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Comment by matz1 | Hacker News Reader

The wealthy will always have the edge, regardless how you deal with privacy, thats what the definition of wealthy. Wealthy = more power/resource.

What I'm saying is, you can't solve privacy issue by hiding information. That is not feasible, as technology progresses, its become easier and easier for information to move.

I acknowledge that there are going to be issue due to our information being public and thats what we should fix instead of trying to hide the information.

Right now it is an issue if my ssn or credit card number become public. The fix should not be by making my ssn or credit card number stay hidden. We should fix it so that even if my ssn or credit card number become public it would not cause me harm.

Another example, right now it is an issue if I post something embarrassing on twitter. The fix should not by deleting/hiding my tweet. We should fix it so that even if my tweet become viral it would not cause me harm.

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> We should fix it so that even if my tweet become viral it would not cause me harm.

Anonymity can supply that effortlessly. Some will say it is just pseudonymity and no real anonymity, but I think that is wrong.

If you post with your name, you have become a public persona. Just hinting at the fact that public personas often have staff to manage public relations. You could of course kill that, but the repercussions would be quite severe.

>Anonymity can supply that effortlessly

Until the real name leaks, which is only matter of time. Anonymity is what i mean by fixing the issue by hiding the information.

>If you post with your name, you have become a public persona. Just hinting at the fact that public personas often have staff to manage public relations. You could of course kill that, but the repercussions would be quite severe

Yes, right now it is an issue with using real name. We should not fix it by hiding the name, we should fix it so that using real name would not cause harm.

In other words, we should take the information being public as the base condition and solve the problem that arise from that.

I don't think that you can shield yourself from judgement in any way. Aside from that there are more extreme cases of bullying and stalking. I am not advocating accepting these issues, but it is just the best way to deal with it. And there is no argument why it shouldn't be possible.

That we currently speak very openly on the net is such a treasure. With an open ID it would just end like China. There would be topics you just don't speak about because reputation damage wouldn't make it worth it. That would be a significant loss.

I don't really see problems with anonymity. Privacy is a human need, I certainly will not share it with the world. In fact I actively disengage from any intimacy if a larger public is involved, naturally I would assume. There is little incentive to change that.

I have a public persona that is neatly compartmentalized. With effort you could connect that of course, but in practice nobody has access on the whole. I tend to keep it that way.

Not saying that having a facebook account with all your family photos is equivalent of total transparency. Clear names just don't work that well because numerous practical reasons.

Of course there could be an AI that analyses my writing style or simply has access to all relevant network information. But until that time I hope legislative measures are in place. They already are and companies tread very lightly on handling personal information. It could cost them.

Ok, people said mean things under the veil of anonymity. Big deal. But recent evidence suggests they would do it with their ID in the open just as well.

>That we currently speak very openly on the net is such a treasure. With an open ID it would just end like China. There would be topics you just don't speak about because reputation damage wouldn't make it worth it. That would be a significant loss

So yes that is need to be fixed so that we can speak openly even with open ID without the damage you mentioned. Thats the solution that we need to find.

>I have a public persona that is neatly compartmentalized. With effort you could connect that of course, but in practice nobody has access on the whole. I tend to keep it that way

You could but the cost and effort to do that is going to be higher and higher. Not everyone want that, I certainly don't. I don't want to have to compartmentalized my information or hiding my information. It's sucks.

>Clear names just don't work that well because numerous practical reasons.

Yes, I agree right now it is not practical, so that need to be fixed, instead of trying to hide the name.

>Ok, people said mean things under the veil of anonymity. Big deal. But recent evidence suggests they would do it with their ID in the open just as well

Then this issue is nothing to do with privacy.

== So yes that is need to be fixed so that we can speak openly even with open ID without the damage you mentioned. Thats the solution that we need to find. ==

That is like saying that we have to find a solution to crime and fraud so that we will not have to rely on physical locks, spamfilters, etc.

It would be nice, but it will never happen.

Meanwhile anonymity can work well.

How about we first change the world so that everyone can speak freely without fear of anything. And when that is accomplished to everyones satisfaction then we can consider total transparancy.

>That is like saying that we have to find a solution to crime and fraud so that we will not have to rely on physical locks, spamfilters, etc.

That would be great.

>It would be nice, but it will never happen.

Sure, if that the attitude.

>Meanwhile anonymity can work well.

Until it leaks, which only matter of time.

>How about we first change the world so that everyone can speak freely without fear of anything. And when that is accomplished to everyones satisfaction then we can consider total transparancy

You have it backward. To accomplish that goal, one way to achieve that is by total transparency.

Why do you think there is growing acceptance of LGBT? its because growing transparency.

> But recent evidence suggests they would do it with their ID in the open just as well.

Not just recent evidence. This has been well established by multiple studies over many years now.

> we should fix it so that using real name would not cause harm.

I don't see how that is even in the realm of the possible. The issues around this go far beyond the simply reputational.

Trying to stop technological progress by legislative measures seems to be much harder.

I don't see it as "stopping technological progress" so much as trying to mitigate the harmful aspects of technological progress. Mitigating the harm is just as important to helping progress along as developing the tech is. That's why the two have always gone together.

Yes, mitigating harm is the goal, how to do it is the issue. Trying to do that by hiding information, e.g anonymity is not feasible.

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