Reasons for Anonymity--A Long Selection

[tcmay@netcom.com (Timothy C. May)]

The  following is part of an outline dealing with the topics on this list,
maintained since 1990 for a novel-in-progress (the writing, that is) I've
been working on for several years, off and on. In addition to using various
databases and hypertext systems (ArchiText, from Brainpower, and
StorySpace, from Eastgate Systems) for character developoment and plots, I
have also relied heavily on MORE, a powerful outline processor from
Symantec (MORE 3.0 is the direct descendent of ThinkTank, and feature
"cloning," where a branch of the outline can be replicated in many places,
allowing immediate hypertext-like jumps to distant parts of the outline,
and also maintaining database coherency). 

Several people have requested that I make good on my offer to post certain
parts of these notes, especially the parts dealing with "crypto anarchy"
and how it may get developed, how it may be fought by the law enforcement
types, what it can be used for, etc.

As an exeriment, I'll post here just one medium-sized branch, from deep in
the outline tree. "Reasons for Anonymity" seems in line with current list
interest. (Note that most of these comments were written in 1990-91, so
they may be slightly dated.) 

If the reaction is favorable, maybe I'll post more. Or, there may be other
options, such as placing parts of the outline in the archive site.

I've converted the nested outline structure to a flattened,
Harvard-labelled text file. It may still not be the easiest to read,
especially as many of the entries are intended only to jog my memory and to
help me organize my thinking.

Hope someone likes it.


Reasons for Anonymity and Digital Pseudonyms

I.  many of the same reasons as with Caller ID, but many 
new reasons as well

II.  Physical Threats

A.  "corporate terrrorism" is not a myth: drug dealers and 
other "marginal" businessmen face this every day

1.  extortion, threats, kidnappings

B.  and many businesses of the future may well be less 
"gentlemanly" than the conventional view has it

1.  witness the bad blood between Intel and AMD, and 
then imagine it getting ten times worse

2.  and national rivalries, even in ostensibly legal 
businesses (think of arms dealers), may cause more 
use of violence

3.  Mafia and other organized crime groups may try to 
extort payments or concessions from market 
participants, causing them to seek the relative 
protection of anonymous systems

a)  with reputations

4.  Note that calls for the threatened to turn to the police 
for protection has several problems

a)  the activities may be illegal or marginally illegal (this 
is the reason the Mafia can often get involved and 
why it may even sometimes have a positive effect, 
acting as the cop for illegal activities)

b)  the police are often too busy to get involved, what 
with so much physical crime clogging the courts

C.  extortion and kidnappings can be done using these 
very techniques of cryptoanarchy, thus causing a kind 
of arms race

D.  battered and abused women and families may need 
the equivalent of a "witness protection program"

1.  because of the ease of tracing credit card purchases, 
with the right bribes and/or court orders (or even 
hacking), battered wives may seek credit cards under 
pseudonyms

a)  and some card companies may oblige, as a kind of 
politically correct social gesture

b)  or groups like NOW and Women Against Rape may 
even offer their own cards

(1)  perhaps backed up by some kind of escrow fund

(2)  could be debit cards

E.  people who participate in cyberspace businesses may 
fear retaliation or extortion in the real world

1.  threats by their governments (for all of the usual 
reasons, plus kickbacks, threats to close them down, 
etcl)

2.  ripoffs by those who covet their success...

III.  Needed for Certain Kinds of Reputation-Based 
Systems

A.  a respected scientist may wish to float a speculative 
idea

1.  and be able to later prove it was in fact his idea

IV.  Legal Protection

A.  many transactions may be deemed illegal in some 
jursidictions

1.  even in some that the service or goods provider has no 
control over

a)  example: gun makers being held liable for firearms 
deaths in the District of Columbia (though this was 
recently cancelled)

2.  the maze of laws may cause some to seek anonymity 
to protect themselves against this maze

B.  "deep pockets"

1.  it will be in the interest of some to hide their 
identities so as to head off these kinds of lawsuits 
(filed for whatever reasons, rightly or wrongly)

