Can I be anonymous on this forum?

Status
Not open for further replies.
geek

geek

Hello, I'm geek (at least a bit, maybe).

I just registered on this forum, but I would like to know if I can be here anonymously without my real name showing to others. The Internet is sometimes a very dangerous place.
 
Why draw attention to yourself if you want to be anonymous? Your anonymity depends on how much you put in your profile. The admins know your registration details and IP address, other members can see only what you share.
 
Well, I'm also a newbie on this forum :)
But does it matter if I have some random nonsense as my 'real name'? It looks like I can't hide it from others.

But well, although I'm drawing maybe some attention now, maybe this thread will eventually lose its attention and become forgotten.
 
geek said:
I would like to know if I can be here anonymously without my real name showing to others.
Click to expand...
Admittedly, I am somewhat curious as to your motives. After all, it's not (as far as I'm aware) like we're exchanging child pornography, discussing Al-Qaedea strategies or developing Iranian nuclear weaponry here. However, if anonimity means that much to you, you can probably supply a fake name and you can hide behind the Tor network if you don't want the forum staff to see your real IP address.
 
Normally, this kind of problematic personages as @fonz has described you above, doesn't like IT communities, so don't mind about your privacy (read description down)
Privacy

Another problem that seems to be more of an issue is privacy. Online communities like social networking websites have a very unclear distinction between private and public information. For most social networks, users have to give personal information to add to their profiles. Usually, users can control what type of information other people in the online community can access based on the users familiarity with the people or the users level of comfort. These limitations are known as "privacy settings". Privacy settings bring up the question of "...how do privacy settings and terms of service affect the expectation of privacy in social media". After all, the purpose of an online community is to share a common space with one another. Furthermore, it is even harder to take legal action when a user feels like his or her privacy has been invaded because he or she technically knew what the online community entailed.[65] Creator of social networking site, Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, noticed a change in users' behavior from when he first initiated Facebook in his Harvard dorm room, to now. It seemed that "society's willingness to share has created an environment where privacy concerns are less important to users of social networks today than they were when social networking began".[66] However even though a user might keep his or her personal information private, his or her activity is open to the whole web to access. When a user posts information to a site such as Wikipedia, or when said user comments or responds to information posted on a site, social networking sites create a tracking record of the users activity.[67]
Click to expand...
 
Well, I just prefer not to have my name showing off for everyone. But of course I don't mean using TOR or other things :e

The anonymity isn't really that important. But I'm used to logging in to other websites without them asking for my name. I could maybe be here non-anonymously, but well... I'm stupid and currently I'm considering about going into politics. This isn't a political forum, or is this? :)
 
I don't quite see the issue. You do not have to supply your real name, we're not Facebook (and even there there's nobody enforcing that rule). You must be registered though, but that's mainly to combat spam. Imagine what our board would look like if we allowed anonymous posts.
 
Just don't use one account for too long and always register/login via Tor Browser Bundle (or plain tor + privoxy). If you don't use them simultaneously pretending to forget username/mail/password/ever-been-here sometimes work even without proxy. This should be enough to keep a low profile.
Getting more involved may be hard (not impossible): becoming a FreeBSD committer requires a real name, EFnet bans Tor, but many IRC channels are on EFnet (#bsdcode, #bsdports, etc), Google-hosted projects require a Google Account and registering one requires a phone verification when using Tor, etc.
 
oops: I don't mean that kind of anonymity, but just not having my real name showing for everyone, at least for now. Maybe later. But now I think I got the answer to this question, so I can be here with some dummy name without being kicked out immediately.
 
geek said:
so I can be here with some dummy name without being kicked out immediately.
Click to expand...
Yep, you only get kicked out if you don't behave. And even that will take some effort ;)
 
geek said:
just not having my real name showing for everyone
[snip]
so I can be here with some dummy name without being kicked out immediately.
Click to expand...
Correct. After all, who's going to check? Hint: if you like the music of Queen, I happen to know that Freddie Mercury often used the alias A. Mason for checking into hotels and stuff. Idea?

