I guess when anonymity is no longer possible I'll have to drop the 'not' nad just become 'stirred enough said at'.

Does this mean that some of the bloggers who toiled for Canadian Human Rights enforcers meanwhile posting to hate sites anonymously will be outed when the court cases are tried?
Just wondering.

If you are afraid someone may defame you on the internet, call your ISP and cancel the service.

Is it just me, or do liberals seem to be fading away like brown earth before a warm spring rain?

I hope Google does not settle this out of court and lets this idiot blow her money in lawyer's fees all the way to the SC. People have to realize there is no "guarantee of anonymity" on the net, it is a public forum.

Kate, I can not imagine the kind of emails you get from the sewer rats and as always admire your courage in hosting this blog. Guess it is time to send more money in SDA.

I cannot believe how we have managed to throw limitless amounts of money at our public education system, and have as a result the example displayed by our anonymous commenter at the G&M.

And liberals wonder why I object to them taking my money to "solve" such "problems". The only result a thieving liberal gets when they take our money to "solve" "problems" is bloated bureaucracies and nests feathered with fully indexed pensions. Results? Not so much.

This is a great comment in defense of liberals everywhere in Canada, at all levels of government. I would be a difficult task to find an example that illustrates better the wastefulness of their do-goody-good plans using our productivity.

I'm off topic a tad, I know, and apologize for being such a bad righter.

My brain tends to shut down the first time that I see or hear "uber".

I've blogged semi-anonymously so that a source of information wouldn't be blocked to me. That being said, a few people have quickly guessed my identity when they stumbled upon the blog. I'm careful to only write things that I am willing to identified with.

And isn't it amusing when someone anonymously criticizes a blogger for writing anonymously?

The courageous commenter at the G & M shall ever be known,to me,as "uber". "Uber" the top, "uber" excited, "uber" reacting.

Whenever I hear that word I always think of that old familiar song,"Deutscheland Uber Alles", which was SO big in the 'thirties.

And it's no surprise the reporter patched together several sentences to have Kate appear to say what SHE wanted her to say, MSM reporters gave up on journalistic integrity years ago.

Online anonymity is quite easy if one is willing to take the trouble to camoflague ones identity. This would include putting up an anonymous blog on google if one was masochistically inclined (the bandwidth required to blog on google is ridiculous and most anonymizers limit one to 5 Kbytes/sec or less).

Two anonymizers I've used are Privoxy and JAP (http://www.jondos.de/) and both work well. Privoxy requires you to use your computer to anonymize someone elses searches and that could make things interesting in the future if the cybernetically clueless police go after the IP that data supposedly originated from. JAP goes through dedicated machines in Germany. For the really paranoid, one can route stuff through TOR.

That said, I comment on blogs from my home and work IP addresses using a pseudonym since I'm not overly concerned if my identity were ever to be found out. I also ensure that I have access to truly private internet access should I need it.

Incidentally, while setting up JAP last week I found that completely private Ecash is available in Europe in the form of the PaySafeCard which one can purchase with cash and then use it to shop privately on the internet. This is something that we need her in N. America as I hate using my Visa card but am forced to for online shopping (I use cash for everything else). JAP will allow users to purchase premium bandwidth using the PaySafeCard and this would let one setup a completely anonymous Google blog without having to wait for hours to make a posting to it.

loki, you can buy prepaid visa cards at the 7-11 and you can surf in stealth mode in Firefox or Chrome (or possibly IE but who wants to find out.)

Anonymous blog hosting is another matter but it can be done on off shore severs.

However, the price of anonymity is credibility. Post under a pseudonym and you are just as likely to be an agent provocateur from the CHRC as a voice to be listened to.

This is assuming that Google, or any other such blogging platform actually has the real name to begin with. I know I never had to show ID when I signed up.

FYI I only went the anonymous route due to employment concerns and the very oppressive code of conduct of my employer.

I blog anonymously because I live in a war zone: the health care business. My views are somewhat unpopular with the vengeful harpy set in the medical biz, lets just say. There's a lot of cranky old women of both sexes in yer average hospital.

However I show my race car at car shows around here, and it says "The Phantom" right down both sides. That's because harpies and Leftists generally don't go to car shows.

However I must disagree with Jay Currie. Anonymity does not affect credibility, to my mind anyway. If a statement is made, then it can be fact checked and verified true or not. A track record for verifiable truth gets you credibility, not your name fearlessly stamped on everything you write Jay.

ET for example has yet to flunk a fact check on this blog, she's one of the most credible commenters out there and her opinion is of value. Jay Currie rarely flunks a fact check either, and so also has credibility and value. I don't care who ET is in life, it doesn't matter.

Besides, this way I can picture her as Raquel Welsh, typing away in her 10,000 BC number. ~:D

XWinnipegger definitely has issues with spelling, punctuation and sentence structure.

