I'm glad this interesting conversation came up. I apologize for writing this anonymously, but I don't want to do anything to associate my nym with my conventional name. The very act of comparing the actions of the two entities would endanger my anonymity. I use a nym to talk publically about a certain topic that, while it is legal and not really that embarassing, I would rather not have associated with my conventional name. In particular, I don't want my thoughts on this topic to be archived by my conventional name. So I use a nym, and it basically works. I think a really determined person could break my nym even today, but I don't think anyone will ever be that determined and I'm not that worried about it. ericm@lne.com (Eric Murray) writes:
But I have some problems/questions about using a nym: 1. reputation.
Yes, each nym (and your conventional name, which in some ways is just another nym) has to have its own, independent reputation. I don't know any way around this. The whole point of a nym is so the actions of your nym don't affect the reputation of your conventional name. You could tell trusted people about the association between your nym and your conventional name, but you're compromising your nym in doing that. You have to develop a threat model - how seriously do you want to keep your anonymity?
2. does it (a nym) really help?
A perfectly secure one does, by definition - if no one can ever associate your nym with your conventional name, in particular if no one knows that you have a nym, then there is no problem. The question is, how close are we today to that perfection? Getting lots of mail from remailers currently looks supicious.
But if my nym is investigated for some future crime (fuck Exon) and my nym isn't secure enough to protect my RealName, it will be a liability.
Yes. One thing to remember is that a response block associates an email address with a public key for ever and all time. To be safer, you need to not let mail from the nym go back to a private email box. True anonymity is inconvenient.