2.  postings and comments may expose the authors to 
lawsuits for libel, misrepresentation, unfair 
competition, and so on (so much for free speech in 
these beknighted states)

3.  employers may also be exposed to the same suits, 
regardless of where their employees posted from

a)  on the tenuous grounds that an employee was acting 
on his employer's behalf, e.g., in defending an Intel 
product on Usenet

4.  this, BTW, is another reason for people to seek ways to 
hide some of their assets-to prevent confiscation in 
deep pockets lawsuits (or family illnesses, in which  
various agencies try to seize assets of anybody they 
can)

5.  and the same computers that allow these transactions 
will also allow more rapid determination of who has 
the deepest pockets!

C.  moonlighting employees (the original concern over 
Black Net and AMIX)

1.  employers may have all kinds of concerns, hence the 
need for employees to hide their identities

2.  note that this interects with the licensing and zoning 
aspects

D.  to beat zoning and licensing requirements

E.  Scenario: Anonymous organ donor banks

1.  e.g., a way to "market" rare blood types, or whatever, 
without exposing one's self to forced donation or other 
sanctions

a)  "forced donation" involves the lawsuits filed by the 
potential recipient

b)  at the time of offer, at least...what happens when the 
deal is consummated is another domain

2.  and a way to avoid the growing number of 
government stings

F.  avoidance of prosecution or damage claims for 
writing, editing, distributing, or selling such 
"damaging" materials is yet another reason for 
anonymous systems to emerge: those involved in the 
process will seek to immunize themselves from the 
various tort claims that are clogging the courts

1.  producers, distributors, directors, writers, and even 
actors of x-rated or otherwise "unacceptable" material 
may have to have the protection of anonymous 
systems

2.  imagine fiber optics and the proliferation of videos 
and talk shows....bluenoses and prosecutors will use 
"forum shopping" to block access, to prosecute the 
producers, etc.

V.  Anonymity in Requesting Information, Services, 
Goods

A.  a la the controversy over Caller ID and 900 numbers: 
people don't want their telephone numbers (and 
hence identities) fed into huge consumer-preference 
data banks

1.  of the things they buy, the videos they rent, the books 
they read. etc. (various laws protect some of these 
areas, like library books, video rentals)

2.  subscription lists are already a booming resale 
market...this will get faster and more finely "tuned" 
with electronic subscriptions: hence the desire to 
subscribe anonymously

B.  some examples of "sensitive" services that anonymity 
may be desired in (especially related to computers, 
modems, BBSes)

1.  reading unusual or sensitive groups: alt.sex.bondage, 
etc.

a)  or posting to these groups!

b)  recent controversy over NAMBLA may make such 
protections more desirable to some (and parallel calls 
for restrictions!)

2.  posting to such groups, especially given that records 
are perpetual and that government agencies read and 
file postings (an utterly trivial thing to do)

3.  requesting help on personal issues (equivalent to the 
"Name Witheld" seen so often)

4.  discussing controversial political issues (and who 
knows what will be controversial 20 years later when 
the poster is seeking a political office, for example?)

a)  given that some groups have already (1991) posted the 
past postings of people they are trying to smear!

5.  Note: the difference between posting to a BBS group 
or chat line and writing a letter to an editor is 
significant

a)  partly technological: it is vastly easier to compile 
records of postings than it is to cut clippings of letters 
to editors (though this will change rapidly as scanners 
make this easy)

b)  partly sociological: people who write letters know the 
letters will be with the back issues in perpetuity, that 
bound issues will preserve their words for many 
decades to come (and could conceivably come back to 
haunt them), but people who post to BBSes probably 
think their words are temporary

c)  and there are some other factors

(1)  no editing

(2)  no time delays (and no chance to call an editor and 
retract a letter written in haste or anger)

(3)  and letters can, and often are, written with the 
"Name Witheld" signature-this is currently next to 
impossible to do on networks

(a)  though some "forwarding" services have informally 
sprung up

C.  Businesses may wish to protect themselves from 
lawsuits over comments by their employees

1.  the usual "The opinions expressed here are not those 
of my employer" may not be enough to protect an 
employer from lawsuits

a)  imagine racist or sexist comments leading to lawsuits 
(or at least being brought up as evidence of the type of 
"attitude" fostered by the company, e.g., "I've worked 
for Intel for 12 years and can tell you that blacks make 
very poor engineers.")

