Slashdot Mirror
Ask Slashdot: Do We Need Pseudonymous Social Networking?
An anonymous reader writes "While the idea of anonymous social networking sounds like an oxymoron, the use of pseudonyms to mask a user's online identity has a long history that stretches back to the earliest days of the Internet and local bulletin board systems (BBS). Such imperfect anonymity, which can often be unmasked with a few well-defined Google searches, has led to abuses like the invention of 'spambots' and the persistence of forum trolls. But, as the BBC reports, pseudonyms have their place in online communities, especially where identities are a risky commodity, under oppressive state regimes and governments where corporate interests increasingly dominate the interests of individuals: 'Some users choose to hide their identity to avoid being found by people they would not like to be contacted by. Others live in countries where identification could have serious implications for those who have expressed political views or associated themselves with others who have.' Should Google+ and maybe even the notorious Facebook evolve into two-tiered sites where those who choose to remain anonymous are 'identified' as such and denied access to certain site features, while being free to post, blog, or tweet their views, without summarily getting their accounts suspended or revoked?"
Yes we do.
I always use my real name, and all others must, too.
Yes. That is all.
How else are we supposed to troll? -Anon
It just seems a bit odd asking about need for pseudonyms, on /.
Isn't every message board and online forum in existence pretty much just pseudonymous social networking?
Take a look at Wikipedia's list of social networking sites.
The application of the name may be fairly recent, but the idea of social networking sites has been around forever. (In fact you could easily make a case for including Slashdot in the list on the basis of the friends/foes system and journal posts.) And very few of them have required the use of "real" names, and even fewer of those have actually tried to enforce it on a serious basis.
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
Real names are absolutely vital!
Perhaps I would feel differently if I lived in a place like Iran, but I see little reason to participate in a community where everyone hides their identity. It encourages too much bad behavior. That's one reason I (and everyone else) abandoned MySpace and moved to Facebook.
Kind of like the no Homers club. You're allowed one.
Should Google+ and maybe even the notorious Facebook evolve into two-tiered sites where those who choose to remain anonymous are 'identified' as such and denied access to certain site features
Which features and why? It's not as if they're able to prevent people from being pseudonymous. What are they going to do, hire an actual person to not only review a scan of my passport but actually come round to my house and make sure it is mine? That's never going to catch on. If I list myself as "Paul Davies" or "Joanna Crayfish" or "Simon Sunstable" or whatever then chances are they'll believe me. What else can they do? Christ, you can probably find online programs that'll make up character names for use in games like Call of Cthulhu that work perfectly in modern life.
'nuff said
from your friendly social network provider. This reminder is being brought to you, John Doe, on behalf of your favourite toilet paper. Please avoid using any and all aliases in your friendly and ultra-useful social networking realm as it interferes with targeted advertising/shareholder reven....errrr.....the quality of your user experience.
Please do however continue clicking through the adverts you enjoy, purchasing the products you use in daily life, and applying for the various bank accounts and credit cards you wish. None of these services, their providers, your advertisers, or of course your friendly social network are in any way related and should not concern you in the least.
regards:
the book of faces.
P.S. Do consider a new subscription to netflix to complement the television you just purchased, your friend will bring the Doritos he has confirmed enjoyment of, and you both can appreciate the lice he recently cured with his purchase from WalMart Pharmacy.
Good people go to bed earlier.
The entire thing about being online is that text communication does not include any identifiable clues. You can't see the face, you can't hear the voice, you can't even measure the timing of the key strikes.
Worse, it is very easy to get and use someone else's password. (A password dictionary of the top 100 passwords will work in at least 5% of cases).
To require real identification would involve a massive change in technology that would unnecessarily invade a lot of privacy for things NOT done on social networks.
The internet is designed for privacy, not security. Pretending otherwise just makes you look like a fool
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
I say yes, pseudonyms are necessary. Is it my privacy, therefore it should be my choice whether to reveal myself directly or use a pseudonym.
I tried to use my real name, but it was already taken.
In one sense a pseudonym is pointless, you can working out who someone is from their connection on a social media site so long as you already have enough background knowledge.
On the other hand a pseudonym does stop basic abuses like an employer trawling the social media looking for "undesirable behaviour". That may not seem so bad, but what your current or future employer deems "undesirable" could effectively silence you. Spoken out about depression, gay rights, socialism etc? Any of those could be viewed as "undesirable" an effectively exclude you. I know in the USA companies are already offering to mine social media for just such things.
Speaking out against the status quo would also become incredibly difficult, be that against the state or against one's employer (i.e. whistleblowing).
Of course the biggest worry is not the pseudonym or lack there of, it's automatic facial recognition. With that enable (as is default on Facebook) any pseudonym you care to use is moot as it only takes two friends to innocently tag you with you real name and pseudonym and eventually the system will marry the two up.
Anonymity, while can be abuse just like anything, is precious and losing would have terrible consequences for society in my opinion.
While it isn't false that users in repressive regimes have an obvious interest in privacy, the notion that the feds are your primary concern is so hopelessly naive that I almost find it hard to believe that it isn't purposefully deceptive.
So, let's look at the social-networking life of your average resident of a Not-Repressive(tm) contemporary society: The secret police aren't going to be bashing down the door for saying the wrong thing, so nothing to worry about, eh? Well, yeah, not exactly...
How many schools(for the under-21s in the crowd) will treat a picture of you with a red plastic cup as presumptive evidence of illegal drinking? How many companies will skip you for being a touch controversial online? How about that canadian case of an insurance company deciding that a picture of the patient smiling was evidence that they were not depressed, and further support could be cut? Heck, to ignore organizations entirely, how about the 'timmy thinks he might be of the homosexual persuasion, doesn't really want ma and pa bible-belt to find out' use case?
While repressive regimes do suck, and anybody who runs one should definitely trip and hit their head on a bullet, the notion that the state is your primary concern(among people who have plenty of leisure internet and broadly unfettered access) is openly absurd. It's the private sector: schools, colleges, corporations, parents, etc. who you really need to watch out for.
There's a simple problem with social networking with pseudonyms: you can't find people from real life.
