Paisano

Issue date: 8/21/07 Section: Opinion

Second Life is the name of a new online game that offers players the ability to lead a second life online, controlling every element of their character's destiny in a created online world.
It is like Everquest, Warcraft and the other online role playing games, except that in Second Life you play a character based in a world more like reality and less like fantasy.

You can become somebody else as you see fit, and the best part is that at the end of the day your actions and choices stay with your Second Life character, not you.
Without question, one of the most attractive features the internet offers is anonymity. Chat programs, online games and blogs are just a few places people can go and be heard but not necessarily seen.

Anonymity allows for people to open up in new ways by providing a venue for free speech without persecution or humiliation. Anonymity, as it turns out, is also profitable.

Just try typing "anonymity" into any search engine, and dozens of services pop up offering you ways to remain anonymous on the internet. One web site, ultimate-anonymity.com, offers everything you need to be a complete stealth ninja on the net.

The hook these web sites use is that internet anonymity is a safer way to surf. They may be right. Online invisibility can help to prevent spam and identity theft. Sounds good, but like everything else, it depends on the way this anonymity is used. After all, the spammers, thieves, and con artists rely on the anonymous factor to protect them.

I can't begin to count the number of e-mails concerning stocks, drugs and pornography, all with e-mail address that read something like ffgjky@hheno.com or ft3i4n@fgro2m.com. Crime through spam is only getting worse, and it's not going away anytime soon.

An August 2005 article from Wired magazine, "Nigerian Net Grifters Doing Fine," reports about whole Nigerian communities based around internet scams and cons, where these entrepreneurial thieves of the internet rely on anonymity as their shroud of protection to scheme and steal. These guys are professional crooks, and they will take as much money as they can get.

At some point it might seem as if internet anonymity is a necessary tool to stay hidden from the other anonymous people who want to rip you off or crash your computer. That's circular logic though, isn't it? Anonymity to fight anonymity?

You don't have too look far to see the undulations from waves of internet anonymity popping up here and there in the news. A February 2004 New York Times article reports a "glitch" that the company Amazon.com had run into concerning some of the books for sale online.

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