Internet anonymity, SOPA, PIPA etc HOLYWAR

In my experience as time goes on forum communities as they get larger tend to drastically increase the rules, and in turn the amount of moderators needed to patrol the forums to try to keep order. What happens then is that each individual moderator has their own 'interpretations' of the rules that vary a tiny bit from other moderators, but sometimes it varies by a wide margin.

The result is confusion on the part of the user base. Speaking from experience in running several gaming forums in the past, it is very difficult to keep all of the moderators on the same page and enforce the rules in a consistent fashion. Sometimes users tend to think all of the moderators all know instantly what the other moderators do, so all of the rules should be applied evenly to everyone. This leads to more frustration from the user base.

Over time, the pressure on the staff increases as the community grows by leaps and bounds, and some moderators get burned out by the constant demands the forum is placing on them. Some move on in life, to other communities. Some stay on until the end. I have never seen a forum online that enforced the rules across the board in a very consistent matter that allows some user freedom. The 'best behaved' boards tend to have amazingly restrictive rules to the point where almost all discussion is squashes before it can even play out and develop.

I could not find a solution to this problem as admin of my past gaming forums, some of which became quite large. I simply got sick and tired of it for awhile and finally realized that you cannot please everyone all of the time. If you do something to please group A, group B is displeased. If you do something to please group B, group A is displeased. This leads to tension on the forums, and tension seems to attract trolls.

What also happens is that forums often adopt a 'zero tolerance' rule where people only get 1 chance, if they mess up they are perma banned instantly. Sadly, I have seen instances where the ( rather insane ) admin bans blocks of IP, not just the users single IP. They are so fed up they do not care who they take out along with the troll, as there always will be more people coming to the forum to make up for it.

This is not only the case thankfully for forums. But forums have serious challenges and I feel the only true way to ensure a really good forum is when the net evolves into it's next form, and real names are required by all to use the internet. Far too much damage is done by people hiding behind internet names, fake names, persona, etc.

It is a well known fact that people tend to behave REALLY well when they fully realize that if they do not, there will be consequences of their actions. We already have this - it is called life offline.
Groups like the so called "Anonymous" are actually doing far more damage to the internet as we know it today and are in fact quickly accelerating the eventual lock down of the net, where I suspect that to use it real names will be required like I said, but also bank accounts will be tied into your SINGLE online presence. No fake names, but it is actually your ass on the line.

Watch then in amazement as people begin to BEHAVE online. :D
It is like the people who 'try' to find work after enjoying unemployment for several months, then wait - all of a sudden just 2 weeks before it is going to run out they *magically* find a job.

I am constantly fascinated by human emotions and something always new pops up in my HR department that that shocks the hell out of me. Humans are very interesting people just by their nature.

I could go on about this more, but I am actually at work and well, not working. Well sort of working.

 

Street corner in a mickey mouse costume again?
Also the whole point of the internet is to find and share information anonymously.

 

No friend, I do not wear a costume to promote a buisness on the street corner. People who do that are working at least, making a living how they can. To put them down as you have is sorta lame. I don't remember every getting you upset, so why you chose to attack me out of the blue is mystifying. I will just chalk you up as another friend of BL.

Actually, you are incorrect about the internet. It was designed to allow United States government to function and issue orders in the event of widespread Nuclear Attack during the cold war. It is redundant.

And the internet is evolving every day. It's purpose now is not to server the United States Government, but for the free and open exchange of info, and commerce. It is just a matter of time due to groups like Anonymous who are actually doing more harm then good for the current internet that the internet changes drastically. It is already beginning to take shape. See for example SOPA and PIPA. These on hold bills are just the very beginning. The more groups like Anonymous abuse the Internets freedoms, the harder world governments will crack down on the net.

 

So... I guess we know who wanted soapa to pass!

 

Ok, yeah sure that sounds reasonable.

I would agree to this.

Slightly opinionated, but I can understand. I've seen this happen aswell.

Yup, and sometimes conflict is entirely down to an elaborate troll for the sake of it.

I've seen this aswell, it can get very out of hand.

No. Not fucking ever. The hell is wrong with you? Real names REQUIRED on the internet? The damage is done because people are too naive to just stop caring or take a joke. The same shit happens in real life but most of the time its water off a ducks back and every walks away and laughs.

The odd time it does come to blows people go nuts at each other and someone ends up dead or hurt. Do you really think adding names to the internet would make that problem better?

Honestly from this part alone you sound like one of those people who think "Hmm, a lot of people have weapons to defend themselves. You know what? Lets ban weapons so the streets are safer, perfect logic! I'm a genius" Only the reality is criminals are super stoked that now law abiding citizens don't have weapons and the criminals do. Lets be honest weapons aren't dangerous, dangerous people use weapons in an evil fashion.