For something like Slashdot it makes no difference, I don't care if people commenting here are people I know in real life, we build the community based on the user names we have here. But for Facebook, which is all about connecting with people you actually know, it would be impossible for the system to exist if everyone used aliases. It works if a few people use pseudonyms because that person can still find friends using their real names, but it breaks if someone using a pseudonym is trying to find someone else who also uses a pseudonym. Because large-scale use of pseudonyms would be very detrimental to their use model, I think it's perfectly understandable why facebook and Google+ don't want pseudonyms.
-Russell S. Harris
Google+ isn't the problem. Google's use of "crowdsourcing" in search results is the problem.
Google values links, reviews, and now "likes". All can be, and are, be spammed using anonymous accounts on social networks and blogs. This is why there are so many spam posts on blogs, phony reviews, and phony accounts on social networks. Those aren't there for humans - they're there to feed Google's ranking system.
This was a nagging problem for years, but didn't get much attention outside the "search engine optimization" community. It went over the top in Q4 2010, when Google Places was merged into Google web search, and the payoff for social spam increased. Now there are articles in the New York Times about it. 40% of the jobs on Amazon's Mechanical Turk are for spamming.
Now the trend is toward requiring a login from some non-anonymous social network to post on blogs and forums. That reduces spam targeted at Google. None of this has anything to do with human readers.
This question reminds me of how it's sometimes said that you shouldn't worry about increased surveillance etc. - after all, you're a law-abiding citizen and have got nothing to hide, right?
But the truth (and obvious rebuttal to the above) is that we law-abiding citizens all do have things to hide, too. And similar, yes, we need the ability to use pseudonyms on social networks.
Coming from another angle, social networks should not artificially set up barriers for social interaction. We do interact in real life without knowing each others' full names; we may not know our names at all, and when we do, they may well be pseudonyms. I've got more than one good friend whose real name I don't know at all. Social networking sites should not impose constraints on us that we do not want.
Finally, the trolling issue is a red herring: trolling will persist unless and until a social network takes steps to actually verify people's names, e.g. by asking them to submit photo ID. A troll can create an account as "oogaboogah_the_great" (apologies to anyone actually using that pseudonym!) just as easily as he can create an account as "William Blake" or "Errol Thompson" or whatever.
In fact, that's another problem with the whole thing: forbidding pseudonyms doesn't lead to real names, it leads to real-sounding names.
Do we need pseudonyms? Yes.
Here's why: because for every troll you manage to thwart by making them more identifiable and thus hopefully more accountable, there are innumerable people out there that for various reasons wish to remain anonymous but have useful things to contribute. Sometimes the only way in which they are able to safely contribute is via anonymous or pseudonymous accounts (e.g., for reasons of job or personal security). Otherwise they will remain silent.
You may have some idea of how many trolls you've stopped, but trolls will inevitably still be there and you'll never know how many people you have discouraged from participating that aren't trolls.
Let me put it this way. I've only ever contributed to Slashdot as AC. Nevertheless, I have submitted numerous posts that have received +5 Insightful from the mods, and I've had 3 or 4 story submissions accepted too over the years. I wouldn't have submitted them without AC.
It's also why I don't have a Facebook page, and why I'm no longer interested in Google+.
I don't know what your talking about, then again I don't befriend/follow/circle the stupid of the world that much. If you stick to networking with actual friends, peers and organisations of interest, the social networks are a much happier place.
Why do we need to provide our real information if we do not want to?
Would social networking sights break if people used a handle instead of a real name? To date, none have.
if (it != oneThing) it = another;
The only (internet) social networks I like are forums (which are not what people mean when they talk about "social networking", AFAICT). They provide a good way to exchange useful information on a given topic in a pseudonymous fashion. We get help and in turn, help others in a mutually beneficial altruistic kind of way. It's altruistic because the person you help may never help you, but it's still not stupidly altruistic. Build up enough karma/reputation/whatever and people are more inclined to help you out when you have a problem.
For typical social networking though, i.e. the facebook style network that delineates who your friends/acquaintances are IRL - I don't see the point. The downsides outweigh the benefits.
We have anonymous votes for a reason. Only the tech-meritocracy from Google can ignore life and believe it knows better.
Why do I need your real name, or the thing you claim is your real name? What, exactly, am I to do with it that is legitimate use? Am I to look up your address so as to stalk you? Seriously, why do I, as a social website member, need anything other than some unique identifier so conversations can be directed? Frankly, I don't need your real name, nor do I want it. The question here really is: Who does want your real name -- and why?
Facebook and Google want your real name. They want it because they're going to sell it; it, and the habits they associate with it, by tracking every move you make that they are able to. They're going to sell it to corporations; give it to the government; etc. If you're ok with that, then fine, give 'em your real name. What I wonder, really, is why you'd be ok with that. Too young to remember McCarthyism, perhaps? Don't understand the reasons why privacy was given such primacy in the constitution? Just plain... dim? It's an interesting question, certainly.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Anonymity is overrated.
Sure, it has its uses, which are pointed out in the OP. If you're trying to whistleblow on an oppressive Middle Eastern government, it's useful.
However, 99999.8 out of 100,000 people don't need this. They need good online communities, which rely on identities and trust.
Sure, there were BBSes with anon ids. They weren't exactly the whole internet, were they? Just as well, there were places such as the Well, which relied more on getting to know who people WERE.
Prior to 1995 or so, it was also *almost* impossible (ie, difficult) to operate on the real internet, without a real, verifiable, traceable ID-- university, government, or corporate. One thus knew that one was accountable for one's actions and could be reached if one went beyond the pale (spam, viruses, scams, or just abuse).
Today's internet is sadly lacking these features, and this is one reason so much of it is described as a "pit." Ironically, the destruction of the Penet and other anon services in Finland, seem to have accelerated this.
Again, anonymity has its place. It should be defended. It, however, should not be the default assumption. It's not *that* important, no more than anonymity in the real work (big cities, etc.), which has decidedly negative and socially divisive effects.
For most social networking, your real name is your best asset, and when everyone is verified to be who they are, the spam and trolling drop to minimal levels.
