Real Names on the Internet

[Turtle]

Microsoft researcher Danah Boyd argues in this article that 'The people who most heavily rely on pseudonyms in online spaces are those who are most marginalized by systems of power.' This comes in the wake of criticism aimed at Facebook and Google for their "real names only" stance on anonymity and pseudonymity.

The EFF has a Blog post about what appears to be Facebook's stance on anonymity on the Internet. Speaking last week at a social media conference hosted by Marie Claire magazine, Facebook's Marketing Director, Randi Zuckerburg, is quoted: "I think anonymity on the Internet has to go away. People behave a lot better when they have their real names down. I think people hide behind anonymity and they feel like they can say whatever they want behind closed doors." This position appears to apply to the entire Internet, not just Facebook (which already requires that its users post real names instead of pseudonyms). The EFF goes on to point out how this would be a bad choice for civil liberties online.

A security expert has panned Google's "real name" policy on Google+, claiming that the hard line will damage privacy. Sophos's Chester Wisniewski says that closing accounts where users have adopted false names erodes privacy on the social network. "What they seemed to have missed is that the very foundation of privacy is identity. Simply knowing my postal code or birth date is meaningless without a name to associate it with. By requiring people to only use their real names, unless they just happen to be a celebrity, they have eliminated the ability for people to be private in any meaningful way."

This article from the Atlantic discusses just how revolutionary the real name requirement really is. It's something that's never really been a part of our lives until very recently. You may thing it's something that's always been there, but as this article shows, it really hasn't been at all. It's a fundamental shift in how we will live our lives, and more importantly, how we even think. I encourage you to read the articles at each link above, but if you choose to click just one, make it the one in this final paragraph.

 

[Dakota]

My real name is Michael

 

[mjmsprt40]

I've always used some form of my name, and even where I use a "handle" like here, it's the same handle I use elsewhere and is linked to my real name. In one sense, I don't hide all that well. In another sense though, I could not hide better than to use my real name. The best place to hide a needle is in a stack of other needles.

 

[Camper]

The ulterior motive behind FaceBook's "real name only" policy, IMHO is the gathering of as much personal information as possible. I'm not convinced that this information isn't in turn sold to the likes of Mylife.com, Intellius, etc. These sites, collectively speaking are trying to form the privatized version of Big Brother.

 

[Turtle]

Randi Zuckerberg, sister of Steve, and director of Facebook's marketing, has stated that "People need to be required to use their real names on the Internet. Anonymity on the Net needs to go away to combat the ongoing cyberbullying crisis."

A crisis, I tell you. <snort> Nothing like the classic deflection of an emotional tug. Facebook and Google make a large chunk of their money by collecting and selling information. No longer is "information in the aggregate" worth much. The more information they can collect and connect to you personally, the more valuable it is worth to marketers, and to governments. Facebook, for example, started out as a small community of mostly young professionals and college students, who in that exclusive environment would tend to use their real names. Those who can use that kind of information paid dearly for it. But things quickly changed and as more and more people started to use it, the less and less "safe" it became to use your real name.

As Danah Boyd noted, the people who are most likely to utilize a pseudonym online are those who are most marginalized by systems of power, meaning those with a real name that doesn't sound very English - Latinos, blacks, Chinese, etc. People, governments especially, don't necessarily take note of the random comments and goings on of the English-sounding names, but they do if it's an "ethnic" name as that instantly colors what they are saying. There's one well known Chinese blogger, Michael Anti, who was recently banned from Facebook because his real name is Zhao Jing. He has used the alias for several years, both in writing and in his communications with Westerners, and is widely recognized by the name. He completed a Harvard fellowship using the alias. He's not fooling anybody, including the Chinese government, and he knows it. Ironically, he's so well known as Michael Anti that any information gathered and connected to the alias is a de facto connection to the real him. It would be like Facebook requiring Lada Gaga to switch to Stefani Germanotta.

It shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise that the two leading social networks in the world today, Facebook and Google+, both want real names to be used on their sites, as all content on the site they are not only liable for, but equally responsible for to a greater or lesser extent. But considering so much money is made from the personal details of ordinary users who take advantage of the free services from online advertisers, no wonder both Google and Facebook take this approach.

Marketers, governments, law enforcement, and employers alike all do Social Networking background checks to garner whatever information about you they can, regardless of whether it's information they need or should even have at all. People have thoughts in their head as they walk down the street, and you can post those to the Internet for a myriad of reasons, most all of them valid. But do you really want your inner thoughts, not to mention your likes, dislikes, shopping and a whole hose of other information made not just public, but publicly attached to you personally? That's what Google, Facebook and many others want.

 

[mjmsprt40]

For some, hiding behind our real names is easier than it is for others. A case in point: My real name is Michael McMillan. You'll find plenty of references to that name if you search Google, but-- try to find me. Most of the references have nothing to do with me at all.

 

[Camper]

For some, hiding behind our real names is easier than it is for others. A case in point: My real name is Michael McMillan. You'll find plenty of references to that name if you search Google, but-- try to find me. Most of the references have nothing to do with me at all.

