More or Less Anonymous
It seems that Anonymity is on more people's minds than I realized. I was quite surprised to find out today that two other interesting threads have been started at essentially the same time, but two people I indeed respect, Seth Godin and Joi Ito.
It seems that Seth started the discussion with his post "The problem with anonymous (part VII)":
Virus writers are always anonymous.
Vicious political lies (with faked photoshop photos of political leaders, or false innuendo about personal lives) are always anonymous as well.
Spam is anonymous.
eBay fraudsters are anonymous too.
It seems as though virtually all of the problems of the Net stem from this one flaw, and its one I’ve riffed on before. If we can eliminate anonymity online, we create a far more civil place.
How hard would it be to do?
Afterwards, Joi responded with his "Anonymity on the Internet" post:
I disagree. Although most vicious attacks I have received have been anonymous, I still believe there is a role for anonymity and that the value outweighs the cost.
[...]
Remember that the Internet is one of the few tools for a variety of people who are at risk including whistle-blowers and human rights workers. It is very difficult or impossible to "fix" the Internet without breaking it for others.
Both have led to some interesting discussion and commentary -- check it out. I've already added my two-bits in "Almost Anonymous" yesterday.