For agitprop boards, everyone should be anonymous. Spam and trolling are innate, but most people consider everyone else's propaganda to be spam and trolling anyway.
Attempting to require the ability to be anonymous on anyone's social-networking server is like demanding the right to pee from the second deck at Wrigley Field.
I mean, if I walk into a room and tell everyone I am joe schmo, then I am not really being social... So other person is. So isn't using fake names on social networking the opposite of actually being social?
Why don't we begin with IID (International Identity) for every person living on this earth?
I propose to build a system called IIDS (International Identity System) for every person living on this earth. There are about 6 billion people living on this earth. If we use 37 alphanumeric (a,b,c,...,z,0,1,2,...,9,_), not case sensitive, we need 7 characters to cover 6 billion people. [377 is about 95 billion].
IID number is internationally unique. Let me start with my own IID : hantart, since my name is Hantarto Widjaja.
This IID can be used for very general purposes. And it'll be very useful for the future. IID treats and sets everybody equally as a person, no discriminations on race, religion, gender, nation, education level, income, age, social status, military or civil, etc. (no discrimination in all aspects).
Now, we have many identity numbers, such as our bank accounts no., student registration no., driving licence no., credit cards no., address, e-mail account, national ID no., telephone/fax/mobile phone no., etc. With IID, you just remember one thing, that is the IID. You don't need to know where someone is to call him/her.
To call someone, you do not need to dial numbers, you just dial hantart/phone. Also to e-mail me, you just type hantart/email. And other, such as hantart/fax, hantart/address, hantart/office_address, hantart/mobile_phone, hantart/homepage, etc. This idea can be extended not only to person, but also to institutions, companies, organizations, schools, universities, etc.
Let us popularize this IID system. In the future, you can communicate with everybody as easily as he/she is in front of you. The goal of this project is to connect every person in the world. People say two heads are better than one. Others say, if the thinking power of a head is ten, then thinking power of two heads is ten powered by two. And the internet is very good thing in bringing IIDS into reality.
I think we make IIDS mandatory for all thing. With this system there no need for anonymous, no longer is this a question. This way Google+ not need deactivate you for being coward and not using real name haha.
This problem is getting more problematic as time goes on. In the 90's and before there was no assumption that anything you posted online was going to remain online for eternity. For a period of time, it didn't. The rise of dejanews, Google, the internet archive, and related projects have not only started the process of archiving everything that hits the internet for eternity, but have actually gone back and dredged up things that had been previously removed.
For youngsters that are in high school or college the prospect of putting your entire life on the internet doesn't seem like a big deal because it doesn't really affect you in any meaningful way. Twenty years from now, they might feel differently, but it will already be too late. The concept of a permanent record that follows you around permanently has finally become a reality.
You can do your best to scrub yourself out of the archives, but using usenet as an example, even if you get rid of your own posts all the posts that quoted you are still there.
Even with pseudonyms the possibility of getting careless exists. Once you are linked to your handle, well, too late.
With the vast amounts of information that now exist either tied to, or waiting to be tied to your actual identity, there are a lot of concerns that for the most part are being ignored in the name of convenience. Many will end up regretting it.
Anonymity is the only true freedom.
As written in the BBC article, pseudonyms are extremely useful in countries where you can be killed or imprisoned for your ideals and ideas.
Besides that, exists lot of people such as famous people who wanted to have a pseudonyms to not affect the reaction of people when they write in list. Or that do not want people to follow them to all the places they go. Many people also are more known by their pseudonym than their real name.
Which is more valid, the name all the people knows you or the name your parents gave you at birth? For me both are equally important, and one cannot be obliged to deny one part of our self.
Why would I want to use a pseudonym?
I'm the real Vorokrytin P. Winterbuttocks.
countries where identification could have serious implications for those who have expressed political views or associated themselves with others who have
In the U.S., that would come more from the private sector than the government per se. Retribution is most likely to come from employers - and potential employers even more so - who don't like your views or associations. Even when there's no explicit retribution, it leads to self-censorship as people actively seek to avoid offending the boss and otherwise practice various forms of online brown-nosing. As we learned from the blacklists of the McCarthy era, denying people the right to make a living for their political views is no less effective than throwing them in jail. And that, my friends, is why I don't do social networking.
I don't really see a distinction between a pseudonym username (ie, Captain Avenger) and a made up real name (ie Joe Smith). The later would be accepted by Google+ and FB, the former most likely not, and yet both are pseudonyms because they're not the actual name of the user.
As such I don't see why you would need a two-tiered system. Additionally, I don't see why you wouldn't just allow pseudonyms of any kind in any social network. You're not gaining anything by enforcing a "real name" because you can't actually enforce it without asking everyone for an ID to prove that's their actual name.
All you end up doing in the end is having people switch from a username like most of us have on slashdot to a pen name ala Mark Twain. But it's a distinction without a difference.
Admit that you'll never know if anyone's name online is their real name, let them put whatever name they want, but then limit what they can do until they build up some reputation.
If they are a new user, don't let them run around spamming on everyone else's posts and throttle the number of activities they can take until it's been verified by other more trusted members. Allow people to flag posts or identities as spam, and follow up with moderators (or even algorithms analyzing the flags) to suspend or outright ban the offender.
There's no need to reinvent the wheel here.
Well assholes will be assholes, even if you use their real name. So it really doesn't matter. Just play some SC2 sometime, and you'll know exactly what I mean.
Om, nomnomnom...
I don't mind allowing the option for anonymity for those who need or want it, but I also want the ability to disable viewing anonymous drivel; which a large percentage of the time (IMO) these are links to goatse and rickrolls. For instance, here on /. I disable viewing posts scored 0 or less and don't even look at AC posts until someone else has gone through the pain to verify that the post isn't crap.
In other words, I fully support others' right to free speech and anonymity, but I even more desire my right to not fucking hear it.
Yes. We need pseudonyms and anonymity. Sometimes you need to be able to speak out without IDing yourself.
Part of the solution to spam is the reputation of a name, not the real ID behind it.
