-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
The Zimmerman prank---I'm sure not funny for him---hardens my line further against anonymity online. At its best, as here, it is an unholy nuisance.
Interesting. The recent thread on alt.security re someone who mentioned thoughts of suicide on Usenet and was held for 48 hours' psychiatric evaluation hardens my line in favor of anonymity online. In any event, "street tech" cares little for what you or I think. As I see it, we've got two choices - anonymity or pseudonymity. (To be more accurate, we can have both, or just pseudonymity.) Let's say we choose to ban anonymity online. How shall we do this? What political body will we go to and propose a regulation or legislation mandating Real Names for messages? The United Nations? The net.cabal? How will we stop folks from setting up accounts with names other than their "real names" .. or from stealing others' accounts .. or from forging mail? A $1000 PC can run Linux and SLIP an look to the rest of the net like any other IP-connected site; how will we enforce our rules on those systems? -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.3a iQCVAgUBLZ95dX3YhjZY3fMNAQEjSgQArODShMLu5RyOufwc5RAFVh+T9QflHnu9 C/9tKaEYNm1QIMpBqX9Qq5RvBJUuw2T0dhR4JkZS5Ym/U/HM3h0Oow7n+gwSfkUv SWTTiPXYraEem9mp/rFyIIm4KOx3T4ARvDgueiUc3+hGIZbio6+1ReLIGSiDSnJC GsfCj7Sr7fk= =SWQZ -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----