An Internet Without Anonymity

Illinois state senator pushes anti-anonymity bill
A recently introduced bill in the Illinois state Senate would require anonymous website comment posters to reveal their identities if they want to keep their comments online.

The bill, called the Internet Posting Removal Act, is sponsored by Illinois state Sen. Ira Silverstein. It states that a “web site administrator upon request shall remove any comments posted on his or her web site by an anonymous poster unless the anonymous poster agrees to attach his or her name to the post and confirms that his or her IP address, legal name, and home address are accurate.”

The Democratic lawmaker’s bill, which does not ask for or clarify requirements from entities requesting the comment removal, would take effect 90 days after becoming law.

Pseudonymous and anonymous comments have long been a critical part of U.S. public discourse, though, and the bill may be on shaky legal ground.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) noted on its website that the “right to anonymous speech is also protected well beyond the printed page.”

“Thus in 2002 the Supreme Court struck down a law requiring proselytizers to register their true names with the mayor’s office before going door-to-door,” wrote EFF, noting that the Supreme Court protects Internet commentary as it does pamphleteering.

The bill is part of a larger trend of lawmakers seeking to censor anonymous online speech.

The New York State Assembly sought the passage of a similar bill in May 2012, and Arizona lawmakers worked to ban Internet trolling altogether in April 2012. Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer signed the bill into law in May 2012, but only after the contentious language was cut.

Local lawmakers took similar action in Tennessee in 2012, when the Shelby County Commission pressed for a court order to reveal the identities of online commentators who posted nearly 9,000 comments on Memphis news site, Commercial Appeal.

Silverstein did not return The Daily Caller’s request for comment.

Long story short, Illinois is trying to pass a bill that forces sites to force it's users to include their identity when posting. I'm not particularly threatened by this bill, but it got me thinking, the internet really is trying to discard the anonymity that is was built upon. I've noticed that Google, YouTube, and most online comments sections would like us to adopt using Facebook or Google profile information to log-in with. Nothing forceful, but major sites do appear to want us to start posting with our Facebooks profiles, or some kind of account that is connected to something we would consider personal.

I think the idea behind this is to encourage people to use some discretion with their speech when posting becasue it has your real identity attached to said message. This would encourage more online chivalry, but it will most definitely encourage more trolling to individuals that come off as targets.

What's you thoughts on the progression of the net?

Just make an account with a "real" name such as Viktor Fukov, Shitface McFuckett or Borat Bagadyev.

Maes said:

Just make an account with a "real" name such as Viktor Fukov, Shitface McFuckett or Borat Bagadyev.

I already have a fake Facebook account for sites that require a Facebook log-in. ;)

I've made an effort to keep my contact information on forums and profiles private, too.

This bill is being pushed in the Illinois State Senate. How could it possibly affect, if passed, websites not hosted in Illinois? What will the Illinois State do if some Portuguese website is refusing to comply with a demand to remove anonymous comments?

Purvis Guntsman reporting in.

Gez said:

This bill is being pushed in the Illinois State Senate. How could it possibly affect, if passed, websites not hosted in Illinois? What will the Illinois State do if some Portuguese website is refusing to comply with a demand to remove anonymous comments?

Yeah, that's why it's obvious that this bill was written by grandpas that don't know a goddamn thing about the internet. And likely, most internet related bills are in a similar situation.

Internet anonymity? What's the point of bragging about it in the first place, when your IP can safely trace your exact location, and it's all by design? Besides that, as it is now, you can't post anything risky on the Internet without being recorded by everything that hosts it. So much for "free speech".

the article said:

trying

And we're done. This will never pass, or everyone's gonna move offshore.

printz said:

Internet anonymity? What's the point of bragging about it in the first place, when your IP can safely trace your exact location

You can work around that by using proxies as well as by connecting from a subnet which shares the same IP address for the outside world with hundreds of other people.

printz said:

your IP can safely trace your exact location

Yeah right. My location has been pinpointed "exactly" variously, between Athens and Turkey, with me being in neither :-p