"MichaelKristopeit351" is operated by a pathetic individual attempting to steal my identity. i cower from no one. you live in a fantasy world that you have created relative to me. i live at 4513 brittany ct. eau claire, wi 54701. present yourself to me, admit what you have done, and i might let you watch while our dog sodomizes my wife tonight.
Subject is the message.
If you imagined a twitter where noone can ever block you, censor you, or trace you - then this is actually already true. We forget about Google+ and FB - we think decentralized and independent :)
Sone is actually implementing Twitter-like functionality in Freenet. While still in beta, it works surprisingly fast! Posts appear in minute or so after posting, which is blazing-fast as for strong crypto-network that is not centralized and can not be censored.
Since last week (version 1386) Freenet finally is no longer a burden to computer! IO and hdd use was fixed and compared to last years it is really not a problem to use this software on even medium computers.
Freenetproject.org instalation takes 3-5 minutes. Then from main page bookmark "Sone" - link to .jar file USK@.......jar should be copied into Configuration > Plugins - add unofficiall plugin from freenet (it is still in beta), also add WoT (web of trust) plugin from the list there - solve some captchas while creating Pseudonym (the new main menu tab Community) and then create your free twitter (Sone) by clicking top menu "Sone".
See you there ;) any questions - both Sone and Freenet developers are on IRC freeNODE - #freenet afaik.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-hollywood-rave-riot-20110729,0,1592465.story
No, we need unindexed social networking, so my pictures and data aren't one google search away from being discovered by an employer or curious passerby. Social networking is, nearly by definition, for the purpose of communicating clearly with people one is formally acquainted with. There are other forums for anonymous communication.
If you don't like Google's rules for Google Plus, or Facebook's rules, then don't use them. Start your own social networking site that allows pseudonyms and use your real name on the others or don't use them at all.
This is really a non-issue.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
"While the idea of anonymous social networking sounds like an oxymoron, the use of pseudonyms to mask a user's online identity has a long history that stretches back to the earliest days of the Internet and local bulletin board systems (BBS)."
The use of pseudonymous communication goes a bit further back than that. The value to society is rather plainly displayed in the body of the Federalist Papers, by Publius -- a pseudonym for Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison. Anyone who argues that pseudonymity is a bad thing has to explain how The Federalist Papers would have been better without it, or how The United States would have been better without The Federalist Papers.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
GED teacher: Many students are on parole, undocumented, or otherwise at the bottom fringe of society. She (a friend) is very appropriate to not want her full name too easily googlable.
Kids: I'd rather kids NOT use their full real names, as kids are stupid. Stupid things you do as kids should be mostly allowed not to turn into part of their permanent and easily searchable record.
School Teachers and other semi-public people: Being able to easily google your teachers private life is not good (see: Kids are Stupid above). While teachers need to be good moral compasses for their students, they are not paid well enough to have to live in a fish bowl for the world to watch.
So in specific I see these as obvious cases, but the general tenor of wanting to be able to have an online life without having your dirty laundry on very public display applies to almost everyone. We should control the choice as to how public or private we are, not Google or Facebook.
If you need to speak out without IDing yourself and, more importantly, other people want that, then stop complaining about the rules of someone else's social network and START YOUR OWN.
A) What is the rest of the solution.
B)What is to stop someone from registering 1,000,000 pseudonyms and modding themselves up or just using all of them to spam.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
It's the private sector: schools, colleges, corporations, parents, etc. who you really need to watch out for.
Uh, okay. As I'm 30, schools and colleges don't concern me. Nor do corporations. And I pity you if you have to hide things from your parents once you're over the age of twelve.
Sorry, but the government is my primary concern. I'm a vocal opponent of both parties, our military camping trips, the Federally-sanctioned sexual abuse organization known as the TSA. Oh, and I'm a vocal proponent of liberty and equality for all my fellow Americans, regardless of whose hole they stick their naughty bits in to.
I'm not paranoid enough to suggest government agents are going to come pick me up next Tuesday for speculating on what orifice the TSA stores their confiscated snow globes in; hardly.
But you know something? Do you remember the USSR?
Pepperidge Farms remembers.
Warantless wiretapping; endless imprisonment without cause; demanding papers for travel.
Fuck man, we're doing the things that we used to rag on the Soviets for.
I'd like to believe our gross violation of human dignity will stop at these. History shows it probably won't. Yes, yes, I know - this is Murrica! We don't cart people off in the middle of the night for disagreeing with the Government!
Well, previously, we also didn't infringe upon privacy without a warrant; we didn't imprison without charges; we didn't demand documentation to travel; and we also didn't molest grandma at the airport.
If you're naive enough to think your primary reason for anonymous speech should be your parents...
Wake the fuck up, please.
Seriously, kudos to you, Soulskill.
is how does Google decide what a "real name" looks like? I've seen actual names that would probably get falsely flagged.
The problem with your argument is that privacy is not the solution; it buttresses the private sector behaviors you list. One counter-solution is the light of day and not allowing such organizations to, for instance, have an opaque process which allows them to assume "red cup in hand" means drinking-- not that it's any of their business if a person was drinking in private! Ditto your extreme ma & pa in the bible belt example: its not that extreme, and reasonable privacy as an option (not default) can defend against problems; on the other hand, maybe the bible belt could use a few less filters on the information that reaches it. Perhaps pa's in the closet :).
This goes back a lot further than social networks. We all maintain multiple identities across different social circles, starting with the language we use while watching the hockey game with Dad when Mom is out of the house.
Blakley on Fashion and Intellectual Property
Fashion has always functioned as an identity hack. I'm as much into fashion as any fashionista, but not sartorial fashion; I mince, but not in drag; I'm queen of the lateral link; Uruk-hai ninja of the face-palm rebuttal. But not on my cravat or my crevice sack, by which I declare myself Puritan of Pattern Recognition. Nor have I scribbled on my leather pyjamas: I can't figure out which anthropic landscape to pick from; it seems premature. Blakley got my goat a bit by presuming that the game is only played on sartorial terms. Forgive me if that paragraph is not my regular office gab.
Hey, I've got an idea. Let's do it all online. What I say in the locker room, what I say to the girl I spoke about in the locker room, what I tell my parents when I come home late after speaking to said girl, let's make the whole thing part of a unified dossier. What could possibly go wrong?
