3 ms·

Just to be clear here, Google and Facebook can and do track everywhere I go, and a lot of what I say aloud to other people, but they are now complaining about r

Just to be clear here, Google and Facebook can and do track everywhere I go, and a lot of what I say aloud to other people, but they are now complaining about registering your online identity? The internet in its current form is broken let's face it. It's way way too easy to anonymously attack others or to deceive others. Seemingly every day I read about some bank or company which was hacked or a radical terrorist who became radicalized online. Right now everyone is running around online wearing black ski masks. You don't know me and I don't know you and we have very little (legal) means of verifying who the other person actually is. Maybe I live in Macedonia and get paid to post devil's advocate replies. I would honestly be happier if we just had a national ID tied to our internet access. I sort of wonder if Internet 1 will have to break before we create a better implementation.

ashark 10y ago
... or we can have more anonymity and people can stop trying to make a buck by disclosing who they actually are to the entire world online (remember when that was considered obviously stupid and only a moron or n00b would do it?). Then we get to keep the good sides of anonymity, and the worst parts of online abuse go away.
narrowrail 10y ago
>I would honestly be happier if we just had a national ID tied to our internet access. I sort of wonder if Internet 1 will have to break before we create a better implementation. As a US citizen, this is truly offensive. It's as if you have no understanding of the government structure and history of The United States of America. We have 50 sovereign states, and this independence has allowed the state of New York to ban fracking and the state of Colorado to legalize cannabis. Not to mention that you just laid out what I would refer to as a police state. I believe you should read the Federalist Papers and the Anti-Federalist Papers, and think more carefully about what you proposed.
- dforrestwilson1 10y ago
  So be offended and down-vote me for expressing my opinion then? What do you think a social security number is exactly? You seem to be confusing identification with independence. I have read both papers thank you.
  - SomeStupidPoint 10y ago
    Social security is not a national ID, though it's often used (badly) as one. I didn't downvote your original post, but I will say that many of us don't share your view: we love freedom and aren't willing to so blithely trade it away. Anonymous speech is the backbone of American freedom, and has been since the founding of the nation. Some of us are willing to have Civil War 2 before we let the government take that enshrined right away.
    - dforrestwilson1 10y ago
      Free speech definitely. It's enshrined in our constitution. Anonymous speech though? I don't see any amendments about that. If you believe you are anonymous now, then I don't believe you have been paying attention to what the government has been able to do legally for the past 15 years.
      - SomeStupidPoint 10y ago
        The Supreme Court has decided repeatedly that the right to speech includes the right to anonymous speech, and that has been the understanding from the beginning. Anonymous speech is essential to free political discourse. I don't believe that this account is anonymous, but that's different than prohibiting any account from being anonymous. There are lots of relatively easy ways to be anonymous (in a city) against even state level actors (for the purposes of publishing; hiding that you exist as a person is harder). They're not free, but we're talking $50-200 in equipment, which nearly anyone could get ahold of. I like to think I have a reasonable understanding of what the government is and isn't capable of doing, and Id point out that the last 15 years has also seen a transition from critics of surveillance speaking calmly about their concerns to filing lawsuits and hardening infrastructure against the government. The government hasn't been alone in ratcheting up their efforts, and it is indeed deeply disturbing that it seems we're on track for a showdown. Lots of people would be hurt if it came to Civil War 2: Cyberwar Boogaloo, yet how can we call ourselves Americans or patriots if we just throw away the core principles of the nation? Other people have laid down their lives to defend that freedom, and it is our obligation now to defend it with the same passion.
- sdenton4 10y ago
  I'm a USian, and find the resistance to national ID pretty nonsensical. We've got a patchwork of id in the States, using driver's license and ssn as proxies for identification. If you're on the road, people often won't recognise your Nebraska state ID if they haven't seen one before. Hell, I've had supermarkets refuse my passport when buying beer... And meanwhile there are a pile of states making it increasingly onerous to get id in order to limit voting. Having a coherent strategy for id doesn't preclude banning fracking NY. It also doesn't imply that the government will require access to your social media accounts, or use tanks to investigate overdue parking tickets, both of which we seem to be running towards without a national ID...

ashark 10y ago

... or we can have more anonymity and people can stop trying to make a buck by disclosing who they actually are to the entire world online (remember when that was considered obviously stupid and only a moron or n00b would do it?). Then we get to keep the good sides of anonymity, and the worst parts of online abuse go away.

narrowrail 10y ago

>I would honestly be happier if we just had a national ID tied to our internet access. I sort of wonder if Internet 1 will have to break before we create a better implementation. As a US citizen, this is truly offensive. It's as if you have no understanding of the government structure and history of The United States of America. We have 50 sovereign states, and this independence has allowed the state of New York to ban fracking and the state of Colorado to legalize cannabis. Not to mention that you just laid out what I would refer to as a police state. I believe you should read the Federalist Papers and the Anti-Federalist Papers, and think more carefully about what you proposed.

dforrestwilson1 10y ago
So be offended and down-vote me for expressing my opinion then? What do you think a social security number is exactly? You seem to be confusing identification with independence. I have read both papers thank you.
- SomeStupidPoint 10y ago
  Social security is not a national ID, though it's often used (badly) as one. I didn't downvote your original post, but I will say that many of us don't share your view: we love freedom and aren't willing to so blithely trade it away. Anonymous speech is the backbone of American freedom, and has been since the founding of the nation. Some of us are willing to have Civil War 2 before we let the government take that enshrined right away.
  - dforrestwilson1 10y ago
    Free speech definitely. It's enshrined in our constitution. Anonymous speech though? I don't see any amendments about that. If you believe you are anonymous now, then I don't believe you have been paying attention to what the government has been able to do legally for the past 15 years.
    - SomeStupidPoint 10y ago
      The Supreme Court has decided repeatedly that the right to speech includes the right to anonymous speech, and that has been the understanding from the beginning. Anonymous speech is essential to free political discourse. I don't believe that this account is anonymous, but that's different than prohibiting any account from being anonymous. There are lots of relatively easy ways to be anonymous (in a city) against even state level actors (for the purposes of publishing; hiding that you exist as a person is harder). They're not free, but we're talking $50-200 in equipment, which nearly anyone could get ahold of. I like to think I have a reasonable understanding of what the government is and isn't capable of doing, and Id point out that the last 15 years has also seen a transition from critics of surveillance speaking calmly about their concerns to filing lawsuits and hardening infrastructure against the government. The government hasn't been alone in ratcheting up their efforts, and it is indeed deeply disturbing that it seems we're on track for a showdown. Lots of people would be hurt if it came to Civil War 2: Cyberwar Boogaloo, yet how can we call ourselves Americans or patriots if we just throw away the core principles of the nation? Other people have laid down their lives to defend that freedom, and it is our obligation now to defend it with the same passion.
sdenton4 10y ago
I'm a USian, and find the resistance to national ID pretty nonsensical. We've got a patchwork of id in the States, using driver's license and ssn as proxies for identification. If you're on the road, people often won't recognise your Nebraska state ID if they haven't seen one before. Hell, I've had supermarkets refuse my passport when buying beer... And meanwhile there are a pile of states making it increasingly onerous to get id in order to limit voting. Having a coherent strategy for id doesn't preclude banning fracking NY. It also doesn't imply that the government will require access to your social media accounts, or use tanks to investigate overdue parking tickets, both of which we seem to be running towards without a national ID...