The same principle applies to the internet. People are going to be dicks, requiring real names on the internet will just make it even easier to find someone who pissed you the fuck off and ruin their day.

I trust Anonymous far more than I trust the lobbyists paid by massive corporations that don't have my best interests at heart pushing through legislation that damages the status quo and reduces the freedom of the internet turning it into a homogenized service like Television.

I can't believe you actually beleive this. Like I am genuinely shocked. Please stop spouting your hateful propaganda here. There are impressionable children who might actually think you have a point.

 

No. Not fucking ever. The hell is wrong with you? Real names REQUIRED on the internet? The damage is done because people are too naive to just stop caring or take a joke. The same shit happens in real life but most of the time its water off a ducks back and every walks away and laughs.

The odd time it does come to blows people go nuts at each other and someone ends up dead or hurt. Do you really think adding names to the internet would make that problem better?

Honestly from this part alone you sound like one of those people who think "Hmm, a lot of people have weapons to defend themselves. You know what? Lets ban weapons so the streets are safer, perfect logic! I'm a genius" Only the reality is criminals are super stoked that now law abiding citizens don't have weapons and the criminals do. Lets be honest weapons aren't dangerous, dangerous people use weapons in an evil fashion.

The same principle applies to the internet. People are going to be dicks, requiring real names on the internet will just make it even easier to find someone who pissed you the fuck off and ruin their day.


I trust Anonymous far more than I trust the lobbyists paid by massive corporations that don't have my best interests at heart pushing through legislation that damages the status quo and reduces the freedom of the internet turning it into a homogenized service like Television.


I can't believe you actually beleive this. Like I am genuinely shocked. Please stop spouting your hateful propaganda here. There are impressionable children who might actually think you have a point.[/quote]


I will address the above in specific.

" The same principle applies to the internet. People are going to be dicks, requiring real names on the internet will just make it even easier to find someone who pissed you the fuck off and ruin their day."

And how would that be different than how we are in society now 'offline'? People need to begin to behave online just as well as they do offline. Right now the penalties are simply NOT there for what people say and do online. Using real names would stop trolls INSTANTLY as they no long have the ability to hide behind the shroud of the internet as it is today.

I understand this idea is up-popular, but from what I hear from my IT friends where I work is that it is a generational thing. They all say it is inevitable that real names will be needed to be used to gain access to the internet in the USA, and other countries on a case by case basis. They real the latest papers and attend the latest shows, and they have seen a shift towards making the internet safer across the board in the protocols. What protocols cannot do is force people to behave online as they are required to do in society at large, offline.

What is going to happen is that the system will be slowly put in place, and how it will change is that the kids who are growing up with the new system will never have know anything else and will be totally fine with it. The people alive who will remember the internet as it is today with the wild west like atmosphere will hate it, but as they mature and get older they will see that it was for the better.

Literally right now the internet is in the same stage as the old wild west of the USA in the early to mid 1800's. Each town ( internet site ) has their own sheriff who has his own laws, his own style of running his town. Other towns ( sites ) had their own rules that were specific to that town. Over time as the federal government and natural expansion of the country took hold, the rules began to even out and became law across the entire country. ( federal laws ). Towns could make some limited specific rules for themselves, but there grew to be country wide order in terms of laws. If you commit a federal crime in Idaho today, you will be charged the same way as if you did the crime in Maine.

The internet is beginning to shift, mature, towards what I am talking about. Honestly, it has come far sooner than I expected. SOPA and PIPA I assure you are just the start. I did not like SOPA or PIPA, as I think they were not well thought out and were not 'sold' to the public in the correct way. The bills in the future will have to be made carefully and will have to be shown to the public that it is better based on increased safety.

As for Anonymous, I think you missed the point. Their illegal activities are just greatly increasing the speed of which badly written, breakneck legislation and rules will be put into effect in the USA before they are well thought out. Honestly, the best thing Anon can do for the next is to stop abusing it the way they are as they are dramatically increasing the speed of which today's internet is dying.

We need the shift to happen naturally, not because Anon hacked the CIA database and released all the names of undercover agents or something. ( and I promise you, if they do something like that, the internet in the USA will change faster than anyone can imagine )

I was like you that I found the mere suggestion of using real names online to be vile and repulsive. But even huge video game companies are already dabbing into it. Blizzard tried a couple of years ago to require real names, but the backlash stopped them for that time. Google is requiring almost everyone to use their real names for Google +, and Facebook is well, slowly becoming the standard of using your actual real name and life for all to see, instead of a fake name like we all have here. The thing is behind the scenes, behind the real names, everyone here and everyone on the net is actually a real person, with a real bank account, with a real life, etc.