I might work for a company that couldn't care less about my verbal excursions. But they might want to present me to an investor as a level-headed character who is the brains behind the operation. Now, the investors already know that it's a coin flip whether the brains behind the operation is a total flake in his private life. (So true.) Mostly, they don't really care. But if you rub their nose in it, they have to care. CF CYA.
A flake with the good grace to hide the fact will suffice if the job gets done. This becomes a tenuous proposition on Fishbowl+. (I'll learn to love that + sign yet. It goes anywhere. I could even print a T-shirt --Fishbowl+ if I weren't so busy hiding my other half; or my other half wasn't so busy hiding from me.)
It's also a sign of social grace is knowing when to let it go and not peering over the fence into ever aspect of the social lives of the people you work for, with, or employ.
From Mark Brezinski at Sennheiser CX 980 Comparison
We'll all be accessorizing for creepy people if this direction continues. Kudos to Mr Brezinski for this wonderful send-up of coolspotting.
They are businesses. Fuck them. Don't use their shitty sites. Throw them in the garbage and replace them with a better business.
Who cares what they do?
Use of their services is not compulsory.
In a service like Google+, where the user controls the network participants, then anonymity doesn't really make sense, right? I mean, who would accept an invite from someone they didn't know? Ditto for FB.
In another context such as a comment on Slashdot, where somebody else decides what gets seen by whom, then anonymity would be handy for all the usual reasons people give.
"We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday
I never needed to give my real name when I was watching over the air television or radio, and we all did just fine.
AC for a reason. If they were just tracking me, I'd still hate it, but they want to tie me to other people, including my daughter, family, doctors, and political party.
Double fuck 'em.
Well it's not just that we need a pseudonym for it; but that for all intents and purposes, we ARE that nickname to people in some social circles.
For example, I've played Everquest for over ten years now. To my guild mates I am my character's name. They'd have no clue who I was if I introduced myself as my real name, but they would if I introduced myself as my character name. (Something proven at numerous Fan Faires I've been to through the years). So is it really a pseudonym if for the circle of people you're dealing with that name is who they know you as?
I know in Facebook I have some EQ contacts, and that's all under real names, and I'm constantly puzzled about who they are (until I remember again, when I have to remember) because all I know them as IS their character name, or at least the name they put out for the EQ/SOE communities.
I think there is a strong case for allowing pseudonyms on social networks.
I think the first step in explaining why is to turn the question on its head - why not? The big social networks are businesses and there's only one business reason to prevent pseudonyms, that being linking your on-site data to external data. Since not everyone (anyone?) wants this, that's reason enough to say they are necessary, from a user-centric point of view.
Second is the way many people like to use these networks. While we generally think of them as networks of people, they are really networks of personas. There is a difference. Why force people to assume their IRL identity online? There are some circumstances where this can be useful but adequate privacy/permission controls cover most of them. People should be able to be whoever they want to be online.
I've seen a couple of comments here suggesting that pseudonyms make it difficult to connect with friends but I disagree - most people come to a social network via friend invites anyway and have out-of-band methods of determining their friends' identities. Once a connection is established some sites provide a way to ascertain a particular pseudonymous friend's actual identity. All should.
As for spam and the like, friend lists (or circles in G+ parlance) usually provide a way to filter out content from those you don't know. I find that works quite well for squelching the noise.
There are lots of places to be semi-anonymous. I use my /. handle on a bunch of forums - it's my second online personality that's a bit more outgoing than I would otherwise be on a public forum. My FB (and, presumably, Google+ when I get there) profile will be with my real name, and only involve people I know. Hell, I don't even allow "friends" on FB who are business colleagues, generally. If business contacts find me, I tell them I have a limited circle of hobby and family acquaintences on FB, and I send them a linkedin request.
I guess my point is that we shouldn't be getting wrapped around the axle about Google+ requiring real names. If you want to have a cute handle, go somewhere else. No shoes, no shirt, no service.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Hi, my name is Todd VerBeek, and I'm gay.
I can say that. My family know, most of my friends know (if they're paying attention), I've even been on local TV talking about it. I don't have much legal protection, but I'm probably not going to get fired for it (again). I live in a community where people probably won't beat me for it (any more), and my government pretty much just treats me with neglect, not persecution.
But not everyone is so lucky.
One of my earliest forays into what's now called "social networking" was on CompuServ, back in late 1980s, where there was one section of one forum where people could talk openly about their experiences as gay/lesbian/bi people. That particular forum offered a level of anonymity: no full names. It would not have worked otherwise. And I might not have made it here without it.
Yeah, it's a quarter century later now, but there are parts of the world (even parts of my own country) that are further behind than that. And not everyone has a quarter century of practice at dealing with self-disclosure. So yes: people like me in places like that need pseudonymous social networking. Obvious answer. Full stop. Next question?
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
There is a problem that the mainstream cloud storage options like DropBox, SkyDrive, MobileMe, Google Music, etc. all store your data unencrypted, meaning eventually the MafiAA will sue your asses based upon the media that you've archived there. Wuala encrypts documents using the document's own SHA as the symmetric key for deduplication, meaning they cannot read your documents, but any MafiAA like party can still identify your documents.
Afaik, you still need command line tools like duplicity, git-annex, and jgit for encrypted cloud storage via Amazon S3 or others. Syncany might fix this.
Imho, we need an encrypted cloud storage solution that is resistant to even traffic analysis and offer social functionality. It might resemble the following :
Layer 1. Anonymized ad serving and/or payment via digital cash systems : An advertiser gives you a coin when your app claims you've showed an ad, you anonymize that coin and give it to the hosing provider, hosting provider redeems coin with advertiser, adjusting their payout based upon the advertisers identity. Ideally, the hosting provider and advertiser shouldn't be able to trace their relationship to you unless they violate the protocol by comparing IP address, which you may defeat by using a trusted anonymizing bank. Anonymized payments could be are handled similarly but might create issues with banking laws if the coins represent real currency. Tor, I2P, and Freenet could also use this layer help their users earn money.
