Slashdot Mirror
Anonymous Online Publication - Fad or Trend?
An anonymous reader asks: "Across the web, stories abound regarding censorship and persecution of those who publish content online that may be offensive or conflicting toward certain governments or ideals. It almost seems that you can't attach your name to anything without being heavily scrutinized for the opinions you express. Lately though, I've begun to see several communities that promote an atmosphere of anonymity to protect their users and facilitate open communication on tough subjects. PostSecret is one of the most popular of these sites, allowing a one-way publication medium for visitors to vent their frustrations, similar to Group Hug. However, both of these sites are one-way mediums, and do not provide for anonymous interaction of users. Is anonymous blogging and publication a brief fad, or a serious, growing trend?"
"One rare example I've found that allows a truly open anonymous mode of communication (dissimilar to Slashdot's own automatic demotion of 'Anonymous Cowards'), is the Teen Angst Central, or Tangst. Operated by a group of high schoolers and hosted by Google's Blogger service, its editors publish posts made anonymously by visitors, with comments and discussion made to the site sprouting from a community bonded by anonymity. I think this concept can easily be applied to other aspects of online society, though I have yet to see many examples beyond the simple angst-driven outpouring of feelings."
Who needs anonymity? Pseudonymity ought to be enough for most people.
In the past I've been spanked over "controversial" things I've published online, so I use a pseudonym for that sort of thing.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
And why do the vast majority of these use Blogger where the 'owners' of the 'site' have no real control over the actual anonymity of the submissions?
Yes you can submit it as 'anonymous' but oops, cant do anything about server logs.
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
...soon to be crushed beneath the jackboots of the Department of Homeland Security.
With spending like this, exactly what are "conservatives" conserving?
when you ISP disclose your browsing habits to the government anyway? Depending on open-wifis and the kindness of some public computers connected to the net (like in community colleges or local libraries) is sketchy at best, assuming they don't record your presence their through some other means.
There were comments in the /. post "On Software Patent Lawsuits Against OSS" that suggested a possibility of an underground (anonymous) OSS development model emerging if patent lawsuits made (a lot of) OSS illegal.
While responses to that comment claimed it is highly unlikely to happen (lots of OSS development done by big companies or just people unwilling to do it if they migh be sued) it is an interesting idea of a trend, which has some similarities with anonymous publishing mentioned here.
Oh, wait...
If something is worth saying, it's worth putting your name on it.
Anyway, that's how I feel.
If you think you are right then say so. And if someone disagrees then you can find out why.
John Fenley
-John Fenley
I wish a judge would rule that the "audits" Scientologists sell to their customers were "defective" products and allow people to talk about them among themselves. Right now you mention Xenu and Scientology's lawyers issue you a smackdown.
And loser pays for court costs (which is the way it is here in Canada) to level the playing field by reducing extortive suit filing.
There's lots of ways to go about finding subscribers to your views but I believe most of them aren't needed yet in the United States. Places like Saudi Arabia and Iran should be the backdrop to serious discussion of why anonymity matters.
Shh.
...and you'll find all sorts of interesting stuff there, if you look. It might take a few hours for a new Freenet node to get integrated into the network, at which point response time will improve. Don't ever expect it to have fast interactive-surfing response times, though. Get used to opening a bunch of links in new tabs, and coming back to check them in a few minutes.
Freenet's currently got four "summer of code" projects under way, plus their full-time coder. I'm not sure I like the network changes in 0.7 but I'm trusting that the developers know the critical points better than I do.
The stuff you find on Freenet ranges from the obligatory porn and anarchy junk, to weird conspiracy theory stuff, fairly sane political expression, DeCSS and similar technical content, and lots of "flogs", the name of which is yours to absorb.
Frost is a Usenet-like messaging system that uses Freenet as its back-end message store. It also takes a while to get going; after starting your Frost instance you might want to come back in 20 minutes to get the updated boards list, add a bunch of new boards, and give it another 20 minutes to pull messages in those boards. Once your Frost is up and running, you'll start to appreciate what Freenet's really capable of. Search the available files, or participate in a few discussions. Realize that the message transport latency might be anywhere from a few minutes to many hours, so correspondence will be reminiscent of Fidonet speeds.
Seriously, you owe it to yourself to check this stuff out. Don't claim to know internet anonymity without giving Freenet a few days' effort.
Having blogged for several years, I've come to wish I'd started out and remained anonymous. While I might be willing to expose my own mistakes and foibles, the things I say can unintentionally hurt those I love. As someone who is active in my church, there are certain topics I dare not go near, and other topics I wonder if I'm just asking for trouble. The "Deb Series," while possibly some of my best writing, also caused problems.
