On a page listing IRC servers, a fellow Sprynet user advises those who use Internet Relay Chat never to reveal their real name or general geographical location. This advice is general practice; truth and honesty have given way to fear as most users have a variety of "screennames". Non-commercial webpage makers tend to follow the same advice.
A song by Buffalo Springfield (For What It's
Worth, 1967) put it like this:
"Paranoia strikes deep
Into your life it will creep
Starts when you're always afraid"
In the most extreme cases, people are so fearful they use a screenname of the
opposite sex, thinking they will be truely anonymous. I once chatted with a "jennifer"
who was later revealed to be a male. "jennifer" also used the screen
names "jenn_ifer_14", "Faded_Times", "fadedout",
and "Kurt_Cobain". Cobain was a real person, a grunge rocker who
(supposedly) killed himself in 1994.
(I say "supposedly" because
his blood heroin level was so high at the time of his death, that there has been
some doubt that he *could* have killed himself:
Wikipedia on
the "suicide")
Someone commented in a Prodigy IRC chatroom
that 90% of those who seem to be female online are really males; probably an
exaggeration.
So why the fear? Women tend to be wary of strange males, legend has it that electronic stalking exists. Everyone is afraid of the occasional hacker who, if offended, might be able to damage the computer of the offender. The success of malicious hacking does not rely on a knowledge of the victim's real identity, anyway. I was online when a brilliant young hacker messed with a female's computer; all he knew was her IP address.
Finally, Jan 26, 1998, I finally heard a good attempt at a rational reason for secrecy. A female chatter who is always cloaked in utter anonymity explained that revealing her real name once had somehow caused another female to be raped. While rational on its face, this position contains a logical hole: it assumes that the online community is more sinister than those one meets everyday in real life, people who know one's real name and residence and have far greater opportunity to cause harm than chatroom associates, who are hundreds or thousands of miles away. Recently I chatted with a woman in Malaysia, and another in Australia; I find it inconcievable that persons so geographically remote must be kept unaware of my *real name*!
Yes, that is my real name in my email address above, and I have published the name of my real city on my main webpage which takes the highly controversial position that HIV does not cause AIDS, since Sept '96. So far, the only harrassment I have managed to attract has been from the male "jennifer" noted above. (Jennifer has asked me to note that she did not harrass me over the HIV-AIDS question.)
Another problem, discovered 4/98: If something happens to someone you care about, and he or she disappears online, and all you know is a screen name.......Mildly happy ending! By pure luck I wrote to someone who turned out to be a relative; although this "lost person" is still unknown, he or she is OK, just offline. Happy ending! Back online! July '98. Not so happy followup: In a move I doubt I will ever understand, upon returning online this person proceded to delete her truely excellant webpage and dissolved her webring; she told me once that she had been sarcastically described as an "online addict".(!)
Major portion written 5-97, Rev. 11-18-06