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The author confuses consequences with anonymity. The reason why I don't run up and call random people cunts is the risk that I might get punched. ID is only o

The author confuses consequences with anonymity. The reason why I don't run up and call random people cunts is the risk that I might get punched. ID is only one part of that. However bulletproof ID does not yield security. What it does do is allow people/governments to persecute people with much better precision. The problem of anonymous information sources has been around for millenia. There is a reason you don't trust the shit the drunk bloke spouts at the pub: its mostly bollocks. The main problem is that normal people, right up to the news producers have suspended their critical faculties.(for different reasons) "a website I've never seen before, has lots of adverts for escorts and MILFs said that something happened" its not happened. "a rumour on twitter said..." its a fucking rumour. Find the source and it might become fact. Until then, its the same as hearing it in the fucking playground. Now, if you're a news producer, I know you want to beat your main rival. But each time you don't bother to fact check, the value of your news drops.

jstimpfle 10y ago
Only slightly related, there is no clearly defined concept of IDs ("identity"). It's not a technical issue. Identification is a tricky issue, influenced by human, social, and political decisions. It's also very easy to trick identification routines. A very practical example is email addresses for groups or organizations. It's not clear what's identified by such an administrative email address. The people who read it and send in its name? Some more abstract concept? Depends on the situation. I'm too tired to find a better example, but you get the idea... So the best thing is to say, email addresses identify, well, themselves, and also where to route emails to these adresses. You can't build technology without clear concepts. Or with too many, incompatible, concepts for that matter. I don't see a better way than layering (i.e separation of concerns).
CM30 10y ago
100% agreed with the anonymous information sources and people trusting them too much. I mean, look at the gaming press. You wanna why no one takes them seriously? Because they're willing to post just about anything sources be damned so long as it gets clicks. Some guy posting on Twitter or Reddit is almost always front page news for them, and as you point out, the value of their content has basically fell through the floor as a result. Removing anonymity won't fix crap like that.
errantspark 10y ago
I agree that we've got a cultural problem rather than a technical problem with anonymity. I for one love to listen to the drunk bloke at the pub. Sure almost nothing he says makes sense, some of it is wildly offensive. The opportunity to listen in invaluable, and I'd fight tooth and claw for his right to a soapbox. Every once in a while he'll say something that challenges my assumptions, and makes me think long and hard. I model my mind seeking an accurate world view as similar to the simulated annealing algorithm. Without noise in the system it's very easy to get stuck in a local maximum. Without anonymity there's simply too much incentive to stay with the status quo.

jstimpfle 10y ago

Only slightly related, there is no clearly defined concept of IDs ("identity"). It's not a technical issue. Identification is a tricky issue, influenced by human, social, and political decisions. It's also very easy to trick identification routines. A very practical example is email addresses for groups or organizations. It's not clear what's identified by such an administrative email address. The people who read it and send in its name? Some more abstract concept? Depends on the situation. I'm too tired to find a better example, but you get the idea... So the best thing is to say, email addresses identify, well, themselves, and also where to route emails to these adresses. You can't build technology without clear concepts. Or with too many, incompatible, concepts for that matter. I don't see a better way than layering (i.e separation of concerns).

CM30 10y ago

100% agreed with the anonymous information sources and people trusting them too much. I mean, look at the gaming press. You wanna why no one takes them seriously? Because they're willing to post just about anything sources be damned so long as it gets clicks. Some guy posting on Twitter or Reddit is almost always front page news for them, and as you point out, the value of their content has basically fell through the floor as a result. Removing anonymity won't fix crap like that.

errantspark 10y ago

I agree that we've got a cultural problem rather than a technical problem with anonymity. I for one love to listen to the drunk bloke at the pub. Sure almost nothing he says makes sense, some of it is wildly offensive. The opportunity to listen in invaluable, and I'd fight tooth and claw for his right to a soapbox. Every once in a while he'll say something that challenges my assumptions, and makes me think long and hard. I model my mind seeking an accurate world view as similar to the simulated annealing algorithm. Without noise in the system it's very easy to get stuck in a local maximum. Without anonymity there's simply too much incentive to stay with the status quo.