I've watched bloggers get serious grief from families, co-workers and other communities they belong to because of what they write. The lessons are painful to watch.
In my own case, in the real world, I've trashed my career multiple times for things like accademic integrity and standing up for a co-worker who's being sexually harassed. I've lost friends for saying the truth, and God help me, it's made me a bit of a coward. I've been burned; I don't like it. I'm willing to be burned again, but it's going to have to be a serious fight. On some issues, I've backed down.
I hate that, but if I don't protect myself, I won't do anyone any good.
There's a book out right now, "Orbit by John J. Nance that speaks of a man alone on a doomed and communicationless 3 hour orbital tour. The man is free to write the truth because he believes he is going to die and the laptop will not be recovered for decades. He doesn't have to worry about what people will think. He also doesn't know there's a one-way connection to Earth, and billions of people are reading his every word.
I wish I could blog like that. I'm not sure why I haven't just scrapped my current blog and started anew, except that I doubt it would stay anonymous very long.
Anonymity provides a freedom that is both precious and necessary for freedom to flourish. Perhaps anonymity will be crushed beneath an over-reaching government. The loss may not be apparent initially, but in the long term, it will be devastating.
Freedom of speech often needs the freedom to be anonymous.
This sig seemed like a good idea at the time....
Most Americans will think of other countries where anonymous speech is required to prevent retaliation by the government - countries like Iran, for instance, where anonymous speech IS thriving.
However, there are plenty of countries in the West - including America - where unpopular minorities require anonymous speech to avoid government retribution.
A friend of mine in Indiana called a conservative radio host (Rick Roberts) in California in April 2005, in order to give a contradicting opinion - and the next day state agents showed up at his house and took away his 2 year old son, causing his son a great deal of anxiety and eventually destroying my friend's marriage. He's still going through the system, trying to recover his son, over a year later.
There are also the death threats, of which I've received a few myself - from so-called Christians, Hippies, and everything in between. Damn straight it's nice to have some anonymity!
And we will continue to need that anonymity as long as a corrupt media continues to perpetuate the lie that anyone who is attracted to children must be a predator, despite an abundance of evidence to the contrary.
In any case, in our community proxies and/or TOR are the norm. We know for a fact that our government IS spying on us and seeking to do us harm.
I'm amazed at how my "generation" (currently in college) still doesn't "get it". They put their full names on their blogs and post the most insane crap. One of my friends, in particular, posts all about her chronic depression, experiments with drugs, and sex escapades. And that blog is the 4th result in Google for her name. The other three are clearly unrelated.
Why shame yourself in public? It's not like attaching your name to your insipid and boring personal "I had eggs for breakfast" blog is going to bring you fame and fortune. Go anonymous and have some fun. Stop doing everything to get attention.
Pseudonymity is no fad, and IMO the practice hasn't seen even a fraction of the popularity it will eventually garner.
This is a no-brainer; governments rarely become less restrictive with the passage of time, since governments are expected to, you know, "do things" and "solve problems." Regardless what political philosophy they adhere to, governments just aren't prone to seeing their duty as one of removing interference from citizens' lives. So all else being equal, a nation's code of justice will tend to become more complex and intrusive with time, increasing its citizens' need to ensure their own privacy.
Pure Anonymity doesn't fulfill many of the criteria that people seek in online interaction & transactions, and Pseudonymity is hard to distinguish from anonymity if it isn't secure and historied. Facilitating private, secure transactions between unique, historied pseudonymous personnae is the task in front of us; after all, technology is fundamentally capable of securing those human rights that governments wrongly cease to recognize.
* -- (resisting the urge to post as AC just for the hell of it)
Pi Ran Out
There needs to be a distinction between publicly anonymous and being anonymous to law enforcement. In a democratic society that values free speech, we need the first. However, in case free speech is abused, we need the second, hopefully with a court warrant. ISP's should be required to keep records of who owns/rents a URL and if served a warrant be able to provide that info to officers. However, this gets fuzzy with discussion groups and blogs that may not track every visitor.
Table-ized A.I.
Actually, nowadays, not only do they know that you're a dog, but they know
* What kind of cats you chase
* Where you like to sniff butts
* What kind of dog food you like
* etc...
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
One of the websites I operate is an unofficial website for an organization that is run by control freaks, They do not tolerate any kind of discourse or criticism. If this website did not operate anonymously there would literally be zero discourse or discussion for the members of this organization. This has been proved by the few times members were outed by there often comments or by telling the wrong person there screen name. Any member outed has always suffered some form of consequences. The consequences have run the gambit from harassing phone calls, mysterious visitors appearing at there work area who are intimidating and actually messing with there finances by with holding work. In a perfect world we wouldn't need to post things anonymously but in the real world many organizations stifle criticism in any manner available. Free speech is usually not free. Having said this I realize there is always a danger of people using this service when they have an ax to grind with someone or some organization. These people can be balanced with commentary by the offended parties. In the end I would rather err on the side of an open discussion.