With "quick and dirty" geolocation services like the ones used in website widgets so you look cool and 1337, at most you can get the country right with reasonable accuracy (99%, and I'd say even lower). W

Only with a deep traceroute and analysis, based on knowledge of a provider's servers, DSLAMs, routing centres etc. you might get it 99.9% right down to the town, but most "scarecrow" IP logging doesn't bother performing minute-long traceroutes for every user, nor could it afford to.

you can safely trace my IP to Tor most of the time. :P

Technician said:

I've noticed that Google, YouTube, and most online comments sections would like us to adopt using Facebook or Google profile information to log-in with. Nothing forceful, but major sites do appear to want us to start posting with our Facebooks profiles, or some kind of account that is connected to something we would consider personal.

I'm more concerned by that trend than any legislative attempt to strip me of my online anonymity.

This would encourage more online chivalry

I don't mind the suit of armour, but get that damned horse out of the house!

What's you thoughts on the progression of the net?

It's disappointing. Lacking social cues like age, gender, race, looks, body language, nationality, speech mannerisms, all those little things twisting our perception makes discussions more abstract, with a stronger focus on what is said and less focus on who's saying it. While the Internet isn't perfect, it's still better, and you get to have insightful exchanges with people you would never interact with in real life.

Zuckerberg's vision sounds dystopian to me. A World Wide Web where everyone knows everyone discourages people from speaking up if their opinion differs from their peers. It promotes groupthink and punishes diversity.

Not all that worried over what is actually happening. Tech gurus still grossly overestimate the importance the Internet has in the daily life of the average person, but the philosophy itself and the continued attempts from big players to push the web in that direction are disappointing.

Phml said:

Zuckerberg's vision sounds dystopian to me. A World Wide Web where everyone knows everyone discourages people from speaking up if their opinion differs from their peers. It promotes groupthink and punishes diversity.

Indeed. I already had my arrogant diversity punished on his damned invention a year ago. It sucks.

Phml said:

Zuckerberg's vision sounds dystopian to me. A World Wide Web where everyone knows everyone discourages people from speaking up if their opinion differs from their peers. It promotes groupthink and punishes diversity.

Facebook already has algorithms that show you things your "friends" post you're more likely to agree with or relate to; works the other way too, people with whom you're "friends" who generally think the way you do are more likely to see your posts in their feed. And the more "friends" you have, the more favored the feed is to people with similar interests. So chances are if being "different" is a problem on your Facebook it's more that the people with whom you've decided to "friend" are just shitty compatibility to you anyway than that you're being punished for being different.

This kind of thing is what makes me laugh about the grouchy old coots that condemn Facebook because of it's apparently annoying userbase. A lot of idiots use facebook, but you know how you avoid them? Don't add them. Add cool people, like me. And Doomguy.

As someone that lives in Illinois... we already have laws against cyber impersonation. My group of 6 friends has gotten harassed by some chick posing as 12 people on Facebook, because my friend decided to put his dick in the wrong chick. Its been 3 years this coming June and she still tries to contact one of us about once a month. Luckily my friends a year ago smartened up and realized just don't talk to anyone new.

A lot of us have even stopped being friends over this stalker seeping into our lives. She found out public records of us and would have porn catalogs sent to our houses, call our places of work and harass us or try to get us fired. We took it to the cops 2 years ago when she started harassing 6 people instead of just 2.

She'd setup websites, Facebooks and Twitters to get us all harassed by other people to suck in more people against the 6 of us. Why the 6 of us? Because she wanted to get revenge and get the 5 of his friends to hate the guy that slept with her. We already didn't like him all that well in general. None of us have talked to him for at least a year yet she's trying :-)

Long story short.... people will just make up names for commenting. And well we're victims of having our info online.

geo said:

Long story short.... people will just make up names for commenting.

Or borrow someone else's from the phonebook and post from public places, like wifi hotspots or internet kiosks.

PROXIES
PROXIES EVERYWHERE.

