Several issues have been going on for awhile, the idea of trolling has been around since BBS’s back in the day ::makes grunting sounds as he gets up:: and it only gets worse as more people come online. The freedom of anonymity is empowering. But the problem lies in the fact that you aren’t anonymous. As much as you think you are, there is always a way to find a person should the offense be big enough, or the person powerful enough, or the budget large enough.
Cases in point? A child killed herself because of an online bully [this is watering down the complexity of this case a lot], two students in law school have horrible things said about them and threats made against them when they stand up for themselves, an owner of a gmail account is sent materials from a bank which were sent by an employee and shouldn’t have been sent, a model finds out who has been bad-mouthing her, and I could go on… but here is my point: In all of these cases, the identity of the anonymous individual is exposed to either the victim or an authority.
You IP address is tracked, your MAC address is tracked, your packets are monitored, and when you go from one site to another that is owned by the same parent, or information is shared… cookies are placed on your machine. A simple experiment is one where go from one site to another and watch the advertisements. You might notice that advertisements of complementary products or services, or even identical advertisements show up. Could it be coincidence? Perhaps, but I know a previous service that I operated monitored where you surfed and streamed the proper advertisements directly to you in real time.
But this article just touches on the discussion. I think people who seek out anonymous posters to limit discussion of the bad things they do should heed the idea of the Streisand Effect, which posits that if you scream fire in a theater, you shouldn’t be the one holding the match. But, if people do say libelous things (and it effects your work or prevents you from living life), or make threats that presents themselves in the real world (like something scratched into your car)… fine, you should be notified of a persons identity because there really isn’t anything as disconcerting as the possibility of someone popping up out of nowhere. That faceless possibility is the reason that anonymity on the net is a point of conversation.
This just touches on the discussion though, we have to watch this and see what happens.