Posted 4:38 PM

More on Privacy vs Anonymity

"Anonymity as default," which I mentioned in the previous post, is taking on a life of it's own. Now Tom Maddox has posted in his Opinity weblog, commenting on Ben Laurie's commentary about Kim Cameron's mention of Eric Norlin's post concerning David Weinberger's original thought that "Anonymity should be the default."

(I'll just sit here and whistle for a moment while you follow that set of links)

The point I wanted to mention was Maddox' statement:

"We need to begin with anonymity/pseudonymity as the default, Laurie's 'substrate choice'. Otherwise, whatever identity system we employ, we'll always be trying to get the cat back in the bag (or the scrambled egg back in the shell)"

The fallacy here is that he seems to believe that there can be an "identity system" in which anonymity is a choice! And not only a choice, but the default choice. But without a unique identifier for each object in the system, there is no identity system. And with a unique identifier there is no anonymity within the system. Rather, the default should be PRIVACY for all objects, with any dispersal or publishing of identity attributes only done with the consent of the entity if it's sentient, and the entity's controller if it isn't. Maddox is correct that once the data is published you can't unpublish it completely. That argument shouldn't be overlooked. But it's equally as important to realize that the "anonymity bandwagon" is out of control and headed for the cliff. Privacy is the key, and privacy should be the issue.