The End of Online Anonymity

[Arby]

Anyone else remember the age of don't tell anyone any sort of personal info about yourself on the internet? Where the hell has that gone? Today we give out at least an email address as a requirment to sign-up for almost anything. Social sites like Facebook, Google +, and the Google owned Youtube, that millions of people use, are pushing hard for people to step away from the online pseudonyms that we've all been living behind and use our real identities. We're all being tracked to a degree as a basic necessity of using the internet (We all have an IP address) but this is a step up. Not to sound tinfoil, but eventually, the governments of the world could get tired of the internet Wild West and start cracking down. Hell, I wouldn't put it past organizations like the people behind SOPA to push for stricter identity verification regulation on the internet as a matter of preventing piracy ("you wouldn't steal that song/game/movie if people knew it was REALLY you and not bob438 would you?")

 

What do you guys think? How much longer are we going to be Max Bun and Anon instead of Bill and Steve? What's that going to mean?

[BTGBullseye]

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/04/us-house-representatives-shamefully-passes-cispa-internet-freedom-advocates

 

Won't be long now if the government has it's way.

[Pinkie Pie]

But I'm hideously flawed! I can't let anyone know who I truly am! Ohh these monkey bastards have gone too far...

[BTGBullseye]

I don't know about anyone else, but I'd rather not give every government agency that asks for it all of my personal financial information... (which is really what can happen under this particular law)

[Alyxx Thorne]

I agree, it's alarming how we are forced to give up personal details.

[Doom Shepherd]

One of the consequences of having a government that can take care of every aspect of your life is having a government that sticks its nose into every aspect of your life.

 

In other words, you get what you vote for. You make government into Mommy, then Mommy is going to be looking through your room to make sure you are "being good." Mommy doesn't trust Baby, Baby doesn't know what's good for him. and Mommy is a control freak.

[Vapymid]

Mommy's also scared sh*tless of Baby as she suspects he wants to cut her head off one night, to claim against her life insurance policy...

 

Regards

[BTGBullseye]

Mommy's also scared sh*tless of Baby as she suspects he wants to cut her head off one night, to claim against her life insurance policy...

I know I do... At least with that particular "mommy".

[Meelis13]

Possibility of staying anonymus is one of basic requirements of freedom of speech, that is reason for certain goverments trying to remove that.

quote from movie "singing revolution" (documentary about Estonia during late 80-s, how singing played crucial role of regaining independece for us, i reccommend to watch it): "..when you give free speech to people, things get out of hand"