The only thing that will force people to behave online is when their ass is at risk for real world consequences. Right now people can 'hide' behind the net and be bigots or homophobic or racists online, yet they then go to work and work right along side people of color, homosexual people, etc. Would they ever openly at work or in a restaurant or in public suddenly start yelling homophobic or racist things towards those people? The vast majority of the time, no they would not. Why? The know there will be repercussions, and society as a whole has decided that racism and homophobic behavior and attacks is not to be accepted. We have detailed laws in terms of hate crimes towards minority groups and homosexuals. Specific laws that add extra punishment for those crimes.

As for the last item, about unemployment. It is not something that I 'believe' in, it is something I see often in my industry. I work in Human Resources and I get to see things like this. I would have to say that in terms of unemployment around 70% of the stuff I see in regards to this aspect what I said is true. This is just my personal experience. Forgive me for I made the mistake of using blanket terms as if across the entire country this happens. I know for a fact that many people do really try ( as required by law ) to everyday go out and actively seek employment. But to think everyone is as responsible is naive.

I realize this stuff was off topic, but as you took the time to write about what I said, I thought I owed it to you to respond. I will now get off this topic on the open forum, but if you wish to continue the conversation by all means PM me!

 

They who can give up their essential liberty to obtain temporary security, deserve neither liberty nor safety.

I can't believe you would support this. You're either some kind of elaborate troll or meta humour invoking Poes law where satire is easily confused with real extremism.

I don't even. Penalties? Why do we need penalties, for what? Do you think I should be arrested for hate crimes if I'm joking around privately with my friends telling racist or dark humour jokes and all of a sudden some demographic walks in and decides to make a fuss? Despite that fact that I am a soldier and I would go to fight in a heartbeat any civil or international war over racial, religious or sexual identity based ethnic or otherwise cleansing with no doubt in my mind that protecting another mans right to love a man or another humans right to not be discriminated against based on their genetics would be a cause worth fighting. Or would the fact that I actively advocate Religious, Sexual Identity, Human Rights, Men and Womens Rights be completely over-ridden because I jokingly called someone a fag?

The anonymity and freedom of the internet is what makes it a wonderful place. Businesses with little to no funding can compete with large scale companies with lobbyists our the wazoo simply because they provide a better service and it is passed around by word of mouth(abeit on the internet).

Do you really think the laws that large companies are trying to force through the government are promoting the protection of the internet and the children? Or do you think its about making money and stomping on the competition?

The internet does need some governing laws, namely to protect the consumers who use it from people who do nefarious things such as scamming and large scale hacking but if those laws come at the price of homogenizing the internet and destroying what it is then humanity as a whole is better without them.

If this does come into existence I can confidently say that a second unregulated internet system will come into play. This is a massive social issue, if the internet is censored and restricted one of the greatest creations of mankind since the dawn of time will have been wasted on us.


I can't actually respond any more.

You are waging a personal war and make sweeping generalizations and conclusions because it appears you have some sort of personal vendetta. I honestly believe you are horribly misguided and I hope one day you see the light and understand why you are wrong. As it stands it seems that the belief you are right is so ingrained in you that any further discussion on my part would be a waste.

Bigots, rascist and homophopes are a problem that currently exist. The solution is not destroying the internet as we know it but actively promoting tolerance and understanding. As an Atheist who has seen homosexual friends live through incredible hardships at the hands of religious bigotry I see the best solution as working together to educate people on these social issues. Not buy into mass propaganda and censorship.

Stop trying to force people to behave like decent human beings through punishment. We should be rehabilitating these people with dialogue, not bringing the hammer of percieved justice upon them.

I leave you with this thought.

If we buy into the same tactics that Atheists, homosexual, people of the wrong religion or ethnicity suffered throughout history to force conformity through heavy handed punishment can we really say we as a people and a civilization have come from the dark ages of cruelty and hate if we persecute those who do not share our views?

 

it's funny how you could get a warning from that, and I can get one from this :p

That's what I mean, there is no freedom here to even bend away from the topic just a little bit...

 

In fairness, there is a vast chasm between posting a couple lines about cats and typing up a large reply to the natural progression of the thread. One is disruptive, the other is insightful.

 

potatowis

I guess we will just see how it all plays out in the next 20 years!

If you wish to continue this discussion which I am truly fascinated about, PM me.

 

People with that viewpoint simply do not get it.

Anonymous by their very actions, are increasing the chances that heavy handed actions by world governments that put restrictions on the internet will happen sooner rather than later.

