A dogtag for the Internet

In 1997, Peter Steiner knew what many people have only recently caught onto: that online identity is a movable feast. In his New Yorker cartoon, two canines sit huddled around a computer. “On the Internet,” says one, “nobody knows you're a dog.” 1 There's the problem of online identity, concisely summarised: we can't guarantee that we're dealing with the person we think we are. It's a problem that even the US Government is now trying to solve.