Re: Problems with anonymous escrow 2--response

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

Jason S. said:

> People are using anonymity in a different way than has practical value
> within cyberspace. Anonymity usually means that you can not match a
> physical realm person to a cyberspatial private key. But that doesn't
> mean you don't know anything about the entity. The skills of an entity
> without any reputation capital are absolutely worthless. But usually an 
> anonymous entity will come around brandishing all sorts of certifications 
> (reputation capital).
> 
> So, as it is usually used, anonymity does not mean zero knowledge. It
> means you lack knowledge that would enable you to match the key to the
> physical realm person it corresponds to. With this in mind, the
> coexistence of the aforementioned attributes ceases to be problematic.

I think most of us understand this is what "pseudonymity" means...we
only use "anonymous" as shorthand for this. You can quibble about
this, and I might agree that the more awkward "pseudonymous" is a
better term, but no one is being misled into thinking that "anonymous"
means truly anonymous, with no credentials, no reputation, no trail.

--Tim May


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