rlange - 1:48 pm on Sep 1, 2011 (gmt 0)

wheel wrote: And that's fine if you don't care - the problem is that most people DO care.

It's not that I don't care about privacy on the Internet; I just recognize that, outside of a handful of special cases, an alias is not the Holy Grail of anonymity.

I'm repeating myself, but if you're already posting personal details online, doing so under an alias isn't what's keeping you anonymous. If you're commenting on the tech industry under your real name and never reveal—or no one else makes available—even the most general information about your location, you're anonymous.

The situation is a lot more complicated than "real name vs. alias".

If it's not clear, my position is that privacy is important, but anonymity (in a vast majority of situations) is not.

--
Ryan