anonymity

Google announced on Monday that the company will be reducing the amount of time that it will keep sensitive, identifying log data on its search engine customers. To the naive reader, the announcement seems like a clear win for privacy. However, with a bit of careful analysis, it's possible to see that this is little more than snake oil, designed to look good for the newspapers, without delivering real benefits to end users.

In a post to the company blog on Monday, the company announced that it will be significantly reducing the amount of time that it hangs onto … Read more

LetsCall.Me is a smart new service for giving out your contact information to others without actually revealing it. At sign-up you get a special vanity URL and the option to have it direct callers to whatever number you provide. People who have your URL and want to call you can simply enter in their phone number and it will call that number to connect them to yours.

Unlike some other services that offer de-centralized calling (see GrandCentral, Jaxtr, JaJah, and iNumbr), LetsCall.Me preserves the caller's number so you can see it before picking up. I had my … Read more

I posted a week ago about the problems with web anonymity. In a nutshell, people say things on the web under the cloak of real or imagined anonymity that they'd never say to someone's face. At least, not if they hoped to have friends for long.

Well, tonight I experienced one of the joys of web anonymity. I'm not a super-social person: I get on a plane and pray the person next to me doesn't want to talk. If he/she does, I glower at them until they think better of it. In this way, I'm sure I miss out on meeting lots of great people.

The web, however, lowers barriers to conversations that I (and others) would never have. Intriguingly, one of the people I chastised for making negative comments (though his comment really wasn't all that bad) apologized in the comments section of my blog. More intriguingly, a friend of his, Bethany, went a step further and IM'd an apology to me tonight. She proved to be a sweet, generous person, and any lingering ire I might have felt toward Brad dissipated.

What are the odds of that happening offline? You'd never be able to apologize to the person that you cut off in traffic because you're almost certainly never going to see them again. Online, everyone is a stranger...but also a potential friend.

The web, in short, perhaps gives vent to our less desirable traits, but it also affords an avenue to demonstrate the nobler side of our natures, which I believe prevails with most people.

So, thank you, Brad, and thank you, Bethany, for taking the time to demonstrate the other side of the web. … Read more

I mostly have stopped reading comments to this blog because what passes for "discussion" in the comments section tends to be inane, rude, and/or vapid, and often all three at the same time. "On the Internet, no one knows that you're a dog," goes the saying. Or that you're a jerk.

Now, most people are not jerks. They just become losers when cloaked in anonymity. They say things they'd never say if confronted with the people they flame on discussion boards, in comments sections, etc. They're probably nice people "in real life." It's just on the web that they let it all hang out, to the detriment of the web and intelligent discussion.

Take the comments to one of my recent posts. The first is led off by "h3h" who apparently has no sense of humor (completely missing my point in the post), but can't leave it at that, then going on to lob ad hominems into his "argument."

"H3h" turns out to be Brad Fults. Judging from his web presence, like his Twitter feed, he's probably an OK guy. He happens to be wrong in the way he chose to comment on this blog, but he's probably a well-intentioned person, normally. [UPDATE: Brad commented below, and I also talked with a friend of his. Turns out he's a really good person. I caught him on a bad day, apparently.]… Read more

Someone posts a fake profile of you on MySpace casting aspersion on your character. You may be justifiably angry, but unless you are willing to specify the defamations and provide proof they are untrue, don't expect to be able to unmask the profile author.

On Friday, Cicero, Ill., Town President Larry Dominick dropped his request for a court to force MySpace to identify the creator of several spoof profiles in his name that he claimed were defamatory. His petition filed last month (PDF) did not provided details about the profiles and exactly what was defamatory. The pages were removed … Read more

The Internet can be a scary place, with all kinds of bad guys, and even good guys, trying to spy on what information you're sending through the tubes. Even if you have nothing to hide, maybe the thought of folks snooping on you makes your skin crawl. In this Insider Secret, you'll learn how to surf anonymously.

Watch the video to see all of this in action.

For basic Web surfing, there are free services coming and going all the time that allow you to avoid cookies and other tracking while using your regular old Web browser. A … Read more

LOS ANGELES--If Jim Brady had his way, there would be no guaranteed anonymity for those who post comments to Washingtonpost.com.

Brady, executive editor of The Washington Post's online division, said during a panel discussion at the Digital Hollywood conference here that he would like to see a technology that could identify people who violate site standards--and if need be--automatically kick them off for good.

Brady has a notable history with this issue and I'll get to that. First, his position must be made clear. In an interview following the panel discussion, Brady said he doesn't want … Read more

A Kentucky lawmaker is pushing for a Web free of anonymous posts through a bill he filed that would require anyone who contributes to a Web site to register his or her real name, address, and e-mail. Under the proposed law, the site operator would be fined for violations, according to a Kentucky TV news site.

The story is from last week, but it was posted on the Drudge Report on Monday and, as a result, is still creating some noise in the blogosphere, particularly given the related First Amendment issues.

Read more from WTVQ.com: "Kentucky lawmaker wants to make anonymous Internet posting illegal&… Read more

Hundreds of Internet users stood outside for hours in the cold on Sunday morning, and they weren't waiting for a shipment of Nintendo Wiis. They were Anonymous, a group of online activists standing outside the New York City Church of Scientology to protest the organization's policies. The protest was one of many conducted across the world at major Scientology centers on that day.

The New York City protest saw between 200 and 300 Anonymous gather outside of the Church of Scientology New York. Other prominent "raids" … Read more