1. Anonymity and the Internet Nathan Owens

2. Overview Regular Internet anonymity Non-standard implementations Benefits Negatives Legal changes Future Ideas

3. Standard Anonymity Pseudonym  Message board, forum, etc. Internet Protocol (IP) address  Somewhat linkable back to user Very little to no identifiable information linking the user to their Internet use

4. Better Anonymity Anonymous proxies  Removes IP address from requests Tor  Onion routing  Encrypted data transferred through multiple servers Freenet  Type of Peer-to-peer (P2P)‏  Distributed file sharing

5. Benefits Opens discussions  Taboo topics, support groups, privacy Whistleblowers Repressive government/regime Equality in discussions Protection from aggressive, targetted data mining

6. Negatives Criminal activities  Libel, spam  Copyright infringement Music Movies Software Misuse  Bypass work, school, and other locations with restrictions on Internet use  Trolling, flaming

7. Potential Legal (or other) Changes Prove the need to know a user's identity Make Internet anonymity a right Legal protections for those who run anonymity resources Educate the public

8. Future Ideas Pseudonym parties (Bryan Ford and Jacob Strauss of MIT)‏  One person, one body  Invididual shows up to a party and obtains a pseudonym certificate  Allows user to create an accountable pseudonym for the next year which can be used to create one account on sites supporting the scheme

9. Analysis Despite potential misuse, Internet anonymity is a necessity and ethical Method of controlling an excess of anonymous accounts is needed Current laws cover any illegalities, but better protection of anonymity when actions are legal is needed