}}

@@ Line 58: / Line 58: @@
 *  a completely different person who thought of the same name or
 *  someone trying to impersonate one of the above two
-.. and generally, you can generally tell which of them it is. Most people are happy with this situation, and feel that the voluntary nature of it lacks the bully-stateism seen evidenced elsewhere on this website.
+.. and generally, you can tell which of them it is. Most people are happy with this situation, and feel that the voluntary nature of it lacks the bully-stateism seen evidenced elsewhere on this website.
 Where this falls down, of course, is the sites that don't force such usernames tend to bring out the people who exhibit what Wikipedia calls [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_disinhibition_effect Online Disinhibition Effect], or as most on the internet know it [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penny_Arcade_%28webcomic%29#John_Gabriel.27s_.22Greater_Internet_Fuckwad_Theory.22 'John Gabriel's "Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory"'] illustrated by this [http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19/ Penny Arcade comic] back from 2004:

@@ Line 82: / Line 82: @@
 In fact it was the suicide of Choi Jin-sil, whose suicide was 'blamed' on the internet, and the quote comes from 4 years previously (perhaps there weren't any more recent toilet quotes to be used?):
-{{quote|The police, the media and members of Parliament immediately pointed fingers at the Internet. Malicious online rumors led to Ms. Choi’s suicide, the police said, after studying memos found at her home and interviewing friends and relatives.
+{{quote2|The police, the media and members of Parliament immediately pointed fingers at the Internet. Malicious online rumors led to Ms. Choi’s suicide, the police said, after studying memos found at her home and interviewing friends and relatives.
 Those online accusations claimed that Ms. Choi, who once won a government medal for her savings habits, was a loan shark. They asserted that a fellow actor, Ahn Jae-hwan, was driven to suicide because Ms. Choi had relentlessly pressed him to repay a $2 million debt.
@@ Line 107: / Line 107: @@
 Meyerson, however misses the point that people want to be 'in the closet' or 'have political views' or to use his own words 'to speak freely, to be outspoken,' and 'critical' on the internet, and his 'solution...' isn't one.
 === South Korea online verification law rescinded - Aug 2012 ===

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 == In real life ==
 === South Korea online verification law rescinded - Aug 2012 ===
@@ Line 82: / Line 123: @@
 “Restriction on freedom of expression can be justified only when it is clear that it benefits public interests,” the court said in its verdict. “It’s difficult to say that the regulation is achieving public interests.” <ref>[http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/24/world/asia/south-korean-court-overturns-online-name-verification-law.html?_r=0 South Korean Court Rejects Online Name Verification Law] - New York Times</ref>}}
 ==References==

← Older revision		Revision as of 20:40, 26 September 2012
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	And as with [[minimum pricing]], the solutions generally proposed inconvenience, annoy, and evoke a whole range of other negative emotions in the vast majority of the population (who care about such things) who aren't the problem, to try and fix the problem with the small minority, without actual evidence that the proposal will actually fix the problem with the small minority.		And as with [[minimum pricing]], the solutions generally proposed inconvenience, annoy, and evoke a whole range of other negative emotions in the vast majority of the population (who care about such things) who aren't the problem, to try and fix the problem with the small minority, without actual evidence that the proposal will actually fix the problem with the small minority.
		+
		+	== In real life ==
		+
		+	=== South Korea online verification law rescinded - Aug 2012 ===
		+	From 2003, South Korea had introduced a mechanism whereby some people using the internet had to verify themselves, culminating in 2010 where anyone posting to the internet had to verify their identity:
		+	{{quote\|Real-name registration requirements have been a part of the South Korean Internet landscape since 2003, when the MIC sought the cooperation of four major Web portals (Yahoo Korea, Daum Communications, NHN, and NeoWiz) in developing real-name systems for their users. While implicating deeper privacy concerns, the purported goal of real-name measures is to reduce abusive behavior on the Internet. A number of prominent cases (such as the suicides of a number of actresses) have made this a major issue for the Korean public.
		+
		+	In 2004 election laws began requiring individuals who post comments on Web sites and message boards in support of, or in opposition to, a candidate to disclose their real names. In 2005 the government implemented a rule that required e-mail or chat-service account holders to provide detailed information, including name, address, profession, and identification number. This policy was tightened further by the MIC in July 2007 when users were required to register their real names and resident identification numbers with Web sites before posting comments or uploading video or audio clips on bulletin boards. In December 2008, the KCC extended its reach to require all forum and chat room users to make verifiable real-name registrations. Furthermore, an April 2009 amendment to the Information Act took effect, requiring Korea-domain Web sites with at least 100,000 visitors daily to confirm personal identities through real names and resident registration numbers<ref>[http://opennet.net/research/profiles/south-korea South Korea] - OpenNet Inititive</ref>}}
		+
		+	This was eventually overturned in Aug 2012 by a court when free-speech advocates claimed the laws were being used as a chilling-effect against political dissidents and was curtailing free speech:
		+
		+	{{quote\|But free-speech advocates condemned the rule, arguing that the government was using perceived abuses as a convenient excuse to discourage political criticism. They feared that people would censor themselves rather than provide their names, which would make it easier for the government to find and possibly punish them.
		+
		+	[...]
		+
		+	On Thursday [20th Sep 2012?], an eight-judge Constitutional Court panel unanimously ruled that the restriction violated the right to free speech.
		+
		+	“Restriction on freedom of expression can be justified only when it is clear that it benefits public interests,” the court said in its verdict. “It’s difficult to say that the regulation is achieving public interests.” <ref>[http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/24/world/asia/south-korean-court-overturns-online-name-verification-law.html?_r=0 South Korean Court Rejects Online Name Verification Law] - New York Times</ref>}}
		+
		+

