Anonymity and the Internet Nathan Owens Overview Regular

Anonymity and the Internet Nathan Owens

Overview • Regular Internet anonymity • Non-standard implementations • Benefits • Negatives • Legal changes • Future Ideas

Standard Anonymity • Pseudonym • Internet Protocol (IP) address • Message board, forum, etc. Somewhat linkable back to user Very little to no identifiable information linking the user to their Internet use

Better Anonymity • Anonymous proxies • • Removes IP address from requests Tor Onion routing Encrypted data transferred through multiple servers Freenet Type of Peer-to-peer (P 2 P) Distributed file sharing

Benefits • Opens discussions Taboo topics, support groups, privacy • Whistleblowers • Repressive government/regime • Equality in discussions • Protection from aggressive, targetted data mining

Negatives • Criminal activities Libel, spam Copyright infringement • • Music Movies Software Misuse Bypass work, school, and other locations with restrictions on Internet use Trolling, flaming

Potential Legal (or other) Changes • Prove the need to know a user's identity • Make Internet anonymity a right • • Legal protections for those who run anonymity resources Educate the public

Future Ideas • Pseudonym parties (Bryan Ford and Jacob Strauss of MIT) One person, one body Invididual shows up to a party and obtains a pseudonym certificate 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 • • • 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