Is Anonymity Really Necessary?

Accountability is best addressed by LL being able as far as possible identify the accounts controlled by a single individual. They don't even necessarily need to know who the individual is. They just need to be able to take action against the activities of the individual.

I would welcome accountability - enthusiastically even

yes but how do you do that Chip? what about the abuse report system? what about all the griefers working around the perm bans on their hardware? what about court orders? if someone is doing something illegal then its logical to me it would be dealt with on that level. i dont understand what it is you have in mind to solve the problem. Linden Lab refuses to police their own game. The things that frustrate you frustrate all of us endlessly to the point of repulsion in some instances. But then what to do about it without taking away the residents basic right to safety and anonimity.

I think most of us are on the same page, just being said different by each.

1) Accounts need to be accoutnable (no pun intended), but only to LL. LL needs to know who you are, and you need to prove it to them. Otherwise, it opens up the floodgates to the griefing, alt-abuse, and general anti-social behavior all around.

2) Real Life information in-world should be only at the descression for the the user (as it is now). Many have brought up MySpace and like sites, however, the information there is not verified either. Lieing on the internet has been there since they turned on that first modem.

The reasons for in-world privacy are many, and varied. As you can see reading back through this thread, ask 50 people and get 50 different answers.

Some want the immersion. Some want to be something else. Some want to be who they are in SL because they CAN be here, but not in RL.

These are valid reasons, but the trivial ones.

The important reasons are those that are concerned about stalkers, and their ilk. This is even more important on the Teen Grid (which has not been mentioned in this discussion). There our children are playing SL. Supposedly safely. Most parents drill it into their children today to NOT give out their RL information over the internet UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES. Why? Because we love and care for our children and want to protect them. Because there ARE people out there that would use that information to cause them harm.

Why are we any different from our kids? Because we're older? Because we can take care of ourselves? I think we should know better and follow our own advice to our children. We can share such information, but under the correct settings. Like the SLCC. Simply pasting that infromation in a page in your profile is an "unnecessary risk".

A better question would be:
Is giving out Real Life information in SL really necessary?

~Jessy

Exactly! Some lock their doors and hardly come out because they've let fear take over. Others take unnecessary risks (I won't give examples here, you get what I mean.)
There's nothing wrong with caution, this doesn't mean we live in fear.

I often leave my doors unlocked, my windows open, etc. I DO know the risks (maybe it has to do with where you live), but why would it bother me to know that my neighbor locks his doors? I certainly wouldn't think that he's living in fear. Our levels of caution are all different. Only extreme behaviours can cause problems.

I probably will never experience internet stalking because I am careful. The amount of precautions I have taken in no way effects my interactions with the people I meet in SL. Not sharing everything with everyone only (in my eyes) makes me discrete.

To be fair, maybe I'm a little judgemental myself. If someone puts their RL picture in their picks, I assume their 'looking' for a partner. Maybe, it's just to let people know they have nothing to 'hide', who knows? It won't stop me from getting to know them, but it kind of puts me off a little.

How about we switch sides, now. Why is it so important to let everyone you meet know so much about you? What ever happened to a little mystery? Imagine if this happened in RL, wouldn't you be a little freaked?

Fascinating discussion.

SL and its community is based on anonymity and non-disclosure. It's in the TOS. It is fundamental to how SL works.

One of the reasons why friendships in SL are rewarding is that you (normally) have to reach quite a high level of trust with someone before you disclose anything.

And some friendships are built with people in SL because of the anonymity barrier. It is human nature to build a schema, label people, or put people in certain boxes when you know very little real information about them. Anonymity in SL, ironically, gives you more opportunity to learn more about someone before you decide whether or not they will be your friend.

~Snowman~

I actually suffer from Generalized Anxiety Disorder, and actually DO live my life in constant fear. Other health problems limit what medications I can take.

Second Life is incredibly liberating for me, because I am safe. Most people have no clue who I am, and while some do its only the people who I care about.

I would leave SL the minute any mandatory disclosure system was put into place.

LL already has my name, credit card info and email, (they're now even asking for my SSN, Passport # and DL just to prove my age). If they choose to not get involved, or making griefers accountable, this is where the problem lies. What other information does anyone need about me and how will this stop griefing/fraud?

um no, because i dont want uncle charlie getting out of prison and looking me up because i called him a dick inworld

disadvantages are murder rape stalking theft ect ect ect

Colette, I'm sorry to hear about your G.A.D Although I cannot know how this affects you (I've experience a bit of anxiety myself - can only imagine what high levels of it must feel like), I know exactly what you mean by how liberating SL can be...

