8.3.1. Why is anonymity so important? - It allows escape from past, an often-essential element of straighening out (an important function of the Western frontier, the French Foreign Legion, etc., and something we are losing as the dossiers travel with us wherever we go) - It allows new and diverse types of opinions, as noted below - More basically, anonymity is important because identity is not as important as has been made out in our dossier society. To wit, if Alice wishes to remain anonymous or pseudonymous to Bob, Bob cannot "demand" that she provide here "real" name. It's a matter of negotiation between them. (Identity is not free...it is a credential like any other and cannot be demanded, only negotiated.) - Voting, reading habits, personal behavior...all are examples where privacy (= anonymity, effectively) are critical. The next section gives a long list of reasons for anonymity. 8.3.2. What's the difference between anonymity and pseudonymity? + Not much, at one level...we often use the term "digital pseudonym" in a strong sense, in which the actual identity cannot be deduced easily - this is "anonymity" in a certain sense - But at another level, a pseudonym carries reputations, credentials, etc., and is _not_ "anonymous" - people use pseudonyms sometimes for whimsical reasons (e.g., "From spaceman.spiff@calvin.hobbes.org Sep 6, 94 06:10:30"), sometimes to keep different mailing lists separate (different personnas for different groups), etc. 8.3.3. Downsides of anonymity - libel and other similar dangers to reputations + hit-and-runs actions (mostly on the Net) + on the other hand, such rantings can be ignored (KILL file) - positive reputations - accountability based on physical threats and tracking is lost + Practical issue. On the Cypherpunks list, I often take "anonymous" messages less seriously. - They're often more bizarre and inflammatory than ordinary posts, perhaps for good reason, and they're certainly harder to take seriously and respond to. This is to be expected. (I should note that some pseudonyms, such as Black Unicorn and Pr0duct Cypher, have established reputable digital personnas and are well worth replying to.) - repudiation of debts and obligations + infantile flames and run-amok postings - racism, sexism, etc. - like "Rumormonger" at Apple? - but these are reasons for pseudonym to be used, where the reputation of a pseudonym is important + Crimes...murders, bribery, etc. - These are dealt with in more detail in the section on crypto anarchy, as this is a major concern (anonymous markets for such services) 8.3.4. "How will privacy and anonymity be attacked?" - the downsides just listed are often cited as a reason we can't have "anonymity" - like so many other "computer hacker" items, as a tool for the "Four Horsemen": drug-dealers, money-launderers, terrorists, and pedophiles. - as a haven for illegal practices, e.g., espionage, weapons trading, illegal markets, etc. + tax evasion ("We can't tax it if we can't see it.") - same system that makes the IRS a "silent partner" in business transactions and that gives the IRS access to-- and requires--business records + "discrimination" - that it enables discrimination (this _used_ to be OK) - exclusionary communities, old boy networks 8.3.5. "How will random accusations and wild rumors be controlled in anonymous forums?" - First off, random accusations and hearsay statements are the norm in modern life; gossip, tabloids, rumors, etc. We don't worry obsessively about what to do to stop all such hearsay and even false comments. (A disturbing trend has been the tendency to sue, or threaten suits. And increasingly the attitude is that one can express _opinions_, but not make statements "unless they can be proved." That's not what free speech is all about!) - Second, reputations matter. We base our trust in statements on a variety of things, including: past history, what others say about veracity, external facts in our possession, and motives. 8.3.6. "What are the legal views on anonymity?" + Reports that Supreme Court struck down a Southern law requiring pamphlet distributors to identify themselves. 