- Recon Number 54
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- Master Forum Ninja
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Well, here we are. I guess that it was destined to come to this.
It's easy to confuse (even in this instance) privacy with anonymity.
People tend to depend on anonymity to protect their privacy.
For example, I am in the crowd in a mall and I shout out something offensive. No one knows who I am (hopefully) and so, other than glare at me there is little that anyone can do. Since they don't know who I am, my anonymity has protected my privacy.
Online is similar, but trickier. Your anonymity isn't as certain to protect your privacy. In a real life crowd, other than someone following you home or a cop demanding your ID, there isn't much that people can do to find out "who that jerk is". Online? The information is there, and people can use a lot of tools and methods in order to track/stalk the individual.
Anyone who depends on their online anonymity to protect their privacy is (sooner or later) likely to have their privacy violated.