Perhaps he/she was denied the opportunity to receive a quality education. Maybe he/she considers spelling, etc. to be of little importance.

My guess is that XWinnipegger is simply stupid.

not whatever said: "I guess when anonymity is no longer possible I'll have to drop the 'not' nad just become 'stirred enough said at'."

You're just afraid someone will tell your mom what you've been doing. She'll take your computer privileges away for a MONTH young man.

The point about work - and the ability to speak the truth, or facts without reprisal at your work - is something that I was pleased to see you touch upon....after all, in some work places, individuals use their power very arbitrarily, very vindictively, and then have the ability to "hide" behind a process, or other such things....but to call them out publicly is not allowed. Who decides this? After all, anonymity isn't a crime: committing a crime is a crime.

Phantom: "You're just afraid someone will tell your mom what you've been doing."

Hah, it's not my mother, it's my wife.

I can't speak for not whatever.

Most blogs are getting better at this, but there was a time when certain blogs always showed the eMail address of the commenters.

Some of these did not have the requirement that the first character of the name be a letter or number; hence I was able to use the name consisting only of one blank space, which became oneblankspace on those that required some sort of a name in the comment fields.

Also, if you publish anonymously and want to update your situation, how do you do it?

One of the other blogs I read does not allow anonymous comments, but does not require registration either.

Someone wrote --

you can surf in stealth mode in Firefox or Chrome

"Stealth mode" does not prevent someone from tracking your IP address. So-called stealth modes just stop your browser from caching (storing) the pages that you are viewing -- the browser will not write pages, images, files, and so on, to your disk unless you explicitly tell it to do so (say, by using File > Save As to save a web page, or right-clicking on an image an selecting Save Image As...").

These modes do NOT stop your ISP from tracking every IP address that you visit. These modes do nothing to make your browsing anonymous.

Just wanted to mention it.

And yes, Lickmuffin is my real name.

Jay Currie, thanks for the tip about the anonymous Visa cards which I'll check out. I can see a problem with the ship-to address for online ordering but something I'll try in the near future.

Phantom, I have the same problem as you do in using my real name hence the pseudonym. It now seems routine for patients to google their doctors name to see what pops up. I have a non-political website under my real name and loki does all of the political writings that usually end up on SDA. I'd really prefer to not do this, but then Thomas Paine published most of his work anonymously pre-1776.

For something like that, you need an anonymizing service, or Tor (The Onion Router) - although Tor traffic can be monitored where it enters and exits the network by the appropriate authorities (who have the mind to do such a thing).

very OT:

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/afp/090824/technology/us_canada_it_justice_company_internet_google

I think Winnipeg is better of somehow.

I really don't care if my identity is an "uber" secret ..... just so long as it takes more than a causual or sureptitious query to "home" in on my home.

And remember .... these things work both ways.

I'll start using my "real" name as soon as Mark Twain does.

Loki & Phantom, yeah, I hear ya. I stand by what I say but I'd prefer not to get my employer and/or family caught up in the middle of anything.

One of the main benefits (to the blogosphere) of anonymous blogging/commenting is, as Kate noted, the ability of those working in particular fields (government, health care) to speak (type) honestly. The main downside to anonymous commenting -- and you can see it everywhere -- comes from of people who -- one would assume, in most cases -- wouldn't take quite the same tone if they had to attach their real name to their comments.

In terms of blog comments, I find that those who use their real name tend to post most soberly and least quasi-libelously, as one would expect, and I instinctively give them the most respect. That being said, though, those who stick to one pseudonymous nick, and keep that name, and treat it as their online identity - loki, phantom, Texas Canuck, Tim in Vermont, Jema54, ET, Vitruvius, etc etc etc - are in the same general ballpark. These commenters become known entities, identifiable characters to other commenters, and in most cases they exhibit a similar sense of responsibility as the non-pseudonymous to not gratuitously vandalize discourse.

The real abusers of anonymity who exemplify and perfectly demonstrate the potential downside of anonymity are those who post, under a just-for-the-occasion pseudonym, cheap gratuitous postshots that they would never post under their real name, or even, I'd suggest, under their usual pseudonym. These commenters are akin to someone hiding in an abandoned building and firing a pellet gun at passersby: they take liberties *because* they are hidden. This attitude brings with it different sorts of behaviours.

BTW, I've been truly amazed, during those times when I've guest-blogged in Kate's absence, at how many of these sorts of comments come from a particular....(node? server?) -- I don't know the lingo, I'll just say ISP address, in downtown Ottawa. Go figure.

"""And yes, Lickmuffin is my real name."""

and GYM is not my real name, I use it because I can't spell Jim:-))))

EBD, this is it exactly. Without being able to post as The Phantom, in all honesty I'd never post at all. There's just too many people out there with a little, tiny bit of power looking for a target to use it on.