Layer 2. Anonymized automated bitlocker based storage : Your application creates a 'thread' on a host by uploading a 8192 bit RSA public key, creating a symmetric AES 512 key to save alongside the private key. Threads contain three types of messages : unsigned public messages that applications will ignore unless they're encrypted using the symmetric key, signed public messages that may be unencrypted, like maybe deleting an old message or closing the thread, and private hello messages that applications will ignore unless they're encrypted using the private key. Hosts are federated allowing users to submit their signed messages through other hosts to prevent their preferred host from identifying the thread owners IP address.
Threads are identified by their public key's SHA512. You may grant anyone read & 'reply' access to a thread by giving them the threads id and symmetric key. You may hash identifying information like your real name or email using SHA512 and submit that plus a thread id to lookup servers. You're real threads should NOT however be available for lookup. Instead, your application replies to hello messages by sending some real thread, ala work, family, whatever.
Oh, all thread content is accessible by anyone, all privacy is accomplished through cryptography. It's actually a feature that all this data becomes public once quantum computers can break 8192 bit RSA keys, which'll happen long after your dead.
Layer 3. You're application provides a 'social versioned file system' using a hosting layer thread or ten and pays the hosting provider using the ad serving layer. Imho, the underlying file format should be packed git repository extended to offer quasi-instant messaging attached to objects, roughly like github's comments.
End result : People archive their photo, video, music, etc. collections online, grant their friends access, and chat with their friends in instant messages affiliated with the files, roughly like facebook comments. Of course, the whole system works perfectly for collaborative private projects, like university homework assignments. All users are just some collection of threads they control but nobody knows what threads do what.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
But, as the BBC reports, pseudonyms have their place in online communities
And in real life, too.
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
The problem is liability. From your friends, opinions, hobbies, education, and content, with modern automated techniques, it's relatively easy to figure out who you are. If you think you're anonymous, say things you shouldn't, and get "outed". Well, that's where the liability angle comes in. We live in a lawsuit-happy country. Win or lose, it ain't gonna be good for the providing company.
To paraphrase bash.org:
"HOW CAN YOU TELL I IS ONLY 13 FREM WHAT I TYP?"
Pseudonyms go far, far further back than "bbses". Think federalist papers and a bunch of other publications going back for centuries, millennia, aeons. Put another way, you gotta ask? You have that much trust in "authority"? As long as anywhere in the world there's oppressive regimes, we'll need pseudonyms. And beyond that we'll keep them just because. Furrfu!
"Go right ahead and do that."
Seriously.
If you claim to need social networking so much that you're willing to compromise your right to privacy, then what you really "need" is psychotherapy and possibly anti-psychotic medication(s). Face the fact: It can be fun, but your life really isn't any less meaningful without it.
Facebook, Google+, etc: Go fuck yourselves, OK? Didn't need you before, don't need you and your bullshit now, either. I have real, actual friends that I see and converse with in person on a regular basis. I don't "need" legions of pseudo-friends, 99% of which I've never actually met in person, in order to have a meaningful, productive life.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
uh, i fail to see how this makes your point. I mean, he advertised a giant block party, and surprise, people who were into his music showed up.
This kind of backs up the parent's point that social networking is fun when you're doing it to keep up with things you like.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
One counter-solution is the light of day and not allowing such organizations to, for instance, have an opaque process which allows them to assume "red cup in hand" means drinking-- not that it's any of their business if a person was drinking in private!
So your solution is to have a process—perhaps through government regulation, perhaps private-sector, you don't say—that examines the decision-making process within people's minds and prohibits them from using rationales that are unfair to others. And then enforces it for every, um, employer and college, I guess, 365 days a year. Yeah, you go ahead with that; I'm going to keep going with the "try to avoid making stupid people think stupid shit" approach.
on the other hand, maybe the bible belt could use a few less filters on the information that reaches it
Okay, I'm bugged by religious attitudes in America at large as much as the next freedom-loving atheist, but if we're talking about fundamentalist homophobes I don't think that the clog is mostly on society's end of the pipe.
I still don't get why this is so hard for people to understand. You act different ways around different people. You don't use the same words, tell the same jokes, even have the same posture between the office, a bar, and home. This isn't dishonest, it's normal social functioning: displaying a level of courtesy or intimacy appropriate to the people around you. Not wanting everyone in your life to see the same stuff on your online profile is just a normal consequence of that dynamic meeting the Internet.
Posting AC because... yeah.
Google+ doesn't ban pseudonyms, they only require that your pseudonym pass for a real name. They even explicitly say as much during the process of creating your profile. Make 100 John Doe accounts, no one cares.
Check out my lame java blog at www.javachopshop.com
it also says 1 dink can influence thousands of people into chaos with the whim of a 1 line post, and just like the lemmings they are, they followed one by one ... even Paris Hilton showed up
before social networking it would have taken a lot more effort to get the droolers of the world to show up in that amount, and if I want to keep in contact with people I know well, they have my number, I have theirs along with email and OMG going out and doing something with them
I have never had the need or desire to post a picture and a profile of myself to the people who know what I look like and who I am, then inform them I just took a dump on twitter
no
What? Liking someone's music that other people, possibly a lot of other people, and desiring to go see that person perform makes them "lemmings?"
It's social networking. They were being social.
I don't know if you're some sort of ubertroll or just... not well adjusted.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
I can see a point, where unlike MySpace, people's accounts aren't named ~$~2Sexy4U~$~ . It's shit like that (along with their stupid profile themes and automatic music and video plays) that made MySpace unusable.
HOWEVER
If I want to use a handle/pseudonym/whatever, then i should be able to. Not everyone uses social networks the same way. And some people NEED to use them under assumed names because of fear of reprisal/oppression/violence/etc. People can still connect and organize and socialize anonymously. We've had plenty of examples to prove this.
You also have the issue with names, that not all names are "normal." So their real name policy runs into that. What about John Doe? Harry Sachs? Dweezil Zappa? Peaches Geldof?
My entire last post was essentially a satire on Constantly Risking Absurdity, one of perhaps three nuggets I've retained from my private school education. Knew it would come in handy, some day.
