T'internet should not be anonymous

[deliakate]

For safety, the regulation of fraud and crime, not to mention bullying and harassment - I think everyone should be issued with one email address only. It should be impossible to have multiple online personas - you should be forced to be yourself everywhere.

I read so much about the evils of the internet (OK, have just spent a few days with Torygraph reading in-laws), but I do think there is an horrific, murky world on here that is having harmful effects 'irl'.

Arguments against - "but the internet helps so many people talk about problems and get support". Possibly it does. My own experience is that some of the most hurtful and serious problems are disbelieved by about 50% of respondents, rising to 80% by about the third page or so. And a lot of the advice can be completely misguided and frankly wrong when it comes. Plus, there already exist many organisations that people in real need can contact with trained volunteers/staff there to help or just listen.

I think this might be the way the net is headed - I hope so because our police force simply can't keep up with the workload and the crime is very real, and I think, outweighs the benefit of having a bit of a laugh without anyone knowing its you (frankly, who cares its you anyway?).

YABU. You'd be penalising the honest majority, and any fraudsters would find a way to get around it anyway.

YABU.

you don't need an email address to trade child porn (or anything else). irc, torrents etc.

even if you could somehow "police" everything and remove anonymity, I wouldn't support this any more than I would support compulsory id cards in real life.

don't we all feel 'watched' enough already? and has it made the world a safer place being so bloody observed?

the presence of the observer incurs conformity and self policing upon the observed (foucault). that means that those with a social conscience etc behave better. it does nothing to those who don't give a shit. those who do become even better ie. more controlled sheep citizens, those who don't i think get away with it more because instead of active policing of criminal behaviour we invest everything in big brother technology and strategies upon the masses.

Deliakate. Forgive me but you obviously have absolutely NO idea about how the Internet works. Nor the basic concepts of security and identity. You need to stop reading newspapers who almost always get these things wrong.

The Internet is far far from anonymous if the desire is there to pursue people. That's why hackers who go to great extremes to hide their tracks regularly get caught.

The Internet is used each day by billions of people to go about their lawful business. A lot of the time and just like in real life, a small minority will suffer abuse and be victims of crime....just like in real life.

The child pornography argument is simply bizarre. It's like saying ever since cars were invented children have been getting killed on our roads, so lets ban them. What about all the good cars have brought to our lives?

And just how do you authenticate a user to the Internet? In other words, how would anyone ensure I am who I say I am when sat in front of a computer? A password? What if I give my GF my password? Fingerprints? What if I used my fingerprint then walked off and let my GF use it? What if a hacker logs into my PC remotely?

And who would be the trusted party to store all this authentication data? The government? Given they've just wasted half a billion pounds and failed to build essentially a call centre for the fire service, I don't trust them on something of this magnitude & importance. A private company? Possible conflict of interest? What about those who could afford it?

The police can investigate any crime. The laws are there. What there is a lack of is political will and resources. They are (rightly or wrongly) concentrating on physical crimes like robberies, burglaries. Cyberbullying, slander etc. whilst online are taking a (very) backseat.

If we had billions to spend on authenticating users on the Internet, I'd rather we just gave it to the police instead.

Oh and just how do we ensure everyone only has 1 email address? I mean there's absolutely nothing stopping me now going to Google mail which is in America and setting up half a dozen. There's nothing UK can do about that. The US have this pesky little thing called the constitution which enshrines free speech and this would come firmly into that territory.

And given emails are inherently insecure anyway, its frankly irrelevant. It would take me about two minutes to send you a mail with the from address set to anyone you want. Email traffic over the Internet isn't even encrypted. Anyone can read them.

YABU

And I cannot agree with this:

"My own experience is that some of the most hurtful and serious problems are disbelieved by about 50% of respondents, rising to 80% by about the third page or so. And a lot of the advice can be completely misguided and frankly wrong when it comes. Plus, there already exist many organisations that people in real need can contact with trained volunteers/staff there to help or just listen. "

I don't know what threads you are looking at, but the vast majority of people get excellent advice and support on MN. I only know about MN. This site has changed people's lives for the better, made them well when they were ill, and saved a life at least once.

In my personal experience, contacting trained staff/volunteers is when it all goes to shit.

Read the relationships board for a couple of weeks and then say you want to remove the support for those women.

Everyone is hung up on the email ad thing...... you would obv have different suffixes or prefixes to be able to organise your mails. Effectively, different mailboxes, but all under the same umbrella - you would be YOU, everywhere.

So all through your ISP? And goodbye to hotmail, yahoo and gmail?

Is there any evidence that children are raped out of financial motives, in order to create pornography?

Or is it something defendants say: "Look, I'm not a paedophile, honest. I just did it for the money, because my cousin's hamster is dying of cancer and she can't afford radiotherapy for it otherwise! I'm not a bad person. the money made me do it!"

YABU but I take it your real name is Delia Kate if this is your view?

Sorry, by ad, I meant address.

Its not molly - but I do only have two emails (one for my, one joint with DS) and I am deliakate everywhere else I frequent.

It's about as likely to happen, and as impossible to police, as insisting that everyone writes their real name and address on a letter before they stick it in a in a post box.