And, no, I'm not going to age verify.

I did age verify. Because I do the sorts of things that it will be required for, lol.

I do think LL MUST have worked privacy into the deal with Integrity.

If not, gonna stink having even more people sending me junk mail and calling me on the phone which wont answer unless I know who it is.

I'm not sure how you'd solove it, Colette. In many ways it may not be possible at all because of the way the internet works and how easy it is for people to spoof their identity. As far as SL is concerned I think eliminating unverified accounts would help a lot, but the biggest thing is that I think LL will eventually have to bite the bullet and start policing the grid a lot more agressively. If anything will hold back SL and things like it from being a viable alternative to the traditional web it'll be the lawless wild west aspect of it.

I read an interesting article a couple of days ago on the topic that was mostly about the Ginko fraud and how allowing things like that to happen is a major obstacle to legitimate businesses wanting to do commerce in virtual worlds. It makes it very difficult for consumers to trust the platform, the same way it took e-commerce in general a long time to catch on because people had exaggerated fears of using their credit cards online. Unfortunately I can't remember where I saw it or I'd link to it. Making SL more secure from griefing and fraud is something LL is going to have to seriously address at some point, no matter how much they'd rather not. Is that something people would want if it meant having to give up a bit of their anonymity, at least with LL?

A word about risk, since that has figured in this discussion.

I am familiar with the rock-climbing community, where risk is a very serious question and people really think a lot about it. You become aware that there are different flavors as well as degrees of risk.

There are unavoidable risks. Just being alive is accepting a risk. You do what you reasonably can to minimize them, but you inevitably live with them.

There are necessary risks. Necessary in the sense one must accept them to accomplish what one wants to accomplish. You "could" live your life without getting in a car, train, plane, or bus, but there are too many things requiring travel for all but a very few to seriously avoid them. The trade-off for the added safety is simply not acceptable. Most people live perfectly happy lives without ever getting a belay and tackling a 5.4 climb; climbers choose to in the face of the obvious risk. But they do so carefully, or they don't climb long. Again, you do what you reasonably can to minimize the risk or mitigate it and get on with your life.

Then there are unnecessary risks. If you choose to climb a rock cliff, you take precautions, even against improbable events, and then you climb anyway. Climbing without a reliable rope; a reliable partner; pitons, cams and chocks to minimize a fall; a safety helmet to guard against falling rocks from above; or without telling people where you are climbing and when they should come looking for you if you haven't returned is taking unnecessary risk. No matter how remote the danger, you eliminate unnecessary risk. This applies to all aspects of life, not just climbing. Driving without a seat belt is an unnecessary risk; eliminating such a risk is rational. The risk of getting struck by lightning is statistically very small; it is rational anyway to find lightning-proof shelter in a thunderstorm. In SL, for most people, revealing your RL identity to unknown strangers who may or may not be vindictive, criminal or mentally unbalanced is an unnecessary risk. Eliminating or minimizing that risk is rational too.

Agreeing with the developing consensus here: Yes, accountability to LL; and yes, as much anonymity among Residents as each Resident wants for him/herself. Looks like the best way to reasonably minimize risks here.

Anyone posting here has already giving up their anonymity to LL of course. So I'm not sure how many of us would object to that.

Accountability based on RL identity can only work work if *every* account is *actually* verified for RL identity.
That's not going to happen.

Look at the IDV situation.
1. It's optional
2. It doesn't actually verify anything other than that the person whose details have been anonymously submitted online is asserted to be over 18. There is absolutely no way to confirm that the details being submitted actually refer to the person submitting them.
The whole shambles is predicated on dishonest people behaving honestly. Well honestly now!

Leaving aside the age question, mandatory Payment Info would be a way of linking accounts to a RL entity. This assumes that a typical black hat would not be able to supply a large number of tested Payment Info sets.
For whatever reasons, LL do not want to make Payment Info mandatory.

The only(?) remaining mechanism left to them would be do do what every service provider and server administrator has being doing for years with regard to abusive traffic (spam, DOS, exploits).
1. Detect that an 'unacceptable' level of abusive traffic is coming from an IP or IP range.
2. Contact the admin of that IP with details and datestamps of the abuse and ask them to put a stop to the abuse flowing out of their network.
3. If the IP admin fails to stop the flow from their network, then stop accepting traffic from that IP or IP range.

There are some balances be be struck - to do with collateral damage to innocents and 'cutting off your nose to spite your face' - but the general principle has been in common use for many years.
No server is obliged to accept traffic from any other server. The Net is a cooperative.

Blocking 'abusive' IPs is the nearest we can reasonably get to blocking individuals who take pains to disguise their individuality.