My views on a lot of things like self defense, guns, global warming etc. are highly unpopular with exactly the kind of people who would try to make my life difficult. Reality is, I have no freedom to speak unless it is anonymous, or at least plausibly deniable.

Purists and Utopians who feel otherwise should remember that office politics is both ubiquitous and ugly. They should also google "workplace abuse" and count the number of departments, bureaus, ministries and task forces that exist to police it. You can get hung for showing up to work wearing a cross pendant if you p1ss off the right harpy, imagine if you admit you like shooting!

I mean, Kathy Shaidle talks a good game against web anonymity, but Kathy is -self employed-. She doesn't have to stare down the office dragons every frickin' morning over her latest post, does she? I can stare with the best of 'em, but it gets freeping tiring after a while, y'know? And what if you torque off your -girlfriend's- office dragon? Or your brother's?

Things can get ugly.

Phantom and loki, good on the both of you.

Phantom, there are certainly good reasons to post anonymously, and yours are at the very top of the list. Pseudonymity provides a certain freedom of expression for people in other situations, too. But I can also understand the - mostly theoretical, but somewhat reasonable -- arguments of those who would argue that there's at least a sense in which you can't have perfect anonymity and free speech.

Suppose, for the sake of argument, that a particular government in some particular hypothetical nation was able to effectively curb, under threat of great punishment, certain opinions, but with this caveat: in a particular, underground-ish medium -- something like the internet -- they had no control over speech, and that in this medium people could voice their expressions pseudonymously. Here's the question: if every single person in this mythical country had access to this medium, and could therefore speak freely on this medium, yet couldn't reveal their opinions in real life in their own name, would it be reasonable to describe that country as being free?

In the non-theoretical realm, too, there are some ugly moral edges to the issue. Take XWinnipegger's comment at the Globe and Mail: here a pseudonymous commenter constructs, in a mindful and deliberate way, and places in the most public middle-Canada forum imaginable, and from a hidden position, a plausible-sounding slur that's not, realistically, backed up by example, or perspective, and unleashes it against a known/named individual. It's no big deal, we've seen it all before a million times. The slur in question is mindfully intended to sound like it's merely the nth reiteration of common wisdom rather than the personally motivated act of aggression that it actually is.

No one's crying for Kate, obviously, because she can take it, but what of the commenter? An anonymous comment is posted that is simply meant to defame someone in front of -- I would suggest -- a specific, intended audience of people who've *heard* of SDA but who never or rarely visit; the author is obviously disingenuous about his/her limbic intent, to an degree that wouldn't be quite so possible if the identity of the assailant were as open for criticism - i.e. available, named - as Kate is.
And then, just to further clog the proverbial pipes with stink, suppose that the identity, background, and proclivities of the slur-er are well-known to the - stand-up, identified - person being slurred, but not to the thousands of people who read the slur: does the person being slurred have a right to respond in kind, to address in person an...assailant, in effect, or does the assailant have a special dispensation, self-granted, which he/she does not grant to the object of their hatred? Does the slur-er have some inalienable right to pseudonymity?

It's an interesting issue, anyway.

Well said 'EBD' @ 1:33 AM. I was never one for hiding behind an fake id. If you have something to say 'say it' and back it up but I never had a job in the workforce that required me to hide behind a fake id.

I 'in the four years' have been reading 'Kates' blog of 'SDA' did not know that it was 'uber rightwing'. Must have missed that posting.

I am encouraged by the increasing community awareness to this 21st century pandemic called internet libel. Until someone has experienced it first hand it is difficult to relate to the anguish it causes. Judges too often by their body language and rulings see these suits as petty and undeserving of relief. However, a person that relies on their reputation can be as utterly devastated as a farmer who’s livestock, barns and fields are set alight by a vandal.

Respectfully submitted, Michael Roberts.
Internet Libel Victim's Advocate
www.rexxfield.com

Only totalitarian regimes require the obliteration of anonymity. Only advocates of the totalist state attack identity anonymity and personal privacy. Identity privacy is a foundation of free society. John Does are free from the reactionary tyranny of the status quo.

Just ask deep throat.

The need for anonymity when challenging the established order has a long and distinguished history. Google "junius" and "publius" for two particularly important examples. Today, whistleblowers need some assurance of anonymity; there have been far too many examples of people being fired or ruined by vengeful governments or corporations.

However, the need for anonymity when defaming or libeling has no such history. No respectable newspaper or magazine would print such a letter without establishing the name and address of the author (even though, on occasion, they do withhold the author's name and address). And, if a libel case is brought against them, newspapers have been known to reveal sources.

Surely our courts are rational enough to distinguish between these two quite distinct situations. Oh, wait....