To hell with it. Use any pseudonym you wish, post anonymously. But do you understand how strange this is for me? I put myself out there, with my name on everything I say. I post videos of myself lecturing on all manner of subjects so that everyone can see the facial twitches and tics that have mortified me since I was five. I open myself to anyone's criticism. And back come all manner of comments from ghosts, from faceless writers. To be sure, some of you are people I have met, some are people whose life stories I can reconstruct, but the rest of you might as well be wearing masks.
I may be old-fashioned, out of date, a certified old fogey, but I find that weird.
" I may be old--fashioned, out of date, a certified old fogey, but I find that weird."
ReplyDeleteThat makes two of us.
Professor Wolff,
ReplyDeleteI used your textbook in high school long ago.
I have not posted anything here in over 8 months. When I did post it was at most 3-4 times a year.
Long time ago using your name was OK. IF someone really wanted to find you they had to know your activities within the construct of your life to determine where you posted your opinions. It was difficult and tedious.
It is no longer difficult. Unfortunately companies are paying for private databases that index every user's postings. Similar to credit reports but really used to identify the sentiment of posters. You can now use tools to identify that generate sentiment analysis of each user's posting.
It's horrible. I can't imagine what today's children will do in the future. Either their opportunities will be limited or there will be a general acceptance and tolerance of opinions outside the mainstream.
It's getting worse. Now comcast, at&t, ISP's in general, are aggregating this information. Anonymous postings do not make a difference anymore. Luckily these datasets are very expensive and difficult to come by. More astute users will use TOR or tails. boum. org to cover their tracks.
I also recognize that society has deteriorated. In general, the atmosphere at most places of work have deteriorated beyond what I thought was possible. People actively seek to destroy the careers, livelihoods, and family life of others. It's a part of American culture now.
If your posters want a strong pseudonym they can use GnuPG to attach a digital signature to a comment. It's a piece of plaintext alphanumeric numbers after a posting that prove the same pseudonym posted the comment. It is tedious to use.
BTW, images of a person can be used to find images of that same person in photos other people have uploaded.
tineye.com
I am not happy with the state of things. I have tried educating others but everyone thinks "if I have done nothing wrong I have nothing to hide". As a side bit, I worked for firm that generated coupons at a retailer. A retailer received a complaint from a parent because their daughter received coupons for diapers. The services they built were so good at targeting users it identified the daughter as being pregnant. Several months passed and her father called to apologize, his teenage daughter was indeed pregnant.
https://www.gnupg.org/gph/en/manual/x135.html
So anonymous, do you fear the Gestapo is going to knock on your door? You offer anecdotes and maybe it is a brave new world out there, but what do you specifically know, concretely, that has happened to real people? I mean we can use our imagination, but imagination is not an argument.
ReplyDeleteI worry more that Trump has a database with our social security numbers- he can make millions selling our info to organized crime
I am sympathetic to both points of view. I myself am not anonymous, inasmuch as Dean is my real name and anybody who reads enough of my comments will be able to discern my identity if s/he cared to do so. And so though "I have nothing to hide," being an ordinary person I have plenty to protect. This is especially so when those assets can be so easily revealed and communicated. I do not trust the government. I do not trust my fellow citizens (who are, after all, the government). Fundamentally, I do not trust technology and its purveyors, who to my mind generally have sinister ulterior motives. (I often regret that there was a Gutenberg, albeit less than I regret there having been a Steve Jobs or Sir Tim Berners-Lee...)
ReplyDeleteWhat I think folks like Anonymous(es) miss is the two-sided equation of meaningful communication, which posits a transmitter and receiver of a message whose significance depends on having information about those parties. When I read wallerstein or Berman or Palmeter or Wolff, I take into account a context of past communications that inform my present reading. Purely anonymous comments appear like a kind of marginalia, sometimes illuminating or amusing, sometimes simply destructive, like bad graffiti.
I agree. The explanation that the job of one or more "Anonymi" would be threatened were they to use their real names seems to be a stretch to me. Good grief, it is not as though the revolution has broken out and we comrades must wear masks when we are not hiding in the mountains. But what do I know? In any case, were all that true, it certainly doesn't prevent someone from coming up with a pseudonym. Besides, Anonymous as a nom de plume is rather hackneyed and unimaginative. Why several people happen to choose that single name suggests something more than a desire for anonymity.
ReplyDeleteRegarding Harris, the question I would like to see her and the rest of the field answer is where does she (and the others) stand on Trump's policy vis-a-vis Venezuela. It's funny how all these pro-people types fall into lockstep when it comes to defending the empire and stealing the resources of the people in distant lands.
Jerry Fresia,
ReplyDeleteI heard about a declaration by Bernie Sanders about Venezuela in Amy Goodman's program, decent, although it could have been stronger. Amy Goodman's coverage seemed fine to me, by the way.
Here's a very good declaration by Chomsky and others.
https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/14249
Maduro is incompetent and probably corrupt, but that does not justify a coup d'etat directed and orchestrated by Trump and Bolton, with their hand-picked puppet,
Guaido.