9I don't have a cite on this.) - However, Greg Broiles provided this quote, from _Talley v. State of California_, 362 U.S. 60, 64-65, 80 S.Ct. 536, 538-539 (1960) : "Anonymous pamphlets, leaflets, brochures and even books have played an important role in the progress of mankind. Persecuted groups and sects from time to time throughout history have been able to criticize oppressive practices and laws either anonymously or not at all." Greg adds: "It later says "Even the Federalist Papers, written in favor of the adoption of our Constitution, were published under fictitious names. It is plain that anonymity has sometimes been assumed for the most constructive purposes." [Greg Broiles, 1994-04-12] + And certainly many writers, journalists, and others use pseudonyms, and have faced no legal action. - Provided they don't use it to evade taxes, evade legal judgments, commit fraud, etc. - I have heard (no cites) that "going masked for the purpose of going masked" is illegal in many jurisdictions. Hard to believe, as many other disguises are just as effective and are presumably not outlawed (wigs, mustaches, makeup, etc.). I assume the law has to do with people wearning ski masks and such in "inappropriate" places. Bad law, if real. 8.3.7. Some Other Uses for Anonymous Systems: + Groupware and Anonymous Brainstorming and Voting - systems based on Lotus Notes and designed to encourage wild ideas, comments from the shy or overly polite, etc. - these systems could initially start in meeting and then be extended to remote sites, and eventually to nationwide and international forums - the NSA may have a heart attack over these trends... + "Democracy Wall" for encrypted messages - possibly using time-delayed keys (where even the public key, for reading the plaintext, is not distributed for some time) - under the cover of an electronic newspaper, with all of the constitutional protections that entails: letters to the editor can be anonymous, ads need not be screened for validity, advertising claims are not the responsibility of the paper, etc. + Anonymous reviews and hypertext (for new types of journals) + the advantages - honesty - increased "temperature" of discourse + disadvantages - increased flames - intentional misinformation + Store-and-forward nodes - used to facillitate the anonymous voting and anonymous inquiry (or reading) systems - Chaum's "mix" + telephone forwarding systems, using digital money to pay for the service - and TRMs? + Fiber optics + hard to trace as millions of miles are laid, including virtually untraceable lines inside private buildings - suppose government suspects encrypted packets are going in to the buildings of Apple...absent any direct knowledge of crimes being aided and abetted, can the government demand a mapping of messages from input to output? - That is, will the government demand full disclosure of all routings? - high bandwidth means many degrees of freedom for such systems to be deployed + Within systems, i.e., user logs on to a secure system and is given access to his own processor - in a 288-processor system like the NCR/ATT 3600 (or even larger) - under his cryptonym he can access certain files, generate others, and deposit message untraceably in other mail locations that other agents or users can later retrieve and forward.... - in a sense, he can use this access to launch his own agent processes (anonymity is essential for many agent- based systems, as is digital money) + Economic incentives for others to carry mail to other sites... - further diffusion and hiding of the true functions + Binary systems (two or more pieces needed to complete the message) - possibly using viruses and worms to handle the complexities of distributing these messages - agents may handle the transfers, with isolation between the agents, so routing cannot be traced (think of scene in "Double-Crossed" where bales of marijuana are passed from plane to boat to chopper to trucks to cars) - this protects against conspiracies + Satellites + physical security, in that the satellites would have to be shot down to halt the broadcasting + scenario: WARC (or whomever) grants broadcast rights in 1996 to some country or consortium, which then accepts any and all paying customers - cold cash - the BCCI of satellite operators + VSATs, L-Band, Satellites, Low-Earth Orbit - Very Small Aperture Terminals - L-Band...what frequency? + LEO, as with Motorola's Iridium, offers several advantages - lower-power receivers and smaller antennas - low cost to launch, due to small size and lower need for 10-year reliability - avoidance of the "orbital slot" licensing morass (though I presume some licensing is still involved) - can combine with impulse or nonsinusoidal transmissions 8.3.8. "True Names" 8.3.9. Many ways to get pseudonyms: - Telnet to "port 25" or use SLIP connections to alter domain name; not very secure - Remailers 8.3.10. "How is Pseudonymity Compromised?" - slip-ups in style, headers, sig blocks, etc. - inadvertent revealing, via the remailers - traffic analysis of remailers (not very likely, at least not for non-NSA adversaries) - correlations, violations of the "indistinguishability principle" 8.3.11. Miscellaneous Issues - Even digital pseudonyms can get confusing...someone recently mistook "Tommy the Tourist" for being such an actual digital pseudonym (when of course that is just attached to all posts going througha particular remailer).
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