The Internet is (largely) anonymous. Yes that does bring with it problems and new opportunities for crime and yes the criminal justice system is lagging behind. But that's nothing new - all new technologies bring with them problems, new crimes, and issues with the justice system taking a while to catch up.

But the Internet has arguably been the biggest catalyst for social revolution since the invention of the printing press and anonymity has often played a significant part of that.

There are concerted efforts to remove a lot of that anonymity from many areas of the Internet. Often the main motivator for such efforts is money - we're worth more to the people selling advertising space if they can tell the advertiser precisely who we are. Then there are the enormous and powerful interests who are trying to cling on to an outdated business model stamp out file sharing. The likes of RIAA and MPAA would love to have everyone forced to identify themselves.

But the Internet is global and there isn't just one organisation that dictates how it should be used. I think that's a good thing.

There are various people moving into the authentication space. Microsoft tried it years ago with their Passport scheme. You can now authenticate to various websites using your Facebook credentials. There's also the Open ID foundation.

But being able to be relatively anonymous on the Internet is also massively important. Think of all the people on this forum alone whom have been able to openly ask advice from others. Advice they otherwise wouldn't have the guts to ask say on Facebook as others would be able to see, laugh & point.

well good luck with that. even if it was the case people would just hack the system to death to let them be anonymous

I certainly don't want to be "known" everywhere I go on the internet, and I don't want my work id and my personal id to be the same. There are times when I want privacy - not because I am doing anything illegal or immoral, but simply because I choose to.

And I don't think the illegal actions of a small minority of people ought to curtail the freedom of the majority - just as a matter of basic principle. We are watched over in this country too much already, on the excuse of security. And those who provide the security regularly misuse it, just because they can.

More "security" doesn't keep us safe, it gives a smallish number of people too much information about us.

True, but authentication isn't necessarily the same as eliminating anonymity. Authentication is more about ensuring that person A who uses your service under credential set X is the same person A who used those credentials last week.

Facebook goes some way towards blurring the line between authentication and identity by subtly and not-so-subtly pressuring you to add detail to your profile, mobile phone number etc. Your group of linked friends also creates an inherent web of trust. But it's easily circumvented as you're just validating one form of easily created electronic ID (eg, facebook account) with another easily created and non-specific electronic ID (eg, email account).

I think Google's fumbling attempts to verify at least some Google+ users by insisting on copies of real-world forms of ID is both interesting and worrying. Its policies on the use of real names - and that's not even getting into the issues of what constitutes a "real" name - are also of concern.

At least one senior Google employee has publically stated that Google+ is more about being a identification system than a social network. The social networking features are merely the bait.

Thankfully this kind of thinking is just a totalitarian pipe-dream. Niceguy has made most of the obvious arguments so I'm not going to repeat them. The thought that you would be open to permanent surveillance when using the internet is abhorrent.

Abhorrent? Really? I don't get that. For the record, I'd be in favour of ID cards too - money aside.

did you think anything of what was said about the egyptian revolution and events in iran?

Last year there was an outraged Mumsnetter who made a thread complaining about her daughter's school teacher. Wanted her sacked, or summat.

Why? Well, nosey Mumsnetter had been googling the teacher's name, and had found Teacher's amazon account, and her unlocked wish list. There was a book about voodoo on it.

I think this tells you everything you need to know about why we need a level of privacy. (And to make your wish list private.)

I agree - any form of permanent surveillance while going about your choice of activity is abhorrent. The system should treat us all as innocent until they have reason to believe otherwise. An open democratic society should not spend its time watching and checking up on its citizens "just in case".

You've presumably never felt any need to do anything which the government of the day might consider to be suspicious. Neither have I. Yet. But I can conceive of the idea of a UK government, at some point in the future, which defines things as suspicious which are currently ok. And if we put the serveillance in place now, then it will still be there then. And at that point, I might want to read up on civil disobedience, how to avoid mandatory iris-recognition at the local library, how best to avoid stop-and-search patrols in the streets, etc, etc, etc.

When I was a child, the idea of ID cards and CCTV were totally unthinkable, and I would very likely have signed up to all kinds of control "for our safety", "to prevent crime" etc. Now, I don't trust that the government (current or potential future ones) have my best interests at heart, or will respect my right to freedom of expression, or a private life.

Don't be silly.

A far easier and more cost effective way of safeguarding children is for all computers to come with parental controls turned on and Google SafeSearch to be on. That way people will have to manually turn off the controls themselves or leave them on.

Also social networking sites are making billions yet they cannot spare enough money for more moderators to act quicker on reports and complaints? There should be easier ways to report offensive posts and people should also be encouraged to report underage accounts.

Currently Google and other internet entrepreneral companies have made their fortunes on the internet, but all the charities and child agenies and even the government admit that it is not adequately policied and affords little protection. Now these huge companies can easily do something about that, but they won't because they are more interested in making money than safeguarding our children.

So your idea is non workable. If they won't make some simple changes to security they certainly won't limit email addresses!

What's your real name OP ?

Yeah, there's a fb group publicising a hoax that has doubtless been reported multiple times since 2008, that's still going.