Black Unicorn writes:
You would have preferred that I quote the entire thread and then add my comment? Or is it the lack of accompanying detail in the comment that you resent?
It's mainly the lack of detail. As you and others point out, any "Fred Jones" might be a covert pseudonym, and even if it isn't, I may know equally little about its holder as abut a "Black Unicorn". So yes, it's a matter of reputations rather than true names. Obvious anonymity just makes it more noticeable.
[further details about Black Unicorn]
Somehow, this makes your posting about the existence of Liechtenstein numbered accounts much more plausible, even though I have no practical way of verifying any of the circumstantial detail which (to coin a phrase) adds verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative. I can't put my finger on why this is.
Should you be more interested in detail, I would be happy to discuss what I can in person, by telephone, or in encrypted E-Mail, in descending order of the detail I would be willing to disclose.
Even though you don't really know who I am? I mostly lurk here, but although I'm moderately active on a couple of other mailing lists and newsgroups, even if you looked at what I write there and verified the info in my .sig, it seems to me you'd need to do some further investigation to be safe in making potentially job-threatening disclosures to me over any of these media. This raises the question of how we come to trust people in RL situations where obvious anonymity is not present. In short, why should we believe anything that anyone says at all? If we don't check their claims by personal observation, why believe them? If we can check them, why not do so instead? How is a reputation for trustworthiness built in the first place? I'm just rambling, so I'll shut up for now. -- ____ Richard Kennaway __\_ / School of Information Systems Internet: jrk@sys.uea.ac.uk \ X/ University of East Anglia uucp: ...mcsun!ukc!uea-sys!jrk \/ Norwich NR4 7TJ, U.K.