Is online anonymity going out of style?

[Darren Dirt]

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/the_end_of_online_anonymity.php


...see also: http://passpack.wordpress.com/2008/10/09/the-evolution-of-privacy/


are we at the extremes of "1984", or even beyond? Discuss.

[Mr. Analog]

It used to be that you could keep your own information private to a certain degree, but now, there are applications like Flickr and Facebook where people can post content you might have been causally related to and tag you. If enough people contribute information in this way a sort of "cloud" of information starts to form around you.

I think also there's something about this intertube that makes people want to share information about themselves and it's difficult to keep it hidden from view.

I think we can see a cultural shift already in progress.

[Darren Dirt]

I think we can see a cultural shift already in progress.

As bad as "The Lawnmower Man 2" was, the way they depicted the future of teh internets is pretty accurate, I fear...

[Tonnica]

You're going to be traceable in some way to your internet usage. It is getting harder to protect scraps of identity than it has ever been before. Things you want private end up as public due to stupid little things like poorly coded aggregate searches that don't skip over material flagged private.

And that is why being and staying anonymous is more popular than it ever was before. Why go through all that fuss to try and protect the things you do want private if they're going to get dragged out anyways? The amount of perseverance and care that must be taken to lock down internet accessible (but still private!) data is getting ridiculous. It may be because we're in a transition period where we don't have good enough solutions for keeping private things private, but man alive. You can find out every user name I've ever used if you look hard enough. It's easier to Anon it! (and less stress inducing)

[Lazybones]

You can still DO things anomalously on the net, you just need to use an alias and use a proxy. The difference as Mr. A pointed out is that more companies and people that have access to your information may be sharing it even if you don't want them to.