With the invention of the internet people have the ability to do things almost completely anonymously. I am not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing. Well I know that it can be for the good but it can also be used for evil. The real question is the good that people can accomplish worth the evil that is there? When I refer to Online Anonymity and Anonymous I am referring to anyone using the internet to be anonymous, not just the hacktivism group.
For the good people have been able to use Online Anonymity to be able to organize revolutions, important protests and release information about the crimes and cover-ups of both governments and corporations. Without the ability to communicate with each other over the internet the protesters and Rebels in the Arab Spring would have never been able to organize themselves effectively enough to take down corrupt governments. WikiLeaks allows people to blow the whistle on Companies shady business practices and reveal information about corrupt government. They were also able to help organize protests in the first world against negative online censorship. In my opinion though the most important things ever accomplished by the Anonymous are events like Operation Darknet (The take down of 40 child porn sites and revealing information on over 1500 criminals.) and Operation Blitzkrieg (The outing of many Neo-Nazis.).
On the flip side of the issue there are also all of the negative things anonymity allows. There are the minor things like people being very disrespectful to others. One major example of this is the Habbo Raids. Habbo hotel is/was a site for children and teens to converse in a safe and moderated environment. Anonymous groups decided that it would be a good idea to disrupt this with profanity, organized racism and other troll like behavior. People also often do other things that are just terrible behavior such as uploading pornography to video sharing sites under the name of children's musicians and shows.
The above example may have been just something rude or 'for fun' but there is also a much more serious side. Anonymity is used to do illegal things with no/very little risk of punishment. This includes things like fraud and drug trafficking and bomb making. They allow people to anonymously acquire illegal weapons. The worst of it though is the targets against young people. Some use this anonymity to bully and abuse teens, often to the point where they try to kill themselves. Child pornography also runs rampant in the 'Deep Net'. It would take someone less then 30 minutes of reading this post to be able to access Tor networks and find pornography involving children or animals. Even COPINE 6-10 images can be found without fear or even any effort, sometimes they are mixed in with normal content just for the hell of it.
So Escapists do you think that it is good that we can do just about anything online without fear of the law or even the judgement of our peers? Would the internet be a better place if governments mad networks like TOR completely illegal? Is right to privacy more important then the safety of children?
For the good people have been able to use Online Anonymity to be able to organize revolutions, important protests and release information about the crimes and cover-ups of both governments and corporations. Without the ability to communicate with each other over the internet the protesters and Rebels in the Arab Spring would have never been able to organize themselves effectively enough to take down corrupt governments. WikiLeaks allows people to blow the whistle on Companies shady business practices and reveal information about corrupt government. They were also able to help organize protests in the first world against negative online censorship. In my opinion though the most important things ever accomplished by the Anonymous are events like Operation Darknet (The take down of 40 child porn sites and revealing information on over 1500 criminals.) and Operation Blitzkrieg (The outing of many Neo-Nazis.).
On the flip side of the issue there are also all of the negative things anonymity allows. There are the minor things like people being very disrespectful to others. One major example of this is the Habbo Raids. Habbo hotel is/was a site for children and teens to converse in a safe and moderated environment. Anonymous groups decided that it would be a good idea to disrupt this with profanity, organized racism and other troll like behavior. People also often do other things that are just terrible behavior such as uploading pornography to video sharing sites under the name of children's musicians and shows.
The above example may have been just something rude or 'for fun' but there is also a much more serious side. Anonymity is used to do illegal things with no/very little risk of punishment. This includes things like fraud and drug trafficking and bomb making. They allow people to anonymously acquire illegal weapons. The worst of it though is the targets against young people. Some use this anonymity to bully and abuse teens, often to the point where they try to kill themselves. Child pornography also runs rampant in the 'Deep Net'. It would take someone less then 30 minutes of reading this post to be able to access Tor networks and find pornography involving children or animals. Even COPINE 6-10 images can be found without fear or even any effort, sometimes they are mixed in with normal content just for the hell of it.
So Escapists do you think that it is good that we can do just about anything online without fear of the law or even the judgement of our peers? Would the internet be a better place if governments mad networks like TOR completely illegal? Is right to privacy more important then the safety of children?
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