You Can?t Be Anonymous Online If You?

[David Baxter PhD]

You Can?t Be Anonymous Online If You?
By John M. Grohol
May 7, 2008

Some people wrap themselves in marketing phrases and feel-good privacy statements which mean little in the real world. So just a reminder to our regular readers about what online anonymity entails.

You can?t be anonymous online if you?

1. Join virtually any social network (since, by their very nature, they encourage you to share as much information as possible with their services and others through their website).

2. Post a photo of yourself anywhere online (or on any social network). Photos are readily identifiable and anyone who?s ever thought, ?No one will ever see this,? are usually disappointed at how incredibly wrong they are when their boss/boyfriend/girlfriend/spouse/parent gets an emailed copy of it.

3. Share key identifying information about yourself, including (but not limited to): where you work or go to school; your hometown; where you live now; your neighborhood; your age; your favorite band; your favorite hobbies; the people you know; etc. While any one single piece of information is unlikely to identify you (outside of your name, phone number, email address or social security number), a combination of pieces of information (which most people share haphazardly, over time) can often paint a picture of your identity.

4. Use the same pseudonym or email address as your identity on multiple communities or social networks. People are amazed at how easy it is to track down their online history through this simple piece of data (which is very often unique).

5. Sign a guestbook or add a Facebook application to your profile. As the BBC so easily demonstrated last week (link to BBC video which auto-plays), once you give away access to your profile information to a Facebook application, it can be gone for good (as well as all of your friends? profiles too!). While Facebook pays lip service to being able to spot such malicious applications, the truth is that there are far more people incentivized to create these kinds of applications than there are people who can stop them from proliferating.

As the head of Sun, Scott McNealy said nearly a decade ago, ?You have zero privacy anyway. Get over it.?

While that may be true, you?re better off if you don?t delude yourself that you have any inkling of privacy when you join a social network (especially those that claim they offer ?anonymous? social groups).

Your privacy online is fleeting and fragile. Take it from there?

 

[Misha]

Very true. I used to worry alot about being anonymous online... not so much anymore. I'm not going to throw caution to the wind, but I realized that the online world is like the real world. In real life, everyone can see my face, people know my name. It's the size of the online world that gets worrisome... which is why I'm not posting my social insurance number (or phone number!!)

 

[ladylore]

which is why I'm not posting my social insurance number (or phone number!!)

Good idea Misha.

 

[Roy H.]

This is very true. I have always considered this prior to posting on other forums. I don't really know how damaging it could be if you were found out - if you haven't done or said anything illegal - but it is really not the point. One of the real beauties of the internet, is the anonymity.

 

[Elizabeth]

I tend to put too much info in my profiles, I do avoid facebook and my space though.

 

[moomoo]

I don't get what all the 'privacy' is needed for.

I understand why you wouldn't give out your banking details or even your phone number - but even with your phone number, what's the big deal?

Anyone wanting to commit a crime against you is going to do it anyway. There's an element of (bad) luck involved but having a criminal seeing your photo or knowing your phone number isn't really going to increase your risk.

and...
Anyone wanting to stalk you is most likely known to you in real life already.

 

[Halo]

I understand what you are saying, Moomoo but although giving out ones phone number may not necessarily increase your risk my thought is why make it easier for anyone by providing them the information needed. Make them work for it if they really want it.

 

[Mike902]

Sometimes I dont care if people know about me online. Maybe with how I am, the more people that do know, maybe those offline will begin to accept me. Of course, I never give out my address and phone number, unless needed in registering web space or a domain name, but that is needed, so I dont worry much.

As I dont have credit cards, I'm safe there.

As for pictures, my avatar is the only image of me I had ever put online.

 

[stargazer]

I probably ought to keep my online diary locked at all times, because I express my feelings very freely there. I also allude to friends of mine in my real-life social network, and it's not fair to them to have that information available to the public.

It's locked now, but sometimes I unlock it because the part of me that craves attention is annoyed when I'm not getting enough feedback. So I think that if it's unlocked, more people will comment, and I'll be gratified.

Other than that, I have no problem identifying myself on MySpace or Facebook. Mine is a Music MySpace for the purpose of networking with other musicians, and virtually everyone I know has a Facebook. If we all had to invest a lot of energy concealing our identities, it would amount to a lot of mutual stress, and it probably wouldn't work anyway.

 

[Cant-Say]

I like my privacy... I have facebook and what not.

There are things about me however that I do not wish to be made public for example run ins with the law and certain aspects of my life which i keep hidden from family and acquaintances even...

This forum unlike facebook does provide me some of that anonymity since I highly doubt anyone here knows me at all nor have I used my name. Anonymity and privacy from people I do know is why I joined in the first place.

 

[stargazer]

I've been further analyzing my attitude toward anonymity, and it seems to me that I'm totally inconsistent. At times I seems to want everybody to know who I am, almost as though the Internet were my ticket to renown. At other times, I don't want anyone to have the slightest idea who I am, for fear that any one of any number of unwanted things might happen. As a result, my online presence, while probably pretty easily trackable to my true identity (if one were to bother, or to have good reason), has wound up becoming this awkward mish-mash of outlooks and attitudes, in which I appear to be composed of many contrasting elements, some very revealing, and some very concealing. It's a total mess.