2.  employees may make comments that damage the 
reputations of their companies 

a)  Note: this differs from the current situation, where 
free speech takes priority over company concerns, 
because the postings to a BBS are carried widely, may 
be searched electronically (e.g., AMD lawyers search 
the UseNet postings of 1988-91 for any postings by 
Intel employees besmirching the quality or whatever 
of AMD chips), 

3.  and so employees of corporations may protect 
themselves, and their employers, by adopting 
pseudonyms

D.  Businesses may seek information without wanting to 
alert their competitors

1.  this is currently done with agents, "executive search 
firms," and lawyers

2.  but how will it evolve to handle electronic searches?

3.  there are some analogies with filings of "Freedom of 
Information Act" requests, and of patents, etc.

a)  these "fishing expeditions" will increase with time, as 
it becomes profitable for companies to search though 
mountains of electronically-filed materials

(1)  environmental impact studies, health and safety 
disclosures, etc.

(2)  could be something that some companies specialize in

E.  Anonymous Consultation Services, Anonymous 
Stringers or Reporters

1.  imagine an information broker, perhaps on an 
AMIX-like service, with a network of stringers

a)  think of the arms deal newsletter writer in Hallahan's 
The Trade, with his network of stringers feeding him 
tips and inside information

(1)  instead of meeting in secretive locations, a very 
expensive proposition (in time and travel), a secure 
network can be used

(2)  with reputations, digital pseudonyms, etc.

2.  they may not wish their actual identities known

a)  threats from employers, former employers, 
government agencies

b)  harassment via the various criminal practices that will 
become more common (e.g., the ease with which 
assailants and even assassins can be contracted for)

(1)  part of the overall move toward anonymity

c)  fears of lawsuits, licensing requirements, etc.

3.  Candidates for Such Anonymous Consultation 
Services

a)  An arms deals newsletter

(1)  an excellent reputation for accuracy and timely 
information

(2)  sort of like an electronic form of Jane's

(a)  with scandals and government concern

(3)  but nobody knows where it comes from

(4)  a site that distributes it to subscribers gets it with 
another larger batch of forwarded material

(a)  NSA, FBI, Fincen, etc. try to track it down

b)  "Technology Insider" reports on all kinds of new 
technologies

(1)  patterned after Hoffler's Microelectronics News, the 
Valley's leading tip sheet for two decades

(2)  the editor pays for tips, with payments made in two 
parts: immediate, and time-dependent, so that the 
accuracy of a tip, and its ultimate importance (in the 
judgment of the editor) can be proportionately 
rewarded

(3)  PK systems, with contributors able to encrypt and then 
publicly post (using their own means of diffusion)

(a)  with their messages containing further material, such 
as authentications, where to send the payments, etc.

c)  Lundberg's Oil Industry Survey (or similar)

(1)  i.e., a fairly conventional newsletter with publicly 
known authors

(2)  in this case, the author is known, but the identities of 
contributors is well-protected

d)  A Conspiracy Newsletter

(1)  reporting on all of the latest theories of misbehavior 
(as in the "Conspiracies" section of this outline)

(2)  a wrinkle: a vast hypertext web, with contributors able 
to add links and nodes

(a)  naturally, their real name-if they don't care about 
real-world repercussions-or one of their digital 
pseudonyms (may as well use cryptonyms) is attached

i)  various algorithms for reputations

(1)  sum total of everything ever written, somehow 
measured by other comments made, by "voting," etc.