Sorry Chip, but you can't do the math without quantifying all the risks, which would be impossible. There is no way to treat this objectively.

Do you have any statistics for the number of people who've been passed up for raises at work due to information learned on the network? (No, because this is impossible to tabulate.) There are dozens of similar fears for which you will not find relevant statistics.

More importantly, people VALUE the ability to remain anonymous, and for many reasons that have nothing to do with their freedom to behave badly. VALUES are what these choices are about, and statistics are often of little use in making these value judgements.

Don't be so simple as to think that those who want to remain anonymous are merely ignorant of certain statistics or their interpretations. You're overestimating the usefulness of your (rather narrow) point of view here, and underestimating the judgement of those who disagree.

The cost we pay for our anonymity is small, and would be smaller still if LL had sufficient identity information to link avs related to the same identity. The price we would pay for yeilding our anonymity would be substantial, due to the loss of so many who would simply quit.

We must have a different definition of small, Lear. Ginko walked away with around three quarters of a million real dollars. Every time a sim is down, or the whole grid is down due to griefer attack, no one in the affected area is making any sales. Considering the amount of real world dollars that change hands in SL every day, that adds up to a lot of lost commerce and inability to use resources that people pay considerable amounts of real money to use. I know in the last couple of months alone my main store has been empty due to griefer attacks for hours at a time, adding up to a couple of days of lost revenue. You might not think these things are problems for you personally, but for SL as a whole all of these things add up.

As to your other points, you can never know all the variables for anything, but we don't just throw our hands up and say "it's impossible to make a judgment." We go with the information we have and try to make the most objective judgment we can. A statistic I'd like to see is how many accounts have been cancelled or businesses closed due to griefing. I bet the lost revenue to LL isn't chump change. Up to now we can take an educated guess that LL considers it less than what it would cost them to actively police the grid, but that math won't likely continue to work out that way as SL grows larger, or fails to grow larger as a result.

I'm sorry you've had bad griefer problems, Chip. Loss of revenue IS a high cost.
Do you really think anonymity is the root cause? Wouldn't you say that it was mostly LL's lack of action, in cases like these, to eliminate these griefers? They DO know who these people are, and they have much more power than neither you or I have when it comes to banning, etc.
I agree that the reason LL hasn't done much anything with the info they do have, is a question of $$$. Isn't that always the case when it comes to big business? Sad...

My take: I like the name Oryx Tempel. I like seeing it over my head. I don't want to see MY name over my head.

The only possible reason that I would be M**** C****** in SL would be in a professional role, i.e. to attend work meetings or whatever.

Marion Cunningham?

I would just like to point out that the problems with Ginko and other HYISes are not to do with anonymity or pseudonymity at all.

Actually it was closer to a quarter of a million.

I'd say it's both. The ability of people to make unlimited unverified accounts coupled with LL's lax enforcement creates an atmosphere where people have almost nothing to fear from doing things that would get them arrested in the real world. I'm really not a big law and order kind of guy since I'm pretty libertarian in my views, but I definitely don't think the right balance has been struck. I think SL creates a pretty fascinating set of conflicting interests between wanting a land of make believe where anything goes and at the same time wanting a safe hassle free environment that supports real world commerce. I'm pretty comfortable with caveat emptor, but I think the mainstream is going to want and demand more than that.

(Without yet reading the responses to this interesting question) No, because there are too many nutcases on the internet and too many stalkers. And those people CAN remain anonymous.

I can't think of any virtual environment that required RL identities to be known to all and sundry that I would join.

I can't think of any where that would be NECESSARY.

LL may know my identity, and so does Amazon dot com, because I buy things from them.

But people I meet in an online environment? No need for them to know who I am, or be able to find me irl.

coco

hehe Coco read it the same way I did.

and Merchant hasn't bothered providing further explanation.

After being in SL for a few years your anonymity vanishes naturally. Unless your extremely guarded, people will learn who you are either from you directly or from your friends. The longer we spend in SL the more friends we gain. The mask just fades away.

Now these days I find it quite unsettling to be approached by an anonymous person that is clearly wanting to befriend me and yet they have a blank profile. They know who I am but I don't know who they are. It's just spooky!.

Then there's the the fact that after a while you start to grow tired of the people wanting to get to know you and asking fancy versions of the A/S/L question. There's some people that are far more patient at figuring out this information and will spend months trying to satisfy their curiosity. I can save a lot of time and energy by just putting the info in my profile.

I suppose some people enjoy playing the "Getting to know you" game. But for me, it gets tiring.

zzzzzzz