Well, the point of the article was that a lot of people would want that - specifically, copyright holders and anyone who works for them or owns stock in their companies. Reducing or eliminating internet anonymity would not eliminate piracy but it would bring it much closer to conventional (trackable and prosecutable) theft.

Frankly, I wouldn't have a problem with that approach. I don't hide on the internet. I use the same nickname almost everywhere and even where my name is slightly different my "- Ash" signature or my avatar are reasonably distinctive. There have even been a couple times where I've done some assholish things and been called on it because of how traceable I am but I haven't changed my posting habits to make me any less accountable for my own behaviour. Personally, I wouldn't be giving up much except a little flair going from "Asharak" to "Asharak, Net User 15664676".

I'm mostly just playing devil's advocate here, by the way. I realize there would be a ton of real and significant legal and moral issues with trying to make everyone register on the internet and I think a lot of those objections would be pretty valid. I'm just pointing out that the idea isn't necessarily a total non-starter for everyone.

- Ash

Yeah I should have said "alot of people wouldn't want" not everyone.

Personaly, I enjoy some of the anonymity (not because I harass or do anything illegal mind you) its that you can act like someone your not for games a couple of hours a day.

I would not however obstruct any efforts and would probably end up enjoying -some- of the regulation after what has been going on with the US election. Every comment section anywhere had comments regarding the election regardless of topic.  

Maybe the "Big Brother" just makes me hesitant.

I did laugh my ass off at John Giabriel's Greater Internet ******* Theroy. 

Trolls can be banned. But once privacy is gone, it's gone for good, and you can bet the government will be all over that new "option". Not a fair trade at all, IMO.

Hi!

Yes, obviously you don't hide.

BR,  Iztok

I tried that beta stupidity detector, but somehow everything I thought should be flagged stupid was OK. I wonder what you have to type to get a false positive, and how long it will be before processors and linguistic software are strong enough to really do the job.

"Mary had a little lamb, its feets were gargling over Pradas" was "not likely to be stupid." At least the results wording is suitably tentative.

Yeah, I couldn't get it to flag anything as stupid either.

My 'nick' is actually my True Name, in contrast to my incarnation name. Both have meaing. My incarnation name means Man like unto God from the island of The Word. My True Name has two meanings: The Lord and Great Lord.

woah, things just got weird

Did you say

i don't think Iztok was accusing you of hiding but was instead just pointing to a funny bit of irony.

Anyway, I can't get to that link, my work computer is blocking that site. But i'll imagine what we're talking about. I don't think we'll ever see anything like a net-pin. My bet is the government has already thought of this but couldn't find a way to implement it.

Trolling (at least in and of itself) isn't illegal, last I checked. There's always going to be assholes, at least on the Internet, they can be banned. Do we really WANT more government regulation of the Internet? I sure don't. The Internet is the closest form of pure democracy in the world. Anyone's voice can be heard. You start bringing in government regulations on "trolling" and the government starts deciding what kind of speech is and is not acceptable. Idunno about you all, but I really don't trust them with that power.

While Kryo probably doesn't see much of it on Stardock's sites, I'm a moderator on a much larger site - as in hundreds of thousands of active users. Trolling by itself is annoying and easily handled by site staff. Unfortunately the actual illegal activities are much harder to deal with: stalking, harrassment, actual cyber bullying, underage porn, fun stuff like that. The problem is, the people who do crap like this switch IP addresses often enough that simply IP bans are insufficient. We used to have the Kill On Sight list, where any new account that even hinted at being the person in question was banned out of hand, but it was discontinued do to the high rate of false positives.

While I agree a national system would be too invasive, something needs to be done to reduce the layers of anonymity some people are currently abusing.

IP bans, for criminal activity.  It's a form of stupidity.  There should be an agency to call, track the fuckers down(it's almost always childs play), and charge them.  IP ban's are just the virtual form of Walmart telling a shoplifter they don't get to come back.  That has dick to do with handling illegal activity.  We just have a lazy shit law enforcement system that wont bother with petty stuff.  Someone has to die before they'll pay any attention.

I don't know what it considers stupid either,

IM'A FIRIN' MA LAZER!
O o
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| BLAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGG!!!!
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Doesn't set it off.

One thing I'm worried about is that you could have another form of identity theft with people stealing a person's log in PIN.

People have died.