From: "Alan (Miburi-san) Wexelblat" <wex@media.mit.edu>
Date: Mon, 22 Nov 93 18:45:09 PST
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Anonymity on the net
In-Reply-To: <199311230035.QAA09981@mail.netcom.com>
Message-ID: <9311230243.AA27198@media.mit.edu>
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I find myself largely in agreement with Nick Szabo's assertions that too
many people spread too much information about themselves over the Net.

But I wonder about whether or not we will be doing anyone a service by
making encryption and 'Nyms widespread in newsgroups.  It's too long a topic
to tackle all at once, so let me throw out a few opening thoughts.

Case 1) technical postings of a research/white (in the sense of whitenet/
blacknet) nature.  Here anonymity would be a hindrance.  I post in large
part to help my name be known in certain academic circles.  In this case I
would tend to wonder at people who posted anonymously and would (as was
mentioned in this list) tend to discount their information.  In research
circles, name value means a lot.

Case 2) technical postings of a black nature.  Here anonymity is a big help,
as you may have some question about the legality of what you are doing.  But
the question I have is: why post at all?  What gain is there from
publicizing this kind of information?  Perhaps the gain is some assurance of
safety from retaliation from parties who might feel themselves wronged by
what you posted.  In this case, anonymity wins.

Case 3) non-technical postings (social, talk).  Again I wonder what is the
value of anonymity in this case.  To have a social conversation is to build
a community of like-minded people and to contact people whom you want to
relate to in some way.  Anonymity defeats this social building and relation
process.

A counter-response to this might be to say that we want to put privacy in,
not anonymity.  But again, I wonder about this.  If I want my message to be
read only by a certain list of people, why am I posting to a newsgroup
instead of to a mailing list?

There's no point in privatizing the substrate, since anyone can get a client
that will decrypt at the far end.

In sum, I guess I'm somewhat baffled at why one would want to use anonymity
and/or privacy enhancement technology on one's news postings.

--Alan Wexelblat, Reality Hacker, Author, and Cyberspace Bard
Media Lab - Advanced Human Interface Group	wex@media.mit.edu
Voice: 617-258-9168, Pager: 617-945-1842	PUBLIC KEY available by request
"To pleasure!" "To passion!" "To paradise!" "To pain!" "Tonight!"