The thing is: Even a common name such as yours is still searchable, given one or two additional pieces of the puzzle such as your city/town of domicile. Chances are if you did a Google search of your name couple with that additional tidbit, a Mylife profile or Intelius listing would pop up.



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[Turtle]

You'll find plenty of references to that name if you search Google, but-- try to find me.

Challenge extended....

Challenge accepted.

 

[moose]

now do it with the head inside the shirt thing...

 

[Turtle]

The Compubuddy Laptop Sock, for the discriminating porn viewer in flight.

Warning: do not attempt this while driving.

 

[mjmsprt40]

Challenge extended....

Challenge accepted.

That was an easy one. It so happens that blog is under both mjmsprt40 and Michael McMillan. It's the only blog I have for what it's worth.

Now, if the only name I ever used on the Internet was my real name I could disappear like a white Ford Econoline on a Ford dealer's lot. Sure it's out there somewhere, but--- which one?

Oh, wait--- the photo certainly IS from my blog, it's the only place I ever put it. You fetched it from elsewhere apparently, so I'll have to backtrail that and see where that person hides at.

Edit: Here's the original source for the photo above.
http://my.opera.com/mjmsprt40/blog/2011/05/15/update-part-2

 

[Turtle]

That was an easy one. It so happens that blog is under both mjmsprt40 and Michael McMillan. It's the only blog I have for what it's worth.

Because it's under both, it was incredibly easy. But you're right, you haven't been stomping around leaving cyberfootprints all over the place (which would make getting at your information a lot easier). I admit to finding the above in about 5 seconds, and only spent another 10 or 15 minutes looking. I found a few possibles, and if I were determined for some reason, or cared, I'd have spent more time and likely could have come up with something. Even with the help of the middle initial, it would still take some work. But as a very early rough ballpark guess, I'm gonna say somewhere between O'Hare and Fermi, intentionally not getting any more specific than that.

Oh, wait--- the photo certainly IS from my blog, it's the only place I ever put it. You fetched it from elsewhere apparently, so I'll have to backtrail that and see where that person hides at.

Don't waste your time. That's where I got it from, and deliberately resized it and hosted at my Photobucket site so as not to deliberately lead people back to your blo....never mind.

Edit: Here's the original source for the photo above.
Michael J McMillan - Update part 2

Good to know (and nice tip) on the rear door. That's the first one I've seen or heard of that happening to, tho. Hopefully it's a rarity.

 

[AMonger]

...People have thoughts in their head as they walk down the street, and you can post those to the Internet for a myriad of reasons, most all of them valid. But do you really want your inner thoughts, not to mention your likes, dislikes, shopping and a whole hose of other information made not just public, but publicly attached to you personally? That's what Google, Facebook and many others want.

I read an account of someone who had been in a Chinese political prison, or North Korean, don't remember which; I think Chinese. Frequently, as part of the effort to control one's thoughts and make them conform to a set approved by the State (coming to a country near you, sooner rather than later), a State functionary would approach the prisoner and say, "I'm here to collect your thoughts," "collecting your thoughts" parlance for, "What have you been thinking lately? Only when the prisoners thoughts match what the State deemed they should be could the prisoner be released. So no privacy even in one's mind there, as some apparently want here.

 

[paullud]

The information you will find in a Google search is all public information and are things most would talk about in the open freely, no one is going to find out private things without you having put it in a public place first.

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[Turtle]

The information you will find in a Google search is all public information and are things most would talk about in the open freely, no one is going to find out private things without you having put it in a public place first.

That's true, but it's not so much about private things about you as it is a general loss of privacy. I'm sure there are many comments from people here on EO that they would not want to be seriously questioned about, say, on television or in court.

People post the most innocuous things one place on the Internet, not even realizing that it's directly attached to you personally and everything else you do on the Net. Granted, if you never use the Internet in any way, your privacy is relatively protected, but that's not the case with most people these days. The Web turned 20 years old on August 6th, so it's still a new thing and the ramifications of a loss of privacy are just now being realized. Those who use pseudonyms have more privacy than those who don't, but even pseudonyms can often be linked with a real person, thanks to the search functions of Google and other tools.

From one of the above articles, paraphrasing, imagine you're walking down the street and you say out loud, "Obama sux!" Unless you are really famous, the vast majority of people within earshot will have no idea who you are. They won't have access to your employment history or your social network or any of the other things that a Google search (or the other tools, many of which are far ore advanced) allows one to find about you. The only information they really have about you is your physical characteristics and mode of dress, which are data-rich but which cannot be directly or easily connected to your actual identity. Neither the speech or the context in which it occurred is preserved. And as soon as you leave the immediate vicinity, no one can definitively prove that you said it.