./what?
The most effective spam fighting effort is totally anonymous; they have to be, because that's the only way they can avoid being sued into oblivion by deep-pocketed croporations (it's outright ironic that in order to protect their freedom of speech - saying that so-and-so is a spammer, they have to register their domain in Siberia, of all places!!!)
Spammers are outright criminals and will stop at nothing to damage antispammers.
Plenty of people had a load of trouble from a spectacularly inept spammer.
For example, the author of this page (a page denouncing the spammer) had the spammer complain to the police which launched a criminal investigation that found nothing. After this failed, he barrages everyone who mirrors the page with complaints to their ISPs (this page get 5 DMCA takedown notices PER DAY).
When the police complaints did lead nowhere, he simply harassed various police departments.
Finally, seeing that the takedown notice make the mirrorers rotating the hosting of the relevant parts complained about, thus rendering it totally ineffective, he started to try to DDOs the sites hosting the pages.
Many of the mirrorers would never had been able to denounce that particular spammer if they had been doing so under their real identities; anonymity is particularly vital when dealing with criminals, or lawsuit-happy individuals.
Another example is this well-known spammer, threatening legal action against antispam fighters. If you follow the thread, you will find a frothing lunatic that demands the identity of several spamfighters who have to work anonymously in order to avoid the hassle of lawsuits from spammers.
In 2003, the same antispam outfit was sued by spammers. Even though the lawsuit was thrown out of court, it was not without considerable annoyance and expense to the antispammers involved.
Only absolutely positive anonymity can help protect antispammers against the spammers.
but if I could go to jail for 14 years just calling George Bush a fsckin' asshat, I wouldn't be willing to settle for a pen name. I mean, how much effort does it take in that kind of gov't to track you down by ip?
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
The only long term solution is depoliticization. The very reason that people need to actually care about these things is that the government can come after them in the first place. Solution? Strip the government of such power. Unfortunately, the government can exert a wide range of controls today. It can harass you from anything to the tax code to basic traffic violations to willfully misconstruing something you do. The fewer tenticles that the government has into society, the fewer avenues it has to suppress dissent.
. . . you still wouldn't be able to tell whether I was reading the Anarchist's Cookbook or the Betty Crocker Cookbook via Freenet.
Dude, you should read the Betty Crocker Anarchist's Cookbook. The exploding cupcakes on page 42 are to die for!!
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
Points for using an organisation no-one is likely to admit to wanting to join. What about NAACP? Any other organisation - please, for the benefit of us unwashed masses, tell us what is fundamentally wrong with supporting a cause without 'being subversive' (Ooh, we can't have that! I mean, look what happened when all the blacks decided America's white power way of life was a way of life they were not going to stand for!)
Am I being inflammatory? Hell yes... because you're using incorrectly exaggerated examples to smack someone down as being dangerous and 'subversive', when the reality is you're advocating the censorship of views you disagree with. This is the same reason why freedom of speech protects organisations such as the KKK, militia groups, and NAMBLA, regardless of how heinous their ideas or beliefs may be.
Your polygamy example is another fatuous and inflamed 'example' - the LDS church hasn't "advocated" polygamy in a century.
First off, NAMBLA is an entirely legal organization. It advocates changing the law, but does not advocate breaking the law as it stands. Above all it advocates tolerance. Likewise, Kevin never advocated anything criminal - he simply tried to promote tolerance.
As for your assertion that "losing one's child, wife, and job" due to government reprisal is not "a violation" of the Right to Free Speech and Freedom of Association - what in hell are you smoking?
You say that Free Speech is not regulated when it comes to political matters - I'm thinking you're pointing out that free political speech is the most important type, and that this is what the framers of the Constitution were most concerned with. Which brings me to my point: which part of advocating for tolerance and for changing the law is NOT political?
You also seem to have an unhealthy interest in persecuting religious minorities and polygamists. While I do have a problem with the way some religious communities and some polygamists conduct their business, we should concentrate on making sure no one is forced into behavior they don't want to take part in, rather than promoting a blanket ban of polygamy or unconventional relationships. The Federal Government's repression of the Mormon Church is one of many sad episodes in American history, and is the cause of many of the problems associated with polygamy today. That is, the secrecy causes much of the problems, because no one will report minor abuse if it means the forced breakup of their family and community.
In any case, you have proven once again that anonymous speech is necessary as long as bigotry endures.