	==References==		==References==

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
 Nearly every week, if not every day, certainly in the United Kingdom, there are calls from one group of people or another for a ban on what is considered '[[internet anonymity]].'
-The fact that, for the vast majority of people who use the internet, anonymity on the internet is a very high bar to achieve, what most of these calls are for is for people to be instantly recognisable whenever they produce content on the internet, be it a MediaWiki site such as this or Wikipedia, to the comments section beneath any news story on your local paper's website.
+The fact that, for the vast majority of people who use the internet, anonymity on the internet is a very high bar to achieve, what most of these calls are for is for people to be instantly recognisable whenever they produce content on the internet, be it a MediaWiki site such as this or Wikipedia, to the comments section beneath any news story on your local paper's website; it's just very difficult, for the normal person, to verify that a particular comment was made by a particular person.
 == Anonymity? ==

@@ Line 51: / Line 51: @@
 .. and generally, you can generally tell which of them it is. Most people are happy with this situation, and feel that the voluntary nature of it lacks the bully-stateism seen evidenced elsewhere on this website.
-Where this falls down, of course, is the sites that don't force such usernames, and, in the wise words of the [http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19/ Penny Arcade comic] back from 2004:
+Where this falls down, of course, is the sites that don't force such usernames tend to bring out the people who exhibit what Wikipedia calls [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_disinhibition_effect Online Disinhibition Effect], or as most on the internet know it [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penny_Arcade_%28webcomic%29#John_Gabriel.27s_.22Greater_Internet_Fuckwad_Theory.22 'John Gabriel's "Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory"'] illustrated by this [http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19/ Penny Arcade comic] back from 2004:
 [[File:215499488 8pSZr-L-2.jpg]]

@@ Line 54: / Line 54: @@
 [[File:215499488 8pSZr-L-2.jpg]]
-And as with [[minimum pricing]], the solutions generally proposed inconvenience, annoy, and evoke a whole range of other negative emotions in the vast majority of the population who aren't the problem, to try and fix the problem with the small minority, without actual evidence that the proposal will actually fix the problem with the small minority.
+And as with [[minimum pricing]], the solutions generally proposed inconvenience, annoy, and evoke a whole range of other negative emotions in the vast majority of the population (who care about such things) who aren't the problem, to try and fix the problem with the small minority, without actual evidence that the proposal will actually fix the problem with the small minority.
 ==References==

← Older revision		Revision as of 19:54, 26 September 2012
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	With companies with all their employees behind the same, the process of discovery is usually a bit trickier, but ultimately (depending on that company's own logs) it can be done; supplying them with (e.g.) an additional URL they can use to search their logs will usually allow them to find who, internally, was (ab)using a site. (Most companies record what their employees are doing on the internet. Generally no-one actually looks at them without reason, but they are recorded.)		With companies with all their employees behind the same, the process of discovery is usually a bit trickier, but ultimately (depending on that company's own logs) it can be done; supplying them with (e.g.) an additional URL they can use to search their logs will usually allow them to find who, internally, was (ab)using a site. (Most companies record what their employees are doing on the internet. Generally no-one actually looks at them without reason, but they are recorded.)
		+
		+	=== Nicknames/Nom-de-plumes ===
		+	Most private commentators on the internet tend to pick a 'handle' and try to stick to it on every forum/blog/website that uses usernames. Some of these names enter the public conciousness as 'real names,' such as when the [[Tobacco Tactics]] website wrote a page on [http://dickpuddlecote.blogspot.co.uk/ Dick Puddlecote] and stated, without apparent irony, that
		+	{{quote\|..Puddlecote says he runs his own transport business, yet there is no "Puddlecote" listed as a Director at Companies House. <ref>[http://www.webcitation.org/6AyPKEeTd WebCite] taken on 26th Nov 2012 of [http://www.tobaccotactics.org/index.php/Dick_Puddlecote Dick Puddlecote] - [[Tobacco Tactics]]</ref>}}
		+
		+	Seriously, though, most times when you see a distinctive name you recognise somewhere on the internet, it will one of three possibilities:
		+	* the person you think it is, using the same name elsewhere
		+	* a completely different person who thought of the same name or
		+	* someone trying to impersonate one of the above two
		+	.. and generally, you can generally tell which of them it is. Most people are happy with this situation, and feel that the voluntary nature of it lacks the bully-stateism seen elsewhere evidenced elsewhere on this website.
		+
		+	Where this falls down, of course, is the sites that don't force such usernames, and, in the wise words of the [http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19/ Penny Arcade comic] back from 2004:
		+	[[File:215499488 8pSZr-L-2.jpg]]
		+
		+	And as with [[minimum pricing]], the solutions generally proposed inconvenience, annoy, and evoke a whole range of other negative emotions in the vast majority of the population who aren't the problem, to try and fix the problem with the small minority, without actual evidence that the proposal will actually fix the problem with the small minority.

	==References==		==References==