I've tried before to set up even somewhat anonymous identities online before -- not for law-evasion purposes, just for things like working on anti-spam tools.

I've tried before to set up even somewhat anonymous identities online before -- not for law-evasion purposes, just for things like working on anti-spam tools. It's difficult, and I've noticed recently that it's getting worse. It used to be you could open a hotmail (or gmail) account pretty trivially without using any real personal info. But lately these email services have started requiring you to link a phone number, and/or an alternative email address... in theory these are to reduce lockouts, account hacking, etc. -- and they really can help -- but they also mean it's far easier to connect those email addresses with a real person. I had a gmail address that was "anonymous", linked to some content I was hosting on Google Pages and participation in discussion lists, etc.. Then one day YouTube accounts were merged into Google accounts; and I happened to be logged into the anon google account (and youtube) simultaneously. The was one prompt that I didn't read carefully... and then my public YouTube account that was obviously me was permanently, irrevocably linked to the anon gmail account. Whoops. I don't have any pressing need nowadays for an anonymous persona online, but I'm inclined to try again at some point, just because it's something I feel should be still possible.