People think that Anonymous is doing good, but all they are doing is digging is angering world governments with their constant hacking into systems and networks. I know in particular from my IT friends at work who have close to 28 years in the field that they think Anonymous is the single greatest threat the internet as we know it has faced.

What will probably happen is due to 'national security' severe restrictions will be put in place, probably in the USA and the U.K. first. Eventually the internet will fragments, and there will be 2 distinct Internets, one the one we have now ( but with a big difference - see later ) and one that has been redesigned to be very secure.

All of the legitimate companies and business all over the world will all move to the newer internet, a much safer and mature internet where buisness is done. All of the big names that are online today will move over, and little by little what is left of the internet we enjoy now will become a hive of scum and criminals, where no legitimate company does buisness at all, where development slows to a halt when everyone puts a focus on the newly spun off internet.

I personally actually like what Anonymous is doing in terms of releasing they type of stuff they do just like you and many others. But the people in power are not pleased at all at the activities of Anon. And I know for a fact that if a specific 'tipping point' is reached, some very heavy handed actions will be taken and that will be a day the current internet as we know it slowly begins to die. It is similar to how slowly but surely in the USA we are losing freedoms little by little, so slow that the general public does not even realize it. It began soon after 9/11 with the so called " Patriot Act ". It is only getting worse.

I personally like how the internet has evolved. I have seen it, felt it, and have been in awe of it evolve ever since I first went online in 1991 at the University of Wisconsin in my Uncles office. I don't want it to change, only to get better in the way it has been. The net we have today is the result of millions of peoples hard work and countless hours of grueling work. Do we really want that to be destroyed just because Anonymous likes to hack into systems and release secret,top secret/military, economic, etc types of data that the countries and companies never planned for public release? I don't.

The saddest part is that all of the people who are behind Anonymous ( and they are not truly Anonymous, trust me ) really did care about what they do releasing the truth to the world and saving the internet as it is today they would do it in the physical world as well, breaking into buildings and stealing secrets, spying, etc. Instead they are trying to preserve the internet by using the internet in illegal ways to do illegal things. It makes zero sense.

I feel so badly because I know it is invertible if but for one reason, evolution. The internet changes every second - literally. I honestly know in my heart in 20 years everyone here will not recognize this internet, which will be the leftover 'seedy' part of town, while the high class 'new internet' will have all of the action. Let's be real, the way the net is being used today was in no way part of the original design at all, period. People have been doing upgrades since it was released to the general public but they are just fancy dress work. The IT guys I speak with say it is very possible to design a totally new internet based not just on network redundancy, but on very high security.

Here are some links about what I am talking about from 2007:

http://cleanslate.stanford.edu/about_cleanslate.php

http://cleanslate.stanford.edu/

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,266723,00.html

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,266744,00.html

ccr.sigcomm.org/online/files/p85-fisher.pdf

http://arstechnica.com/business/new...ata-pose-bigger-net-threat-than-criminals.ars ( net criminals will trigger governments to enact harsh laws and rules )

I really want to stop talking about this as it is very far off topic, but I feel I need to respond when people ask me more questions. Should those interested carry this over into off-topic and make this topic?

 

Fox news seriously? could your news source be any more illegitimate?

 

My favorite interactions on the internet have been when I've known someone and they've known me. It's almost like there's no internet between us (unless it breaks). But I don't think everyone's ready for that. I don't like Anonymous; they want power for their own agenda (like anyone else) and I don't think I'd gain anything selling out to them. Anonymity is like an immature relationship to me, but things just start that way.

SOPA is bad for its own reasons. I don't want the internet to fundamentally change for the purpose of rap music publishers taking sales from Brazilians or whatever.

 

Internet Anonymity is a great thing. Trying to force people to use their real identity's is the worst thing you can do to stop racists, bigots, etc. As it is, everyone on the internet has no nationality, no skin color, no age, no sort of defining features that others know about. We are completely neutral. No predetermined laws bind us to act or be a certain way.

What you want to do is give us those, you want to turn someone who might be a respected moderator, well-known individual who contributes to the good of the community, into a snotty nosed, perhaps homosexual, nerdy acne infested 13 year old who is bullied at school, beaten on by his parents and schoolmates, and otherwise loserish type of society "outcast".

Now that you've done that, everyone who might know him outside of life will now know who that is. His life as a great respected moderater is now destroyed, and his crappy "offline life" at school just got crappier.

The only places where i hear racism and such are places where animosity is not prevalent. Mostly in real life.

Trying to take away animosity is trying jab everyone who goes on the internet to escape these things, with these things.