To Catch a Shiller: A false sense of anonymity

Okay, this is about anonymity and not about shilling at all but I liked the title so ran with it. Not too many hours ago I wrote a post about our actions and behaviours being recorded on the immutable blockchain.

There are many reasons to want anonymity here or anywhere as one is somewhat free of identity and has the chance to be something else or show a side without the judgement of those that know the 'real' person. There is of course for safety reasons so one can speak freely without the risk of direct persecution. Or there are the the reasons to be able to behave in less socially acceptable ways and avoid incrimination. There are many other reasons also.

The feeling of anonymity also comes burdened with problems. For example, when one is in the midst of a riot, it is not just the mob mentality that can take over, it is the idea of being a faceless person in the crowd. We see this often at protests now where people wear masks and act in very poor ways indeed, no matter the 'cause' claimed.

But, are we anonymous here or, how many among us are actually anonymous? I definitely am not. But, if push came to shove, are you? And if you are right now, for how long will you remain so?

If the authorities really wanted to find you, could they? Would they be able to match all of your anonymous interactions here to a real person if they were motivated? I would suggest it wouldn't be so hard for at least the majority of accounts here to be discoverable, no matter how safe you consider your actions.

There are probably many basic ways where unintentional information leaks come out for example through pictures or a few words here or there. Perhaps a comment on another's article mentioning a place, date or time. But there are also the habitual actions like voting patterns or writing style. There are so many little micro signals that can potentially give us away if someone is actively looking.

Perhaps it seems impossible to piece them altogether but again, for how long? How far into the future will it be before there is an AI that can crawl the data for all interactions of a single user, compare it across all other platforms and have a handful of potential suspects as to the real identity? How much surveillance does it take to narrow it down to the source? Is it implausible? Maybe right at this moment but I don't think it will take them too long to develop a relatively accurate tool.

But, even if one doesn't leak information, what happens if a person wants to leverage what they have built here to make a business or become part of a development team, are they always going to want to be anonymous? Some of the people here are relatively skilled and have built up a decent following of other skilled or influential people. At some point it is quite possible that they may actually want to be attached to their created persona but, what then?

What happens if the persona is nothing like the person and the trust of the created identity doesn't gel with the reality of the person behind it? Are people still willing to partner or will they feel somewhat duped? Will going legit make them illegitimate?

And this is why we should think a little about our own anonymity and our interactions under its protection as in all likelihood, we are a lot less anonymous than we may believe and, we may have to pay a large future cost for acting as if we were.

Don't get me wrong here, I am not saying to give up anonymity but one must also be responsible for actions, something many forget in the crowd. Instead of assuming facelessness, it may be better to consider that all information is and will forever be tied to us so if it were to come out, would we be happy for it to be forever attached?

In my opinion, this is a personal decision and the consequences of actions will be paid by the individuals, just like a person who sends nudes over the internet to people under the assumption they will never share them. Sure, the person sharing may break trust but, it is the person in the picture that must live with the reality. Err on the side of caution?

There are so many questions concerning these areas on the internet in general let alone on the blockchain. How we behave is our responsibility as an individual, even if we are wearing a mask.

Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth. -Buddha

Taraz
[ a Steemit original ]