Browser Firm That Required Users To Confirm Their Real Life Identity Shut Down After Its Employees Were Threatened (xconomy.com)

New submitter nleskovic shares a report: When Authenticated Reality launched last year, it seemed that the company had struck gold in terms of market demand and fit. The Austin-based startup had developed a Web browser that would require users to prove they are who they say they are. Users would have to sign up for an account -- scanning their driver's license and taking a photo -- in order to download the browser, which would sit "on top" of the Internet, said Chris Ciabarra, Authenticated Reality's co-founder, in an interview last year. "Everybody knows who everybody is," he said. So, when Facebook announced this week that its site was, once again, home to inauthentic pages and accounts designed to influence the outcome of the upcoming midterm Congressional elections, I contacted Ciabarra to find out how the company was doing. But, he said Wednesday that he had shut down the startup just a month after its debut. He said people who had heard about Authenticated Reality from media reports were visiting the firm's offices in California and threatening employees. (The addresses were listed on the website.) "It was getting kind of scary," he told me. "They were thinking we were taking their freedom away because they had to sign up using a driver's license. They thought we were trying to follow them."

Comments

Yeah, no, fuck them and that shit

[Rick Schumann]

The day that I have to use my real, legal name on the Internet no matter what it is I'm doing, and no anonymity allowed, will be the LAST day I ever use the Internet, and I know I'm FAR from being alone in this.

Re:Yeah, no, fuck them and that shit

[jellomizer]

Well Rick, it is complicated problem.
A lot of sites, we really should be able to preserve our identities, at least internally so there is actual repercussion on what we say and do. There are other sites where anonymity is key. Because you get to say whatever you feel like without a personal repercussion.

Re:Yeah, no, fuck them and that shit

[Anonymous Coward]

A lot of sites, we really should be able to preserve our identities, at least internally so there is actual repercussion on what we say and do.

Bullshit. If something on the scale of Equifax can happen without consequences, then granting access to the power to track every tin-plated webmaster with delusions of godhood while simultaneously having swiss cheese for security is to grant such a level of oppression on the internet that is beyond fathomable. Nothing about any software solution somehow magically removes the issue of bots hacking others accounts. The actual repercussions of most people on most sites is linked to each identity they create and removal of such is sufficient without affixing it to a single, unchangeable one. For the rest? That's what good moderation/reputation systems are for.

Honestly, what you suggest only makes sense if you presume that all 4 billion plus people on the internet can/will be properly managed within any framework to such a degree that there is such a thing as an actual solution; that's just patently absurd when scaling to handle millions properly is a near insurmountable task. It's always going to be band-aid work. The sort of deterrents to include (captchas, ip bans, email verification) are sufficient to block anything but sufficiently crafted bots, and there's nothing that can stop bots either way--bots just are a lot worse when they're tied to a specific id and then suddenly you have to have regular unban services or you fuck people over for life and unban services will be gamed by bots.

Put in the most simple terms, do you believe it is alone sufficient to require ID be presented to stop all crimes off the internet? Even if the ID were unforgeable and unusable to the wrong holder, sufficiently motivated evil people will disregard the consequences just like plenty of people--*cough*Trump*cough*--already say whatever they feel like in the real world. And just like the real world, the actual meaningful enforcement is often more social than legal and with something on the scale of a city/country/world, often the social pressures are near meaningless.

Re:Yeah, no, fuck them and that shit

[Z00L00K]

In most of the life you live you don't have to expose your identity, it's only if you are doing specific things - like purchasing liquor - and even then your identity data is rarely used except to prove your age.

The "need" to prove who you are on the internet on many sites like facebook far exceeds the actual need. A lot of sites don't really require more than an email address to provide your account, and as long as you behave it works good enough.

Here on Slashdot we have ACs and on 4chan most are anonymous. It works mostly aside from a few troublemakers like APK, racists and similar.

Too much control and too little freedom means that development stalls.

Re: Yeah, no, fuck them and that shit

[datavirtue]

Well then don't use the stupid browser.

Re: Yeah, no, fuck them and that shit

[markdavis]

>"Well then don't use the stupid browser."

Easy to say until:

1) The banks suddenly require it
2) Your DMV suddenly requires it
3) Amazon suddenly requires it
4) etc....

And this is over and above the fact that the browser might not work on your platform of choice. So we go from an open web to a proprietary web, just like in the days of IE.... except worse because we somehow expect some company putting out a closed-source binary to be trustworthy.

Re:Yeah, no, fuck them and that shit

[markdavis]

>"In most of the life you live you don't have to expose your identity, it's only if you are doing specific things - like purchasing liquor - and even then your identity data is rarely used except to prove your age."

And that is dead wrong too. You should NOT be required to expose your identity when purchasing liquor or such. You should only be required to PROVE YOUR AGE. And that does NOT mean a retailer should capture/store ANY information about you (name, address, license number, hair color, race, anything), just that they look at your date of birth. And, yet, retailers are, more and more, thinking it is acceptable to "scan" your license or whatnot. Unacceptable.

I had a Target try to do that when I was buying freaking canned air (yes, AIR, you know, dusters for computers) and insisted on scanning my license. I was paying cash. I flatly refused and escalated all the way up to the store manager, who finally admitted there is no law requiring such tracking and let me purchase it anonymously, like it always should be.

People, please stand up for your rights, before you lose them all...

With all due respect

[Anonymous Coward]

Who forced anyone to sign up to this browser? If the people who sign up *want* to interact in an environment where there is no anonymity, that is their right.

Re:With all due respect

[Anonymous Coward]

I am forced to work for Google, classifying images, to access many sites including government websites. Hail recaptcha.

At first, it's optional. If it works, it will become unavoidable.

Re:So I guess you have never bought anything onlin

[Rick Schumann]

Do you think my name really is Rick Schumann? LOL if you do.
Why should what I post here on Slashdot be part of some permanent Public Record attached to my real legal name? So you can hunt me down and threaten me because I said you were a fucktard and should STFU? What about you? Is your real name "Pablo Max"? If so what's to stop me from hunting you down and beating you within an inch of your life because you dared to disagree with me or otherwise annoyed me somehow? What's that, you say, that's just a 'handle' and not your real name? LOL, guess you like you anonymity too, don't you, 'Pablo'? LOL relax I'm not mad at you or threatening you or planning to threaten you, just making a point.

As stated above: 'official' business, and you exercising freedom of speech/freedom of expression on the Internet are two different things entirely. Or are we living in China right now, and every gods-be-damned word we post on the Internet is being scrutinized and 'graded' and being used to leverage our behavior by affecting our actual quality of life? Do you want to live in a world like that? You can see why, if things went that way, I'd dump the Internet over it.

Did you watch that show Seth MacFarlane created, The Orville? Did you see the episode where they found a planet where their supercharged version of social media was literally being used to decide whether people lived or died, literally crowdsourcing justice? An extreme example done to make a point, but would you want to live in a world like that, where one joking statement taken out of context literally ruins your life, because the whole world can see it? Even here in the United States, would you open up a Twitter account under your real name with real address and contact information, then proceed to openly criticize Donald Trump and his administration right to his face? You'd be lucky to live out the week and you know it. That's why the ability to have anonymity on the Internet is important.