There's a rather rich spectrum of solutions, and too-often often the debate becomes a binary of comprehensively-identified versus uncontrolled-anonymity". By cl

There's a rather rich spectrum of solutions, and too-often often the debate becomes a binary of comprehensively-identified versus uncontrolled-anonymity". By clarifying our requirements, we can get better mixes of cheapness and privacy. For the average web-forum, you don't really need to know that an account is a human, let alone a unique human. It's enough to know that whatever is on the other end (A) likely cares about what happens to the account if it doesn't follow rules and (B) probably isn't running a hundred sockpuppets, or is at least taking a risk doing so.