> To throw in yet another wrench, do we need to worry about maintainingI'm not sure how priveledged I am to have a really bad picture of me on the net. Whatever the case, I do think that we're in a distinct minority. Nevertheless, it is certainly true that some people are more anonymous than others on the net. Then again, doesn't the fact that people can create E-mail messages with other peoples' E-mail addresses in the "from" line mean that the Internet always preserves "plausible deniability" (to borrow a phrase from Ollie North and company)?
anonymity
> when it is always entirely possible that the "John Smith" we are quoting
could be
> any one of a thousand John Smith's out in the cybergalaxy.A strange question, coming from Christian Nelson.
http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&q=christian+nelsonYour smiling mug pops up as the first hit on this particular search. Perhaps
you (and Nancy Baym, and I, for that matter) are pareticularly priveleged.
("Um, it came from my email, but really, that two year discussion about the kinky sex with the researcher HAD to be an intruder!"). This one seems fairly straightforward, to me: it is easy to generate more identities, but fairly hard to steal others'.But it is possible, no?
--Christian