From: John.Nieder@f33.n125.z1.FIDONET.ORG (John Nieder)
Date: Thu, 25 Feb 93 05:00:34 PST
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Enough's enough already
Message-ID: <5047.2B8CB525@fidogate.FIDONET.ORG>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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 * Reply to msg originally in Cypherpunks                    <INET>

Paul Ferguson writes:

 BK> I know that someone may declare my query as naive, but if you
 BK> feel strongly enough about a topic, why wouldn't you want the
 BK> recipient to know who you are, where you are and who they can respond
 BK> to?

I just had a chilling example of why last month.  Someone who made my
life a living hell (in real life, not cyberspace) "found" me again in a
discussion in a tech newsgroup and sent me a "yoo-hoo!" e-note.  I could
have gone a long time without that.  My identity was irrelevant to the
discussion, but was unfortunately very relevant to making this nasty
little surprise possible.

As the penet.fi helpfile mentions, one of the concerns was for the
privacy of those participating in theraputic discussions on such
touchy subjects as incest and abuse.  In that many theraputic
disciplines stress a confessional mode of treatment, the security
required for persons to "open up" must be (or appear to be) absolute.
These electronic therapy groups may not appeal to you or me, but they
have large followings and seem to serve a useful purpose for some.
Maximum anonymity is desirable for those participants.

I can think of several other very serious reasons for persons to desire
untracable communications, but they go beyond the scope of the matter at
hand.

More to the point, in my experience I have found very little to be
gained by revealing my true identity.  The less known about me, the
better for my personal security.  That's the whole point of the privacy
"movement."  Who I am is nobody's business but mine.

        JN


... "Is it too late to get the Russians to drop a nuke on Washington?"  
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