Anonymity and the NET

how does anonymity effect comunications?

You should ask how does Spam effect comunications? I think that is why most of us do not use our real email addresses or names. Spider programs pick off the email addresses then places them on an email spam list that is used to send about 2 billion emails a day for everything from penis enlargement to viagra. I used to use my email address, and I still receive about 200 of spam emails a day to that address. If it were not such a good email address I would terminate it. Additionally, my email spam blocker has to be customized daily to keep from removing my own email addresss that is used for business receipts. It takes about 15 minutes a day to tailor my email spam blocker. That comes to 365x15/60 or 91 hours a year. At $50 an hour that comes to about $4,500 a year.

I have traced down many of these spam mails and followup with a message to the ISP abuse department and in one case to the New York Attorney General. But spam mail is so integrated that it is difficult to find the true source. I use the right mouse to options to header then find the IP number then trace that using arinwhois page at

Anonymity doesn't affect net communications, because anyone not a total fool realizes that there is no such thing as total anonymity on the net.

Post anything on the net and you can always be tracked down, provided that there is sufficient reason to do so.

Harry C.

...and some don't attempt to be anonymous.

Most Internet communication is not anonymous at all. Only a few people hide their identities, and most people give them little credance.

Thank you, I have no doubt that you are correct, however there is, it seems to me, a widespread perception of anonymity that it could be argued allows the postee to 'hide' as it were behind. I wonder if the NET provides an environment in which people behave/express themselves in ways in which they would not in 'real life'.

I welcome your thoughts and views.

Thanks

I think you're a boob.

Do you not experience people hiding behind the percieved anonymity of the NET?

No one really "hides."

What you see would be a different side of their personalities than that which they may display at, say, work, or at a purely social function, or at a church, or in a political meeting, or a neighborhood party, or ...

There is no requirement in each of these situations that what you do or say in one place will not "get back" to another place. But in usenet you are expressing yourself "in writing" so you can hardly claim that you were "misunderstood."

Very few folks are active in usenet. Most folks who spend a lot of time online prefer chat rooms or the more controlled environment of news lists (where posts are e-mailed to subscribers and the general public doesn't have access to posts) or bulletin boards (usually entered via a web page.

And THE reason folks don't like usenet is that they really don't want their friends and neighbors to be able to easily check what they have been posting. The folks who do post using "real names" don't care what their "friends and neighbors" think of their posts or they use the same degree of self-control they might use in writing a letter to the local newspaper. The folks who use Private names or other tricks to keep "friends and neighbors" unaware of what the post care about this.

Frankly, it just doesn't make much difference whether another usenet user can find out where you live. There is little or nothing he can do with this information that can harm you. If he is really nasty he can post your "real name" and address but so what? The worst he can do is put your name in the "subject" line so that search engines might pull it up. But that is risky because you ISP might well pull the plug.

I pretty much ignore posts from those who are afraid to identify themselves, as I suspect most other Internet users do.

Actually, most posters just respond to the message. They might get fooled by a troll occasionally but the point of the exercise is to have interesting exchanges of ideas and information. Even a troll can start an interesting thread.

Everyone who posts is anonymous, at least initially. They can sign their posts with "Ralph E. Smith" - or whatever - but that signature or userid is meaningless. On reading the post, you don't know if the apparently valid name really is the name of the poster. The anonymity may be "unmasked" with some effort.

Does it affect behavior? Absolutely, without question. That does not mean that it necessarily affects the behavior of every poster - but the flame wars one encounters would seldom happen in normal face to face interaction. Nor is there the same opportunity to lie about one's qualifications in real life as there is here. By "lie" I mean both the outright claim to be something other than what one is, or the attempt to create the impression that one knows more than he/she really does. Some of the language used would not be, if the poster did not think he was anonymous.

I think there is probably a lot more - but there is a difficulty in defining the cause of a particular behavior. For example, take flame wars. A poster may flame not because he thinks he is anonymous, but because he knows his target cannot attack him physically. The flames that go on and on and on here would result in a fist fight in a bar long before they got as far as they do. Heck, they might even result in a fist fight in church. I don't know how to separate those two factors - anonymity and distance as to the degree they may cause particular behavior, and I suppose it varies from poster to poster and by the specifics of a thread.

Forgive my ignorance, but what is a Troll (nothing to do with Billy Goats I imagine)?

What particularly interests me is the behaviour exhibited in forums such as this. To date, I've seen polite exchanges in the most part, but notice that on occasions things seem to degenerate into name calling and abuse one rarely sees amongst adult in 'real life'

BTW, can anyone explain the relevance of 'top posting' and 'bottom posting'. I read an interesting thread the other day in which the participants were getting quite heated regarding this.

Thank You

Excuse me?