How the Web's Relationship With Anonymity Has Changed

A story at the NY Times explores how the internet's involvement with anonymity has evolved over the past two decades. Quoting: "Not too long ago, theorists fretted that the Internet was a place where anonymity thrived. Now, it seems, it is the place where anonymity dies. ... The collective intelligence of the Internet’s two billion users, and the digital fingerprints that so many users leave on Web sites, combine to make it more and more likely that every embarrassing video, every intimate photo, and every indelicate e-mail is attributed to its source, whether that source wants it to be or not. This intelligence makes the public sphere more public than ever before and sometimes forces personal lives into public view. ... This erosion of anonymity is a product of pervasive social media services, cheap cellphone cameras, free photo and video Web hosts, and perhaps most important of all, a change in people’s views about what ought to be public and what ought to be private."

It's not the internet

[Errol backfiring]

It's society. Banks stopped accepting money unless they can trace where it comes from. Even shops want to follow you around. Surveillance cameras pop up in societies that never knew them. Your ISP has to spy on you as well. Governments pass laws to make companies spy on people if those companies do not do so voluntarily.

There's no right to be anonymous.

[Restil]

However, so long as people didn't abuse it, we were willing to accommodate it. People with unpopular political views, whistleblowers, people hiding from an abusive ex-significant other, etc. Perfectly good reasons to hide your identity, and we were happy to let you partake in civil participation with the internet community, even though we have no idea who you actually are. We're still willing.

However, those people don't comprise Anonymous as we currently know it. A small, but loud segment of the internet population has decided to use the same
virtual anonymity to conduct more nefarious affairs. At first things were relatively harmless. Some people got abused, but juvenile pranks that are short term and relatively simple to recover from will not justify the attention span of those who could make a difference. But at some point, someone crossed the line. It might have happened a long time ago, or more recently, but at some point, someone important (someone who can cause a lot of harm while trying to do something good), will have realized that when it becomes important to stop some of these people, knowing who they actually are is helpful, and sweeping legislation will eventually get passed to make sure that government agencies, oppressive or otherwise, will be able to determine your identity with relative ease.

So great. The person or people who are causing grief for Sony, the FBI and the CIA can be more easily caught in the future. Unfortunately, so can the Chinese citizen who just wants to dream out loud of the hope for a better life. And if the government can do it easily, so can a lot of other people, even if they're not supposed to. The lulz are short term. The people involved will either get caught or grow up in a short period of time, but the ramifications will last forever.
The sad thing is, even though it's ethically and legally challenging, there is a time and a place where a large anonymous mob could be useful. Nobody sheds any tears when Westboro encounters some annoying resistance. All I'm saying is, if you're going to use Anonymity as a sword rather than a shield, it would be prudent to pick your battles wisely.

Re:A challenge

[jeffmeden]

I would challenge people to find out where I live or work. I think anonymity is still alive for those who care.

This. Anonymity is dying because corporations want it to die, and slowly but surely they are getting their way. Anonymity isn't good for the bottom line, and we are being teased and enticed and in some cases (facebook) dragged kicking and screaming out of anonymity. For those that still want to use the Internet anonymously, there aren't too many hurdles to doing so. *IF* you care. Anonymity just isn't the default any more (so few people choose it), but that doesn't mean it's impossible.

Re:A challenge

[poetmatt]

Anonymity is alive in certain scenarios. I hope you realize the internet is not designed for anonymity and basically not part of that, right?

It's designed for public sharing. You can secure things, but to think anything is anonymous online is just sheer idiocy. Whether someone cares to look at your stuff, depends on a: if you want them to and b: if it's interesting.