Anonymity vs accountability - a balanced view (maybe?)

[Johan Helsingius]

> Folks who have watched USENET for any appreciable length of time know
> that reason is not highly prized there.  Volume is.
> 
> The self-apponted gods of the net can't stop us, they can only bitch
> about us.  Let them.
> 
> This is no different than any other USENET issue.  The only way to win
> is not to play.

I have been trying to do that. But...

Unfortunately they *can* stop a lot of us. Let's take anon.penet.fi as
an example. A poor 386 box playing sitting duck for anyone who really
wants to flood it (and Karl Kleinpaste, among others, has spoken about
doing this on news.admin.policy). The other thing is that in some
official circles news.admin.policy is regarded as some kind of
semi-authority. If that group reaches a consensus to ban anon postings
I would get hassled by at least the academic network in Finland, for
"causing Finland a bad name on international networks". It wouldn't stop
me, but might make my life a bit unconfortable. And it has managed to
stop almost every anonymous posting service to date.

	Julf