When I first read that poem during my years at Pretentious High I regarded it as a send-up of narcissism. I reluctantly completed many written assignments by starting out complaining that I had nothing to write about (which is effectively writing about oneself) and then seguing into something more interesting from which the useless first page could later be shorn. Always found more to say after clearing my throat of the hairball of hostility.
Not long ago I set myself up with a blog. Never write there, even though I write compulsively every day. I just don't like performing under an integrated identity. I like my circus costumes. I'm sure there have been movies about that, about actors who can't function without the costume. Not quite Wings of Desire. Seriously, that movie could have been about anything. Reminds me of so many poems that left me speechless.
I'm writing far more than usual lately trying to get the costume out of my system. Doubt I'm succeeding. There are sober things I would like to say under the auspice of a perpetual self.
Entrechats, my ass. Way too fucking feminine. Damn I wish I had said that in my essay long ago. I get it, there's a second reading: beauty's a bitch. In my case, it's more like playing hopscotch with Elvish chalk and a magic decoder ring. Not the glam elves, the ones grabbing your ankles from the Dead Marshes, canted in trapezoids. Facebook prime.
I probably write as much for what I erase as what I say. The brush sweeps transverse to the chalk. I'm constantly barfing up memes of disengagement. I write to assimilate, and I write to purge. How many opinions written here are white flags of the soul? Petite mots of surrender? Glib self-loathings of reconciliation?
For a trapeze artist, there's something unseemly about stringing your own wires. A blog feels more like bricks than ballet shoes. Little bricks you keep politely hidden on the third page of Google's search results.
It almost seems like identity has jumped the shark for a generation indoctrinated on commoditizing eyeballs. I have no idea really who I am. With a lot of scratching for words, a few clues emerge. It's not a yard sale of self-documentation.
A funny poem. On Slashdot, usually that's the guy I'm barrel rolling, quarrelling coons in the canopy.
If you posts things related to your employer under your clear name, regardless of positive, neutral or negative, you can be in violation of your employers social media guidelines. This can lead to a formal dissuasion coupled with a fine, and also termination in serious cases or on repeat offenses. This is according to Swiss law, but similar things are in place all over Europe, as you may not represent you employer without explicit permission.
It is even worse if you are a consultant. Quite a few large cooperations watch media and the Internet for names of contractors and consultants they have hired before, and a single perceived to be negative statement about the customer can result in massive loss of business. I have seen this happen. This can be a reason for immediate termination, because in most of Europe you need to be loyal to your employer by law.
One of the reasons I post under pseudonym here and would never join Google+.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Facebook needs your real name because their other users find you by your real name. Facebook's two primary functions are (a) reconnecting you with long lost assholes with whom you can compete and (b) helping you get laid.
Google+ doesn't really need your real name because only males use Google+, meaning you ain't gonna fuck any connections there, and users don't want to find you.
I have generally felt that social networks are besides the point. Real Life(tm) is the ultimate social network, and any communication medium -- be it forums, e-mail, snail mail, talking on the sidewalk, or phoning a friend -- all contribute to that network, without the assistance of Facebook or the like.
If you want to find a person, Facebook (may be) a free way to do it, assuming they use it and were willing to give their real name to them. But other methods exist -- including: Search engines, public networks, potentially shared acquaintances (finding someone from high school? Try asking other friends from high school. Or their parents, if you're that sort of person.)
Pseudonyms do NOT interfere with this. If I tell my friends that I am "jakykong" online, they can tell their friends to contact Jakykong for something. Thus the two-step distant people don't know my real name, but the one-step distant people do. No technology involved, and no real name required.
Of course, our modern concept of social networks that allow you to search for someone by name, rather than by common acquaintances or activities, probably need the real name to facilitate that. But I don't require that functionality -- the ability to meet my friends' friends is useful, whether or not I know their names. Facebook and now Google+ deny this functionality when they deny pseudonyms.
Yahoo is much better about anonymity. They allow full blown aliases to be associated with your yahoo account, so you don't have to log into different accounts. Also, their temporary email addresses are quite handy.
These kinds of features are the main reason I still primarily use my Yahoo account
Citibank is good about this too, allowing you to create temporary credit card numbers with time and amount limits.
Maybe you can't find people from real life with pseudonyms, but not all of us have that problem. Where I'm from -- literally, my geographic area -- social networking under nyms is so normal, that if I want to find someone on the internet, I say, for example, "Hey, are you on LJ? I'm so-and-so on LJ." And if they want to have anything to do with me, they can come "friend" me there. I have almost 300 people on my LJ flist, about two thirds of whom are people in my f2f social circle, the vast majority of whom I've worked with as a musician. No, the pseudonym-finds-pseudonym thing only breaks if you can't or won't ask someone what their nym is. In other words, it prevents you from finding people who don't want to be found, and who you have no in-person contact with. Sounds like a feature to me!
-*- Any technology indistinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced -*-
I disagree. While it would be nice if everyone is transparent, that simply isn't going to happen. In fact that ship has already sailed.
Many organizations are opaque and would vigorously resist any attempts to make them otherwise. Look at the corporations who search the internet for information on job applicants. If they find anything they don't like the candidate is rejected. And the candidate will never learn why; they might suspect, but they will be unable to confirm their suspicion.
Nor is it great to blame the overly exposed consumer of the social networks. There are lots of youngsters and teens out there who don't "get it" and are going to get burned. Put in all the educational tools you want, it's a noble effort but you'll never catch everyone. You might never even effectively train the majority.
The choke point are the social networks themselves. If you address it there at least you have a fighting chance of making real headway. Targetting the other points in the system will be ineffectual and achieve poor results.
There's one big advantage with social networking with pseudonyms: you can't find people from real life.
Here, fixed it for you.
Agreed, real names encourage responsible social behavior. But they also encourage social control, government control, and censoring through social, legal, and monetary pressure.
I shouldn't write: "Although my boss doesn't know it yet, I just started looking at other job options." Peter Smith, Austin
I don't want to write: "I had the same problem. Better see a doctor before it spreads." Peter Smith, Austin
Anything I ever said or say online, will be available to my employer, to any future employer, and to anyone trying to harm me. And it will for sure be taken out of context. But once individuals have the same privacy rights as corporations I might reconsider my opinion.