(2)  a kind of moving average, allowing for the fact that 
learning will occur, just as a researcher probably gets 
better with time, and that as reputation-based systems 
become better understood, people come to appreciate 
the importance of writing carefully

e)  and one of the most controversial of all: Yardley's 
Intelligence Daily

(1)  though it may come out more than daily!

(2)  an ex-agent set this up in the mid-90s, soliciting 
contributions via an anonymous packet-switching 
sysem

(a)  refined over the next couple of years

(b)  combination of methods

(3)  government has been trying hard to identify the 
editor, "Yardley"

(4)  he offers a payback based on value of the 
information, and even has a "Requests" section, and a 
Classifed Ad section

(5)  a hypertext web, similar to the Conspiracy Newsletter 
above

(6)  Will Government Try to Discredit the Newsletter 
With False Information?

(a)  of course, the standard ploy in reputation-based 
systems

(b)  but Yardley has developed several kinds of filters for 
this

i)  digital pseudonyms which gradually build up 
reputations

ii)  cross-checking of his own sort

iii)  he even uses language filters to analyze the text

(c)  and so what?

i)  the world is filled with disinformation, rumors, lies, 
half-truths, and somehow things go on....

f)  Other AMIX-like Anonymous Services

(1)  Drug Prices and Tips

(a)  tips on the quality of various drugs (e.g., "Several 
reliable sources have told us that the latest Maui 
Wowie is very intense, numbers below...")

(b)  synthesis of drugs (possibly a separate subscription)

i)  designer drugs

ii)  home labs

iii)  avoiding detection

(2)  The Hackers Daily

(a)  tips on hacking and cracking

(b)  anonymous systems themselves (more tips)

(3)  Product evaluations (anonymity needed to allow 
honest comments with more protection against 
lawsuits)

4.  Newspapers Are Becoming Cocerned with the Trend 
Toward Paying for News Tips

a)  by the independent consultation services

b)  but what can they do?

c)  lawsuits are tried, to prevent anonymous tips when 
payments are involved

(1)  their lawyers cite the tax evasion and national security 
aspects

F.  Private Data Bases 

1.  any organization offering access to data bases must be 
concerned that somebody-a disgruntled customer, a 
whistleblower, the government, whoever-will call 
for an opening of the files

a)  under various "Data Privacy" laws

b)  or just in general (tort law, lawsuits, "discovery")

2.  thus, steps will be taken to isolate the actual data from 
actual users, perhaps via cutouts

a)  e.g., a data service sells access, but subcontracts out the 
searches to other services via paths that are 
untraceable

(1)  this probably can't be outlawed in general-though 
any specific transaction might later be declared illegal, 
etc., at which time the link is cut and a new one is 
established-as this would outlaw all subcontracting 
arrangements!

(a)  i.e., if Joe's Data Service charges $1000 for a search on 
widgets and then uses another possibly transitory 
(meaning a cutout) data service, the most a lawsuit 
can do is to force Joe to stop using this untraceble 
service

(b)  levels of indirection (and firewalls that stop the 
propagation of investigations)

G.  Medical Polls (a la AIDS surveys, sexual practices 
surveys, etc.)

1.  recall the method in which a participant tosses a coin 
to answer a question...the analyst can still recover the 
important ensemble information, but the "phase" is 
lost

a)  i.e., an individual answering "Yes" to the question 
"Have you ever had xyz sex?" may have really 
answered "No" but had his answer flipped by a coin 
toss

2.  researchers may even adopt sophisticated methods in 
which explicit diaries are kept, but which are then 
transmitted under an anonymous mailing system to 
the researchers

a)  obvious dangers of authentication, validity, etc.