In real life, we expect very few statements, even public ones, to be truly widespread public, persistent, and attached to your real identity, forever, searchable. Basically, only people talking on television or to the media can expect such treatment. We expect those statements to remain more or less in the context of which they were made. The statements you make online, even if someplace like here on EO, can be directly connected to what you buy on Amazon, what your Google search terms are (do you really want the world to know what you type into a Google search?) and the date/time you searched, where you shop, where you bank, people you associate with, where you live, who you call, who calls you. Unencrypted e-mails can be easily read by law enforcement, ISPs, employers, or other parties sniffing the traffic of that connection are able to know the contents. Same with instant messaging, browsing, anything you do online is connected to you, personally, in a persistent and very public way.

The only way around that is to use your real name as little as possible online, or never get on the Internet in any way, shape or form. But the Internet is a part of our daily lives, and as part of our daily lives we have a reasonable expectation of privacy, even on the Internet, except we don't really have that on the Internet, which hoses our privacy in every other aspect of our everyday lives. And it's why so many people are against the real name requirement of social networks, since it's an expedient path to social engineering (psychological manipulation) and a total loss of privacy.

 

[Dakota]

I found a picture of Turtle driving

‪Fastest Turtle in the WORLD!‬&rlm; - YouTube

 

[paullud]

I found a picture of Turtle driving

‪Fastest Turtle in the WORLD!‬&rlm; - YouTube

Turtle you should avoid those jack rabbit starts they are terrible for fuel mileage.

Posted with my Droid EO Forum App

 

[cheri1122]

I found a picture of Turtle driving

‪Fastest Turtle in the WORLD!‬&rlm; - YouTube

No, you found a vid of some idiot with more free time than brain cells amusing himself at some innocent animal's expense - like the jerks who think getting their dog or cat drunk is funny - it's not.
On topic: I just went on my Verizon acct online to change the stupid vm password AGAIN [it keeps saying I have the wrong pw, even after I've changed it, because I apparently must have one whether I want it or not] and found that I need to 'opt out' of several advertising initiatives by visiting websites and calling the tollfree number for my state.
How many folks don't read the fine print in those 'newsletters' Verizon sends, and don't know they're opted in already?
Privacy is history - we can't keep up with the ways it gets compromised anymore, because it's not in the government [or advertisers] best interests, no matter what 'rights' we thought we have.

 

[paullud]

No, you found a vid of some idiot with more free time than brain cells amusing himself at some innocent animal's expense - like the jerks who think getting their dog or cat drunk is funny - it's not.
On topic: I just went on my Verizon acct online to change the stupid vm password AGAIN [it keeps saying I have the wrong pw, even after I've changed it, because I apparently must have one whether I want it or not] and found that I need to 'opt out' of several advertising initiatives by visiting websites and calling the tollfree number for my state.
How many folks don't read the fine print in those 'newsletters' Verizon sends, and don't know they're opted in already?
Privacy is history - we can't keep up with the ways it gets compromised anymore, because it's not in the government [or advertisers] best interests, no matter what 'rights' we thought we have.

For Verizon it is called CPNI you can opt out easily just by calling customer service.

Posted with my Droid EO Forum App

 

[Turtle]

The Just in Case You're a Criminal Someday Act

Or as one Representative calls it, the "Keep Every American's Digital Data for Submission to the Federal Government Without a Warrant Act."

The only thing that would make this better would be if the House Bill was H.R. 1984, instead of H.R. 1981.

Imagine a world in which your Internet service provider [and cell phone carrier] stores information that would make it trivial for every website you visit, every blog you read and each purchase you make online [every Tweet, you twit, every e-mail you send or receive, everything you do online, everything] to be made available to the cops … just in case you commit a crime someday. This is no casual reference to the "Big Brother is Watching You" dystopian world of George Orwell's "1984;" it is the reality of H.R. 1981, a bill in Congress that orders Internet companies to build vast digital warehouses that record and store information that links your online activities to your name and address.

The data retention mandate of the bill is wrapped in the cloak of a politically tough-to-oppose framework: protecting kids from the worst online evils by enhancing law enforcement's investigative powers. The bill would require companies that offer electronic communications services for a fee, including Internet service providers (ISPs), hotels, coffee shops and others, to retain information that could be used to identify their customers when the government comes calling; whether for child protection or for any other investigative purpose.

Although it is always tough to fight a proposal claiming to "protect children," H.R. 1981 has garnered bi-partisan opposition. The Chairman of the House Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security, Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wisc.) said during the hearing he presided over that he will do whatever it takes to "kill the bill." Rep. Zoe Lofgren, (D-Calif.), left no doubt about her opposition when she offered an amendment to name the bill to the "Keep Every American's Digital Data for Submission to the Federal Government Without a Warrant Act." Despite this unusual double-barreled political effort, the bill passed from committee on a 19-10 vote.

H.R. 1981 represents a dangerous expansion of government power, puts Americans' privacy rights at risk, and treats all law-abiding citizens as if they were suspected of committing heinous crimes. Yes, this bill begins to feel like it was pulled from the main plot point of the Tom Cruise movie "Minority Report," in which Cruise works for a special police division called "Precrime" and arrests people based on "evidence" of events that will most likely happen, but actually haven't.

Read the rest here:
'Minority Report' Precrime for Real? House Bill Would Have Your Online Life Recorded Juuuust In Case Police Ever Need It.