Re: "I got curious about this anonymous stuff..."

From: Timothy (qspirit_at_qwest.net)
Date: 05/15/04 

Date: Sat, 15 May 2004 07:12:17 -0700

For anyone who cares, the below is *not* a forgery although I did not
post it here. I posted it quite some time ago in SRQ and it appears
to have been posted here as I actually wrote it. It does accurately
express my view about being anon on the net and why I don't do it,
myself.

Timothy

On Sat, 15 May 2004 11:10:10 +0200 (CEST), Anonymous
<nobody@paranoici.org> wrote:

>
>NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 17 Sep 2003 08:06:09 -0500
>From: Timothy Travis <qspirit@qwest.net>
>Message-ID: <jdngmvc3l50uv72k3mijg87fshie8sk4kl@4ax.com>
>
>I got curious about this anonymous stuff and I knocked around the web
>a little bit--looking at a couple of newsgroups and some web sites.
>All this stuff about remailers and other strategies to ensure that no
>one knows who an email or a post to a newsgroup comes from is
>interesting but not, in the end, edifying.
>
>The reasons that I see given (which have been quoted from a couple of
>sites word for sord in this newsgroup) are not persuasive to me. Our
>Friend is not an abused woman or a government whistle blower and I
>have a hard time thinking that people in that situation need to use
>the internet in such a way as to endanger themselves. And as for
>business people who want to check competitor's sites "anon"--well, get
>Quakerly.
>
>The other thing that came to mind, though, was all the "people" who
>have posted to this group anonymously who were obviously not real
>people, at all. Mayer Dyer, Privacy Advocate, Agent (was it 29?)
>there have been several more. They all showed up, acted in a way that
>no one would ever act in public, and then disapeared.
>
>And then there was the period of time during which many of us received
>e mails from "one another," that were not from one another, at all,
>and during which many of us were surprised to see posts to the group
>from "us" that were not from us, at all. (One of the sites I visited
>yesterday said that I could, with their service, use any e mail
>address I wanted for my anonymous posts--and then stressed "any" e
>mail address. I took this to mean that I could use someone else's).
>
>All of this puts me in mind of a very fine radio program I once heard
>on "This American Life." The episode was entitled something like,
>"Would you rather be able to fly or to become invisible." People
>talked about the various things one could do if one could fly or if
>one could become invisible. It was a very interesting discussion that
>said a lot about the people involved in it. One person said "If you
>could be invisible you would sooner or later use it to commit a crime
>of some kind."
>
>Posting anon on the internet is a form of being invisible. I don't
>know that anyone is committing a crime by posting anon to this
>newsgroup. But I think that the temptation has shown itself here to be
>too strong--when there will be no accountability--to do and say things
>that one would not otherwise do (hey, the temptation is sometimes too
>strong even when one is signing one's own name). It's a power with
>which I know falled human beings will get into trouble.
>
>Yeah, I know, not everyone would do wrong with this power but, I
>wonder, really wonder, if we can be so sure how small the number would
>be. Even the most mature among us, those far more mature than I,
>have moments of pique in which, if the power was there, they might
>very well be tempted to hi jack someone else's e mail address send a
>message that makes trouble or at least makes that someone look stupid.
>All of us have felt hurt enough, at times, that if we could we might
>well invent three or four people to post to take our side or to flame
>the people we think have wronged us.
>
>These things have happened in this group, these things have actually
>been done by people who have the ability to be invisible, at least
>invisible in their true, accountable, identity. I believe that if
>all of us had the power to do them without fear of being held
>accountable they would happen more often.
>
>Invisibility or flight? For all the times I have ended up in the
>dust, I'll choose flight, and deny myself invisibility. After all, if
>one does not wish to go to Cleveland, why would one want to get on
>that train?
>
>peace
>
>Timothy
>
>

One day the evil spirit answered them, "Jesus I know,
 and I know about Paul, but who are you?"
                             
                        Acts 19:14

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