Transcript Anonymity and the Internet

Anonymity and the Internet
Nathan Owens
Overview
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Regular Internet anonymity
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Non-standard implementations
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Benefits
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Negatives
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Legal changes
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Future Ideas
Standard Anonymity
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Pseudonym
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Internet Protocol (IP) address
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Message board, forum, etc.
Somewhat linkable back to user
Very little to no identifiable information linking
the user to their Internet use
Better Anonymity
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Anonymous proxies
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Removes IP address from requests
Tor
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Onion routing
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Encrypted data transferred through multiple servers
Freenet
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Type of Peer-to-peer (P2P)
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Distributed file sharing
Benefits
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Opens discussions

Taboo topics, support groups, privacy
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Whistleblowers
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Repressive government/regime
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Equality in discussions
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Protection from aggressive, targetted data
mining
Negatives
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Criminal activities
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Libel, spam
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Copyright infringement
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Music
Movies
Software
Misuse
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Bypass work, school, and other locations with
restrictions on Internet use
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Trolling, flaming
Potential Legal (or other) Changes
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Prove the need to know a user's identity
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Make Internet anonymity a right
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Legal protections for those who run anonymity
resources
Educate the public
Future Ideas
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Pseudonym parties (Bryan Ford and Jacob
Strauss of MIT)
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One person, one body
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Invididual shows up to a party and obtains a
pseudonym certificate
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Allows user to create an accountable pseudonym
for the next year which can be used to create one
account on sites supporting the scheme
Analysis
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Despite potential misuse, Internet anonymity is
a necessity and ethical
Method of controlling an excess of anonymous
accounts is needed
Current laws cover any illegalities, but better
protection of anonymity when actions are legal
is needed