Earthlink to Test Caller ID for E-Mail

[Steve Furlong]

On Sat, 2004-03-06 at 10:32, R. A. Hettinga wrote:
> At 2:21 PM +0100 3/6/04, Eugen Leitl wrote:
> >Facultative strong authentication doesn't nuke anonynimity.
> 
> Perfect pseudonymity is functional anonymity, in my book...

No, pseudonymity lets others identify messages on, say c-punks, as
coming from a particular sender. Reputation can work here, even with no
meat-space identity attached. Anonymity means reputation can't work, so
each message has to be taken on its own, with no history to give clues
as to bias or reliability. I certainly wouldn't want to have to wade
through all the traffic, wondering which from Eugen and which from the
Australian-shithead-who-shall-not-be-named. Yah, it's easy enough to
tell once you've read the message, but I'd rather filter it out on the
"From:" level.

I realize that your, RAH's, "book" mostly deals with financial
transactions. In the very narrow domain of transactions which don't
require any trust, anonymity should be as useful as pseudonymity. In the
more general case, I'd think true anonymity would be a handicap. eg, I'm
certainly not going to send my hard-earned e-money to the account of
some untraceable joker in exchange for his promise to deliver me a
week's worth of groceries.