How the Web's Relationship With Anonymity Has Changed 172
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."
A challenge (Score:5, Interesting)
I would challenge people to find out where I live or work. I think anonymity is still alive for those who care.
That's not anonymous, this is (Score:5, Interesting)
Except (for now) with open wifi.
Unless you bought your laptop from a major vendor and the WiFi operator gets your MAC address.
You want to be completely anonymous? Get an old laptop, a live DVD and an old WiFi card, pay cash. Remove the HDD, throw it out. Use the live DVD for your OS. Never connect to the Internet anywhere unless you are on a random open WiFi connection that isn't near a camera, a hiking trail might be a good place. Use anonymous proxies through that connection for all your Internet access.
Then do whatever it is you really need to be anonymous for, throw the WiFi card into a river and shred the DVD.
If you need to repeat, burn a new DVD and buy another WiFi card.
That's as close as you can get to being completely anonymous on the Internet.