[Christopher Halsey]

COMMUNITY DEBATE

Online Anonymity

The internet is a wonderful thing, linking over 3 billion people and allowing near instantaneous exchange of knowledge and ideas between them, with that incredible power comes the risk of abuse and the good that the internet does is often tainted by the opportunities it provides to criminals and bigots.

Many people interact through the internet anonymously using pseudonyms or usernames in place of their real full names, this can allow for far greater freedom of expression and more honest interactions by freeing people from the consequences of their of their words and actions as it becomes much harder to make them accountable.

Our Community Debate this week will focus on whether or not, on balance, online anonymity is a good or bad.

To take part please answer the poll question and make a post explaining which way you have voted and your reasoning.

[aceman67]

I don't try to hide who I am. I've used the same username for almost 20 years.

But there something to be said about putting too much information about yourself online. Give the right person your Name, birthdate and where you live and they can do all kinds of things through social engineering.

[Dark]

Complete anonymity leads to a lack of personal responsibility and accountability that is not necessarily conductive to discourse.
Lack of anonymity is also not necessarily conductive to discourse, as it's often difficult to challenge the current paradigm in face of popular opinion. However, the lack of anonymity has an additional issue in that it exposes people to malicious parties, a very real health and safety risk.

So on the balance of it, I'd have to say anonymity is better.

I think most of our views are more nuanced than a simple yes or no, though. If we look just at UFP, anonymity protects us from those who wish to harm us, but because we have a persistent online persona via membership, we end up with some semblance of accountability. Contrast this with a place like the infamous 4chan.

Ideally, I like the idea of anonymity to the general public, but not to a trusted party which is aware of the identities of those involved. That would allow for accountability without exposure of personal information to malicious parties. That's not very practical though, how do we know the Sokovia Accords aren't being run by Hydra?

[Christopher Halsey]

The vote is sitting at 6 to 2 at the moment but we've only heard from those that feel that online anonymity is a good thing, would be interested to hear from those that voted that it wasn't and what their reasoning is.

[Avenger]

Online Anonymity is often a great thing, however it's offered too freely without taking the appropriate information in the first place so that should something happen that endangers another person, the detail often hasn't been stored to prosecute somebody and they are free to hide in the domains of the public without reprise.

I'm often lead to think anyways, if you have nothing to hide.... Then why hide who you are?

[Caymen Greener]

As an IT professional by career, I take a lot of this for granted. We have to balance usability and security quite often, and that becomes difficult in a higher ed (university) setting. Blasted faculty *shakes fist*. But seriously, allowing anonymity in general is what the Internet is all about. It is a global interconnected cluster of devices, able to communicate freely and openly. So by design, the Internet is and should be anonymous by nature.

That said, there are two major issues that come with this, but I don't think they negate the fact of having anonymity. In general, this gives less control and makes things harder to secure, as eluded to by others above. And secondly, it gives people a false (or sometimes true) sense of strength and power. These two things unchecked can make for dangerous times, like viruses and malware, the massive spear-phishing attempts these days, and socio-political attack vectors like STUXNET (which was not 100% proven to be the US and Isreal, but with the Internet you never know...).

I try to be open and honest these days, instead of hiding behind a bunch of aliases and having 6 email addresses for all my games and nicks. One still has to be careful, but you can be honest and open and still have fun and engage in interesting games/discussions/etc. I've trimmed down to one email address (unless a legacy game/website requires my old one) and, while I use nicknames, I don't hide my real identity much anymore.

"Hi, I'm Chris, and I'm a former anonymous-nickname-aholic." (Yes, I really am Chris)

[Dark]

I've trimmed down to one email address (unless a legacy game/website requires my old one)

I can't imagine not having at least two, you're a braver man than I.

I have one for "real" stuff, like career, family, friends, financial institutions and the like. I want to expose that as little as possible, to prevent spam and possible consequences of compromise. Then I have one "exposed" one, for things like games, forums, retail advertisements, and so on.

[Caymen Greener]

|33t hax on Dark - BOTH accounts.

Nah, point taken. I do happen to have a work account that has most of what I need professionally. But my wife and I share resources on our main gmail accounts, and we're fairly careful about things. But good point about at least having something separate for more private accounts/sites/etc.