Peter Smith, Austin
In fact, it would be even better if a service ENFORCED being anonymous. That is, if anyone broke the policy, by claiming credentials or significance of any kind, they'd get booted. If somebody doesn't start this I will. Heck, I don't even use slashdot non-anonymously, because my ideas are so radical nobody can understand them, and hence they are always rejected (even though I'm right). I have a HECK of lot to share as an anonymous person, that I would very much like to share, but am currently unable to, because the service simply doesn't exist. Somebody needs to start an anonymous service. If somebody doesn't do it I WILL.
I'm not on the internet to be marketed, and insist on privacy. If I had to use a real name for any social forum, I would not use them at all. I am on Facebook under an alias. I am on Google+ under the same alias - maybe that makes me legit to Google. If not, and if my account at Google+ is suspended, I will not use Google+. When I heard about the insistence by Google that users use their real names or lose (any) Google services, I changed my gmail account to another non-Google account and will not use gmail. I can't risk my e-mail, so might as well change it now. Just because a company I've liked a lot demands information that is none of their business, to be made PUBLIC, does not mean I am going to allow my own privacy exploitation. This is a sad thing, really. But rules are rules, and I make the ones I live by.
"There are only two ways of telling the complete truth--anonymously and posthumously." -- Thomas Sowell
Slashdot = Sarcasm
A) The rest of the solution would be to use reputations, cryptographic keys (optionally), and so forth. Reputations seems to be sufficient, most of the time.
B) Well, an easy way would be to prevent one IP address from registering more than one username per, say, a day -- which would be fine for a household of users that want accounts, but not useful to spammers.
If someone is willing to put up the effort to run a botnet and register on that many different accounts -- well, why wouldn't they just use automated software like Rig to create 1,000,000 fake identities that are equally acceptable as a real name (leaving aside impractical requirements like presenting a passport to get an account). Not much you can do to stop someone determined enough to spam, but then you just rely on reputation to weed out the bad accounts, as per A) above.
Yes, we need to be able to construct, use and respect pseudonyms. Please consider the case of Why_the_lucky_stiff in this context: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_the_lucky_stiff
No, he is not a troll, he is right. People do aimlessly follow. Why else was there vandalism and chaos? Look at the student riots in London.
Slashdot needs Geekcode | Can anyone recommend any good SCIFI? My tastes: Foundation, Startide Rising, CITY, Ringworld,
The true purpose of a name is to tie posts together. So the reader can trust that two separate posts are from the same person. Once that is established, then it doesn't matter wether a name is fake or not, just so long as it is used consistently.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/02/16/945768/-UPDATED:-The-HB-Gary-Email-That-Should-Concern-Us-All
PERTINENT QUOTES/EXCERPTS:
"According to an embedded MS Word document found in one of the HBGary emails, it involves creating an army of sockpuppets, with sophisticated "persona management" software that allows a small team of only a few people to appear to be many, while keeping the personas from accidentally cross-contaminating each other. Then, to top it off, the team can actually automate some functions so one persona can appear to be an entire Brooks Brothers riot online... And all of this is for the purposes of infiltration, data mining, and (here's the one that really worries me) ganging up on bloggers, commenters and otherwise "real" people to smear enemies and distort the truth... "
and
"They are talking about creating the illusion of consensus. And consensus is a powerful persuader... And another thing, this is just one little company of assholes. I can't believe there aren't others doing this already. From oil companies, political campaigns, PR firms, you name it. Public opinion means big bucks. And let's face it, what these guys are talking about is easy."
and
"To the extent that the propaganda technique known as "Bandwagon" is an effective form of persuasion, which it definitely is, the ability for a few people to infiltrate a blog or social media site and appear to be many people, all taking one position in a debate, all agreeing, for example, that so and so is not credible, or a crook, is an incredibly powerful weapon."
---
* I'd suggest reading the whole article in the link I put up above & not only because of the quotes I pulled from it to get your attention here, but also because it largely BACKS THE FACT THAT EVEN PSEUDONYMS DON'T MATTER, because they're easy to create via alternate email accounts, TOR endpoint proxies usage, OR anonymous proxy server usage on the part of those seeking to be "many from 1"!
(Yes, I'd read that folks - because it MAY ADVERSELY AFFECT YOU ONE DAY ALSO & be "levelled against you" (I hope not)... & I KNOW I've had it happen to me, here, & others spots online (I busted clone52431/clone53421 & others doing it in fact, the "trolltalk.com" pack of admitted trolls around here in fact)).
APK
P.S.=> That's for anyone that tries to say I am "full of it", etc./et al - though I know that most of you KNOW this type of crap really does go on online, & how/when/where/why IF NOT BY WHOM as well...
... apk
that's not a solution.
People need privacy because we all have something to hide. Moreover, one of the great things about the "post anonymously" feature on /. is that people can say things they don't want on their permanent publication history.
Before you can speak truth to power, you must be able to speak to power.
We shouldn't overlook the fact that there are short-term pseudonyms and long-term pseudonyms. Short-term names are used to post to internet forums when "anonymous" isn't an option, or they're chosen to be witty or funny or something like that. The poster has nothing invested in that particular name, and so doesn't care if people associate that name with douchebaggery, or even if that name is banned or blacklisted. Then there are long-term online pseudonyms, alternate identities which people create over the course of months or years. The owner of such a pseudonym is going to treat it with respect, possibly with more respect than their own identity because that identity's reputation depends solely on how it behaves online. These are the identities which people are fighting to use in Google+ and Facebook and so forth, and there aren't any strong rational reasons to keep them out.
The 'Nickname' field currently has some guidance text, which explains that it will not be shown on your profile, but may be used in other services (whatever that means).
If someone is looking for you by nickname, then this won't help them confirm that they have found the correct profile.
I don't advocate real name policies, but this doesn't mean the problems with using real names shouldn't be fixed if possible. For example, remember the Blizzard real name fiasco? Guess what this article uses as an example?