H.  Medical testing: many reasons for people to seek 
anonymity

1.  AIDS testing is the preeminent example

2.  but also testing for conditions that might affect 
insurablity or employment (e.g.,  people may go to 
medical havens in Mexico or wherever for tests that 
might lead to uninsurability should insurance 
companies learn of the "precondition")

3.  except in AIDS and STDs, it is probably both illegal 
and against medical ethics to offer anonymous 
consultations

a)  perhaps people will travel to other countries

VI.  Anonymity in Belonging to Certain Clubs, Churches, 
or Organizations

A.  people fear retaliation or embarassment should their 
membership be discovered, now or later

1.  e.g., a church member who belongs to controversial 
groups or clubs

B.  mainly, or wholly, those in which physical contact or 
other personal contact is not needed (a limited set)

C.  similar to the cell-based systems described elsewhere

D.  Candidates for anonymous clubs or organizations

1.  Earth First!, Act Up, Animal Liberation Front, etc.

2.  NAMBLA and similar controversial groups

E.  all of these kinds of groups have very vocal, very 
visible members, visible even to the point of seeking 
out television coverage

F.  but there are probably many more who would join 
these groups if there identities could be shielded from 
public group, for the sake of their careers, their 
families, etc.

G.  ironically, the corporate crackdown on outside 
activities considered hostile to the corporation (or 
exposing them to secondary lawsuits, claims, etc.) may 
cause greater use of anonymous systems

1.  cell-based membership in groups

H.  the growth of anonymous membership in groups 
(using pseudonyms) has a benefit in increasing 
membership by people otherwise afraid to join, for 
example, a radical environmental group

VII.  Anonymity in Giving Advice or Pointers to 
Information

A.  suppose someone says who is selling some illegal or 
contraband product...is this also illegal?

B.  hypertext systems will make this inevitable

VIII.  Anonymous Voting in Clubs, Organizations, 
Churches, etc.

A.  a major avenue for spreading CA methods: "electronic 
blackballing," weighted voting (as with number of 
shares)

1.  e.g., a corporation, perhaps one of JH's, issues "voting 
tokens," which can be used to vote anonymously

a)  or even sold to others (like selling shares, except 
selling only the voting right for a specific election is 
cheaper, and many people don't much care about 
elections)

2.  a way to protect against deep pockets lawsuits in, say, 
race discrimination cases

a)  wherein a director is sued for some action the 
company takes-anonymity will give him some legal 
protection, some "plausible deniability"

3.  is possible to set up systems (cf. Salomaa) in which 
some "supervotes" have blackball power, but the use 
of these vetos is indistinguishable from a standard 
majority rules vote

a)  i.e., nobody, except the blackballer(s), will know 
whether the blackball was used!

b)  will the government seek to limit this kind of 
protocol?

(1)  claiming discrimination potential or abuse of voting 
rights?

B.  will Justice Department (or SEC) seek to overturn 
anonymous voting?

1.  as part of the potential move to a "full disclosure" 
society?

2.  related to antidiscrimination laws, accountability, etc.

C.  Anonymous Voting in Reputation-Based Systems 
(Journals, Markets)

1.  customers can vote on products, on quality of service, 
on the various deals they've been involved in

a)  not clear how the voting rights would get distributed

b)  the idea is to avoid lawsuits, sanctions by vendors, etc. 
(as with the Bose suit)

2.  Journals

a)  a canonical example, and one which I must include, 
as it combines anonymous refereeing (already 
standard, in primitive forms), hypertext (links to 
reviews), and basic freedom of speech issues

b)  this will likely be an early area of use

3.  this whole area of consumer reviews may be a way to 
get CA bandwidth up and running (lots of 
PK-encrypted traffic sloshing around the various nets)

IX.  the 100% traceability of public postings to UseNet and 
other bulletin boards is very stifling to free expression 
and becomes one of the main justifications for the use 
of anonymous (or pseudononymous) boards and nets

A.  there may be calls for laws against such compilation, 
as with the British data laws, but basically there is 
little that can be done when postings go to tens of 
thousands of machines and are archived in perpetuity 
by many of these nodes and by thousands of readers

B.  readers who may incorporate the material into their 
own postings, etc. (hence the absurdity of the British 
law)