From: Kenneth Canfield <ksc2103@columbia.edu>
  To  : <cpc@emoglen.law.columbia.edu>
  Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2006 08:49:43 -0500

Re: [CPC] Paper 1: The Danger of Absolute Internet Anonymity

Josh Kolsky wrote:

Thanks for the detailed reply!

<snip>
> Your paper makes a good point about the value of anonymity that I
> missed in mine: "Those with controversial views can communicate
> without worrying about the repercussions."  I think this can be
> accomplished with relative anonymity, without the need to allow
> absolute anonymity.

I agree that empirically, this is accomplished in today's world.  So if
we currently have relative anonymity, then it seems you would be
correct.  And while our current system is far from forced-identity
disclosure, how anonymous is it really, at least for the average
individual who doesn't go out of his way to take precautions to become
anonymous?  I realize this is what you might view as a good thing, i.e.,
 "relative anonymity" as opposed to "absolute anonymity."  However, I
want to question the extent to which it is really is any anonymity at
all, relative or absolute, unless one intentionally seeks it out.  A lot
of collection about us is going on behind our backs, much of which we've
discussed in the class, and which returns us Eben's continuing concern
with why it seems no one cares about privacy.  We (as a population)
certainly act as if we have even absolute anonymity, and then a few
unlucky people (sometimes we might say deservedly so, if they've
committed crimes) realize they don't.  Perhaps we are in some sort of
equilibrium where those who link our identities to our pseudonyms online
don't do so (maybe for commercial reasons they'd rather keep any such
knowledge to themselves, or maybe they don't have the time to bother),
but I'd think it might be an unsteady equilibrium, in that a little
legislation can lead to a lot of identity disclosure and a big loss of
anonymity/apparent anonymity.

Putting my playing devil's advocate aside, though, I can see your point
that our relative anonymity/apparent anonymity has functioned well
enough to encourage most people to speak freely.  (Some of those same
people seem to speak freely when they are intentionally disclosing their
own identities (e.g., facebook, myspace), but it seems that we've come
to an agreement that at least some people speak more freely when they
believe their speech is anonymous.)

> 
> On the other hand, I do think attempts to combat false speech can be
> legitimate.  Defamation serves no useful purpose and only threatens
> the quality of debate, so I would support measures that require
> users to be ultimately identifiable on the Internet (even if they
> do use psuedonyms).  So, they would not be identifiable to other
> Internet users, but they would be trackable through their IP
> address.  The NJ law you cited is interesting.  I think someone or

Putting aside the issue that an IP address I think identifies a
computer, or perhaps even a computer cluster, rather than a specific
user (which is a major issue against using IP addresses as
identification that perhaps should not be so easily tossed aside), is it
really the case that users can "not be identifiable to other Internet
users" but "trackable through their IP address"?  For email and
newsgroup postings, you can identify someone's IP address by viewing
full headers.  I think if you are hosting a website you can get IP
addresses of your visitors.  While knowing that 123.45.67.890 emailed
you last Wednesday, visited espn.com, and posted to rec.sport.baseball
might still not tell you who 123.45.67.890 is, if in any case the
individual (assuming there is an individual behind the IP address)
reveals once herself, then all her communications are no longer
anonymous -- to other Internet users, not just the government.

Though going back to reality, while normal Internet users may
occasionally check headers--I've seen it happen to identify trolls who
change their handles in newsgroups)--I have not seen them used to link
back to a real person, just to link handle2 to handle1.  So if in our
current state we are to believe that the ISPs are capable of identifying
us for government when necessary, and even though normal people may be
able to in some circumstances, they don't, perhaps it's a balance that
we can accept.  It again gives us the apparent anonymity that seems
enough to make many people feel they can speak freely.  (Though one
might still be concerned about the companies like Google and Amazon
collecting data like crazy.  To combat someone with great resources like
Google, Amazon, and others, apparent anonymity is not enough.  But that
takes us away from the topic of suppressing speech and back to the
data-mining privacy discussions.)

<snip>

> 
> Perhaps one way to draw the line would be to say that users should
> be able to remain anonymous so long as their speech is
> constitutionally protected.  But speech without such protection,
> defamation or extreme harassment, would lose its right to
> anonymity.  In order to remove the shield of anonymity, we need
> some way of identifying Internet users through IP addresses.

I think it's difficult to create such a situation.  I believe we are
either tracked or we aren't tracked; our IP addresses are collected or
they are not collected.  If we are tracked, the question becomes how
much we trust the tracker to only use the tracking information when
there is a legitimate reason to, like defamation or extreme harassment.
 My instinct is that if we are to favor one technical reality over the
other, it should be the one where we are not tracked.  I think we are
currently in the one where we are tracked, except for those who
intentionally take themselves out of it, but people act for the most
part as if we are untracked.

> 
> I guess in the end, I don't believe that having one's IP address
> recorded will really deter any valuable (i.e., protected) speech. 
> Maybe I'm wrong though.

I think you are right, just as most people seem not to care at all about
the data-mining privacy issues.  People seem to be talking now as if
they have absolute anonymity even though don't.  Perhaps a few highly
publicized cases can raise people's concerns and change things.

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