‘Anonymous cowards’, according to Slashdot, are people who post comments on public web sites without using their names. The web has a long history of enabling people to post anonymously, but the habit is under attack these days. The Wikipedia scandal is putting pressure on the internet community to reveal the identities of authors who make inaccurate or inflammatory postings, and as a result we’re getting stories about ‘outings’.
Anonymity is not easy to preserve on the web if someone really wants to find you. Here’s a good article about someone who tracked down an annoying anonymous poster, which took, according to the article, about 5 minutes. Here’s an excerpt from the Slashdot article:
It is important to know that while on the web, while emailing and while writing a blog you are leaving a trail. The trail consists of IP addresses, unique ID’s, machine names, etc. For instance, look at the headers of an email you send, you will see:
– The IP address of the machine you sent it from
– The name of the machine you sent it from (mine is ‘Nik’ – obvious)
– A unique ID which can identify the mail client you use, as well as your operating system (as well as the security level of your machine, some people need to use Windows Update)
– The mail server you used (which leads you to a provider – might be the same provider you use for your blog or website)
– A lot more!
Changing the ‘From’ address doesn’t change all this other information, so if you have an email from both the real person and the alter-ego, it’s dead easy.