Anonymity, pseudonymity, or inescapable identity on the net (abstract)

The first topic of concern is anonymity, specifically theanonymity that is available in communications on the Internet. Anearlier paper argues that anonymity in electronic communication isproblematic because: (1) it makes law enforcement difficult (tracking down andcatching on-line law-breakers is difficult when their identity isunknown); (2) it frees individuals to behave in socially undesirable andharmful ways (individuals seem to engage in behavior they wouldn'tengage in if their identity were known); (3) it diminishes the integrity of information since one can'tbe sure who information is coming from, whether it has been alteredon the way, etc.; and (4) all three of the above contribute to anenvironment of diminished trust which is not conducive to certainuses of computer communication. Counterbalancing these problems are some important benefits.Anonymity can facilitate some socially desirable and beneficialbehavior. For example, it can eliminate the fear of repercussionsfor behavior in contexts in which repercussions would diminish theavailability or reliability of information, e.g., voting, personalrelationships between consenting adults, and the like. Furthermore,anonymity can be used constructively to reduce the effect ofprejudices on communications. (Gender can be masked, students canwrite about professors with candor, and people with disabilitiescan participate without stigma, for example.) Negative aspects ofanonymity all seem to point to a tension between accountability andanonymity. They suggest that accountability and anonymity are notcompatible, and they even seem to suggest that since accountabilityis a good thing, it would be good to eliminate anonymity. In otherwords, the problems with anonymity suggest that individuals aremore likely to behave in socially desirable ways when they are heldaccountable for their behavior (i.e., asked to explain, justify, orbear the consequences for the behavior), and they are more likelyto engage in socially undesirable behavior when they are not heldaccountable. I am not going to take issue with the correlationbetween accountability and anonymity, but rather with the claimthat accountability is (always) good. To examine this problem, let's look at a continuum thatstretches from total anonymity at one end, and no anonymity at allat the other end. At the opposite extreme of anonymity is apanopticon society. The panopticon is the prison environmentdescribed by Foucault in which prison cells are arranged in a largecircle with the side facing the inside of the circle open to view.The guard tower is placed in the middle of the circle so thatguards can see everything that goes on in every cell. In a recentarticle on privacy, Jeffrey Reiman, reflecting on the newintelligent highway systems, suggests that we are moving closer andcloser to a panopticon society. When we contemplate all the electronic data that is now gatheredabout each one of us as we move through our everyday lives-intelligent highway systems, consumer transactions, trafficpatterns on the internet, medical records, financial records, andso on- we see the trend that Reiman identifies. Electronic behavioris recorded and the information is retained. Whileactions/transactions in separate domains are not necessarilycombined, it seems obvious that the potential exists for combiningdata into a complete portfolio of an individual's day to day (ifnot moment to moment) life. So it would seem that as more and moreactivities and domains are moved into a IT-based medium, the closerwe will come to a panopticon society. A panopticon society gives us the ultimate in accountability.Everything an individual does is observable and therefore availableto those to whom we are accountable. Of course, in doing this, it puts us, in effect, in prison. Theprison parallel is appropriate here because what anonymity allowsus is freedom; prison is the ultimate in lack of freedom. In thisway the arguments for a free society (and for democracy) becomearguments for anonymity. Only when individuals are free will theyexperiment, try new ideas, take risks, and learn by doing so. Onlyin an environment that tolerates making mistakes will individualsdevelop the active habits that are so essential for democracy. In a world without information technology, individuals havelevels or degrees and various kinds of anonymity and consequentlydifferent levels and kinds of freedom. Degrees and kinds ofanonymity vary with the domain: small town social life versus urbansocial life, voting, commercial exchanges, banking, automobiletravel, airplane travel, telephone communication, education, and soon. Drawing from our experience before IT-based institutions, wemight believe that what we need is varying levels or degrees andkinds of anonymity. This seems a good starting place because itsuggests an attempt to re-create the mixture that we have in thephysical, non-IT-based world. Nevertheless, there is a danger. If we think in terms of levelsand degrees of anonymity, we may not see the forest from the trees.We may not acknowledge that in an electronic medium, levels andkinds of anonymity mean, in an important sense, no anonymity. Ifthere are domains in which we can be anonymous but those domainsare part of a global communication infrastructure in which there isno anonymity at the entry point, then it will always be possible totrace someone's identity. We delude ourselves when we think we have anonymity on-line oroff-line. Rather, what we have both places is situations in whichit is more and less difficult to identify individuals. We have a continuum of situations in which it is easy anddifficult to link behavior to other behavior and histories ofbehaviors. In the physical world, we can go places and do thingswhere others don't know us by name and have no history with us,though they see our bodies, clothes, and behavior. If we do nothingunusual, we may be forgotten. On the other hand, if we do somethingillegal (or socially undesirable), authorities may attempt to trackus down and figure out who we are. For example, law enforcementofficials, collection agencies, those who want to sue us may takean active interest in removing our anonymity, ex post facto. Thinkof Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols-the men who apparently bombedthe federal building in Oklahoma City. Much of what they did, theydid anonymously, but then law enforcement officials set out to findout who had done various things, e.g., rented a car, boughtexplosives, etc. The shrouds of anonymity under which McVeigh andNichols had acted were slowly removed. Is this any different than behavior on the internet? Is there asignificant difference in the kind or degree of anonymity we havein the physical world versus what we have in an IT-based world? Thecharacter of the trail we leave is different; in the one case, itsan electronic trail; while in the other it involves human memories,photographs, and paper and ink. What law enforcement officials hadto do to track down McVeigh is quite different from tracking downan electronic law breaker. Also, the cost of electronic informationgathering, both in time and money, can be dramatically lower thanthe cost of talking to people, gathering physical evidence, and theother minutia required by traditional detective work. We should acknowledge that we do not and are never likely tohave anonymity on the Internet. We would do better to think ofdifferent levels or kinds of identity. There are important moraland social issues arising as a result of these varying degrees andkinds of identity. Perhaps the most important matter is assuringthat individuals are informed about the conditions in which theyare interacting. Perhaps, even more important is that individualshave a choice about the conditions under which they arecommunicating. In the rest of this paper we explore a few examples of levelsand kinds of identity that are (or could be) practical on theInternet. We discuss the advantages and disadvantages that we seefor these "styles" of identity for individuals, and we examine thecosts and benefits of these styles for society as a whole.