The Trouble with Anonymity on the Web

By Annalee Newitz, AlterNet

Anonymity online is on the rise, allowing people to write, lie and manipulate data without feeling responsible for it. But who's doing all this hiding? Hint: It's not angry, pajama-wearing bloggers.


Pundits of the Internet age are fond of excoriating the Web because anyone can post on it anonymously. Andrew Keen, whose recent book Cult of the Amateur is a good primer on why people hate the Web, highlights the horrors of anonymity in his work, contrasting the millions of unnamed Web scribblers with honorable, properly identified writers of yesteryear. Keen's point is that people who don't put their names on what they've written don't feel responsible for it; therefore they feel little compunction about lying or misrepresenting their chosen subjects. After all, an anonymous writer doesn't have to worry that their reputation will be tarred -- unlike, say, a writer at The New York Times, whose byline appears on his or her articles.

Every social stereotype has a caricature associated with it, and the "anonymous Web writer" has theirs. They're always portrayed as a he, first of all. And he's inevitably described as being "some blogger writing in his basement in his pajamas." In other words, this anonymous person is not a professional (hence the pajamas) and probably poor (he lives in a basement). He's a nobody, a loner who lashes out at the world from his dismal cell, hiding behind his anonymity and destroying the good reputations of nice people.

Where does this sad little man like to post his anonymous invective? Wikipedia, of course. He can change any entry without leaving his name, adding lies to biographies of innocent mayoral candidates and spewing spam all over facts. And the best part is that most people take Wikipedia seriously. They regard it as a reliable source of knowledge, despite the fact that it's written by unknown, basement-dwelling bloggers in pajamas.

That's why I was so gratified when California Institute of Technology grad student and mad scientist about town Virgil Griffith released his software tool Wikiscanner, which you can use to quickly check on who has been editing Wikipedia entries anonymously. You see, whenever you edit a Wikipedia entry, the encyclopedia logs your unique IP address, which can often be tracked back to a physical location, including your place of employment. Even if you think you're being stealthy with your anonymous writing, you're not. Wikipedia sees all.

And now the public can see all if they visit Griffith's Wikiscanner site. Turns out that all the anonymous propaganda and lies on Wikipedia aren't coming from basement dwellers at all:

------they're coming from Congress, the CIA, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and the American Civil Liberties Union. Somebody at Halliburton deleted key information from an entry on war crimes; Diebold, an electronic-voting machine manufacturer, deleted sections of its entry about a lawsuit filed against it. Someone at Pepsi deleted information about health problems caused by the soft drink. Somebody at The New York Times deleted huge chunks of information from the entry on the Wall Street Journal. And of course, the CIA has been editing the entry on the Iraq war.

NOTE:
Found 7 IP ranges for 'Fox News Channel'

< << Search again >
IP Range Name Domain Location # Edits
12.167.224.224-255 Fox News Channel sbcglobal.net Washington, District Of Columbia, United States 80
12.30.108.96-127 Fox News Channel sbcglobal.net Washington, District Of Columbia, United States 22
68.93.38.224-231 Fox News Channel swbell.net United States 0
69.106.102.184-191 Fox News Channel sbcglobal.net United States 0
75.8.244.24-31 Fox News Channel sbcglobal.net United States 0
75.12.177.80-87 Fox News Channel sbcglobal.net United States 0
75.16.12.8-15 Fox News Channel sbcglobal.net United States


((((entire article @ link))))

http://www.alternet.org/story/60298/

:)

Modern day soapbox this thing is

You can get up and say the most outrageous unsubstantiated steaming load that you want and people can stop and listen to you are, like a streetcorner in Richmond where they scream and shout the Lord's name and call to salvation, you can avoid it if you know what you are likely to hear or see there.

As with any such open environment you also find people coming out into the daylight to find others who at least want to talk about issues and ideas if not organizing and doing something about it.

Good bad wise and otherwise.

So the media perpetuate the stereotype, while at the same time, the media are engaging in the shady practices that they blame the basement-dwelling, pj-wearing bloggers of doing...they are hiding behind the stereotype they created.

K/R...everyone needs to read this.