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).
By Tim May, see README
HTML by Jonathan Rochkind