I wish tor could work on a place like ebay so we wouldn't have such an ecommerce tyranny of incompetent reverse-robinhood propaganda blasting kafkaesque evil, but ebay knows your:
name, address, bank account, credit card, cookie, flash cookie, exact computer you're using, they want your social security number, telephone number, hmm.. what else. "know your customer" bitchiz (so you can ban them)

All well, maybe as Brad Spangler thinks, demand for counter-economic (black market) agorist court or dispute resolution systems could result in the arrest of the criminals who claim authority in our current system.

To play devil's advocate, I guess interesting stuff could be possible if the internet somehow worked in a way where each individual couldn't have sock puppets. Like imagine some movie/music/etc rating site or something. Each individual maintains a list of all movies they've watched and sorts them based on favorite to least favorite, then the site computes all that info to find the favorite of the whole hivemind etc (which would probably be sturgeon's law popular crap but the point is, in a sock puppet free version of that, nobody could make fake accounts to falsely boost the ratings of a film they personally created etc). Or if you like obscure stuff the site could calculate recommendations based on what other people who like your obscure stuff also like.

But yeah, having pseudonyms and attaching reputation to those seems a good way. Anyone should be able to "restart" with a new pseudonym, just at the cost of starting reputation over at 0. I hate bans anywhere, especially permanent bans; go to north korea. The internet should just streisand effect (the internet interprets censorship as damage and routes around it) any ban anywhere.

The law sounds pretty pointless anyway. Anonymity on the net is already more or less a joke unless you're a security expert or an equivalent "net freak". The main issue isn't in laws but in the general user's relative smallness before institutions and companies that control or manage the net and online information, which you can do little or nothing about. On one side of the coin a lack of privacy, on the other a hideous abuse of it.

Phml said:

Zuckerberg's vision sounds dystopian to me. A World Wide Web where everyone knows everyone discourages people from speaking up if their opinion differs from their peers. It promotes groupthink and punishes diversity.

...so in what does it differ from the provincialism, apparent conformism and bigotry you find normally in everyday life personal interactions, even in the most self-defined "liberal" societies? IRL, you have to be careful what you say to whom, because everything you say is immediately associated with your name and face (which can sometimes receive punches for saying something too much...)

Technician said:

This would encourage more online chivalry

I've never bought into this "people are more offensive and belligerent on the internet" postulation. Assholes are assholes, and they exist and express themselves with or without an internet connection.

So in the unlikely event that this stupid idea came to pass, I don't think anything would change. Nor should it change; free speech encompasses someone talking like a complete dickhead to others, and to censor it isn't just unconstitutional to Americans, but it's more of an affront to everyone's liberty than being chastised, berated or insulted by someone who you could just ignore.

DoomUK said:

free speech encompasses someone talking like a complete dickhead to others

There are so many "gotchas" and exceptions to this liberty, that it's not even worth debating. Try talking like a complete dickhead in the wrong place at the wrong time, and see how "well" your "right" to free speech will be tutelated ;-)

Hell, even stating that you support the "wrong" football team at the wrong place will get you a taste of "liberty" that you won't soon forget (that of your own blood and perhaps teeth).

The general limitation to the application of free speech seems to go somewhat like that: "Everybody's got a right to free speech, as long as they don't say things that certain people might not like".

Orangestar said:

PROXIES
PROXIES EVERYWHERE.

Yeah right. They either cost money or are too unreliable.

Except for sites that force anonymity, I go by the same name throughout the whole Internet.

I have nothing to hide, so I don't see a problem :)

Every now and then this and similar wacky state-based bills make it into the media, and oftentimes they're treated as inevitable. It's silly sensationalism from a most likely butthurt low-level politician who wants people to stop being so mean.

printz said:

Yeah right. They either cost money or are too unreliable.

???

Coopersville said:

Except for sites that force anonymity, I go by the same name throughout the whole Internet.

I have nothing to hide, so I don't see a problem :)

I feel the same. I usually even provide my real name when available. Hell, I'll give y'all my address. I'd be flattered if someone came and stalked me.