By the way: are there any particular reasons why political aspirations require that you are not seen on a techie forum? In the Off-Topic section we sometimes dabble a bit in current affairs, sometimes including politics, but generally speaking this is not a political forum.
 
are there any particular reasons why political aspirations require that you are not seen on a techie forum?
Click to expand...
LOL. If someday I should decide to run for political office, I most certainly would not want anyone to prove that I had in any way whatsoever been a user of FreeBSD:

"I have smoked pot and have done many immoral things, but "a user of FreeBSD"?
HOW DARE YOU ACCUSE ME OF SUCH A THING SIR!!"
 
geek said:
Well, I just prefer not to have my name showing off for everyone. But of course I don't mean using TOR or other things :e

The anonymity isn't really that important. But I'm used to logging in to other websites without them asking for my name. I could maybe be here non-anonymously, but well... I'm stupid and currently I'm considering about going into politics. This isn't a political forum, or is this? :)
Click to expand...

What made ​​you think that this was a political forum? This question is not interesting for fanatics technologic. Political camaraderie is a fraud (note that phrase can not disambiguate).
 
drhowarddrfine said:
A lot of people read on a forum somewhere that they're supposed to be, that's why.
Click to expand...

How unbelievably arrogant.

Of course the devil is in the details when we speak of privacy, but wanting some level of privacy when going about your business makes you a sheep? I assume you agree since you aren't using your real name.
 
gkontos said:
I never quite understood the anonymity obsession that some people have regarding the Internet.
Click to expand...
People behave different when they know they are being watched. Now, I don't like being watched all of the time because it makes me behave different. Not everyone is susceptible to this, but some people are.
 
jrm said:
How unbelievably arrogant.

Of course the devil is in the details when we speak of privacy, but wanting some level of privacy when going about your business makes you a sheep?
Click to expand...
I hear from people all the time (I dev for the web so ALL THE TIME) who are so concerned about their privacy and it's always they think the government or their neighbors/friends or Google is looking at their every move and they spend most of their time "securing" their browser to prevent that. I haven't looked to see what's asked to sign up for these forums in years but I'm sure there's nothing personally identifiable that needs to be produced but, still, he's concerned.

And why would he feel the need to be concerned? He got it from the TV "news" or some forum somewhere. If the government wants to track you, well, the government's been tracking you before the internet ever came around and you can't stop them with technology. Google doesn't care who you are, just what you'll buy. And your neighbors don't know how to track you anyway.

The FreeBSD forums don't care who you are so nothing to fear from this group. As I showed further up, Google already had his nickname all over the world within minutes of posting so resistance is futile.
I assume you agree since you aren't using your real name.
Click to expand...
I've had this nick since the 1990's. My real name is common so it makes it easier to sign up for things. Plus it keeps the potential nut-job from calling me on the phone as it once happened. But I use my real name on Stackoverflow and all their many boards.

The only thing he has to fear, is fear itself (I just made that up).

Now, if you want to talk about securing your data, as in documents and such, that's a different story, but online forum signups? Forget about it.
 
For once I have to agree with @drhowarddrfine ;)

The moment you get a social security number (this goes for all countries I know) you can be tracked.

Own a credit card? You will be tracked.

Personally, I despise the idea of tor networks. I know it sounds harsh. If I ever need confidentiality I use IPsec.
 
drhowarddrfine said:
And why would he feel the need to be concerned? He got it from the TV "news" or some forum somewhere.
Click to expand...
Possibly, but unless you can read minds, I find your certainty and generalizations condescending.

drhowarddrfine said:
Plus it keeps the potential nut-job from calling me on the phone as it once happened.
Click to expand...
This sounds like you are saying your rational for some level of privacy is justified, while the OP's is not.

I wasn't completely clear what the OP was specifically asking, but I guessed it might be "Is it OK that I didn't supply my real name when I signed up". Maybe the OP lives somewhere where expressing your views can have severe consequences. By not supplying a real name (s)he might have made it more difficult to associate opinions with a person.

I'm not advocating that all our actions online should be completely anonymous, but some level of awareness and concern is healthy. *Some* things are just no one else's business and that's why your country has constitutional limits to the intrusion into individuals' right to privacy.
 
jrm said:
This sounds like you are saying your rational for some level of privacy is justified, while the OP's is not.
Click to expand...
This is why I try not to get sucked in to social conversations on this board and stick to the technical stuff. I try to avoid it because, so often, things like this happen, where someone reads my mind and accuses me of reading someone else's mind. Or whatever. It's not what I said or meant and I don't care.

I let myself get sucked into these things too much lately and, now that I caught myself, I'll stop.
 
drhowarddrfine said:
This is why I try not to get sucked in to social conversations on this board and stick to the technical stuff.
Click to expand...

From my recollection of your past posts, that is laughable.
 
@jrm - It's interesting that you insist on making this thread about me instead of the topic. If you have nothing to add to the topic, I'll have no part in your childish behavior.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top