One of the most intriguing aspects of the internet is the capacity to browse it without revealing your identity. However, not everyone is supportive of this reality. Some people contend that the internet would be better if all that we did online was attached to our real identity. This, for example, would be helpful in limiting cyber harassment and trolls from unknown/fake accounts.
Harassment is a serious, legitimate offense in the offline world, yet when it happens on the internet, the culprits are rarely caught or punished. Certain individuals post misleading or fake information on the internet all the time. It is possible that these accounts might be linked to real identities; however, using aliases or pseudonyms keeps them hidden, which enables these bad actors to feel more powerful.
Most of the social media platforms and forums that we use in our daily lives do not require user account verification, which gives them the freedom to create multiple accounts. This permits people or organizations to utilize bots to spread misleading data. Bots are widely used to dominate online spaces with a specific opinion to showcase many people’s agreement with it. This anonymity of the internet is profoundly helpful for cybercriminals. If anonymity was prohibited by law, cybercrime would become fundamentally more difficult to execute and would likely decrease.
Now the question arises: if there are so many benefits of removing anonymity, then why not remove it? The answer to this question is directly related to the meaning of the internet itself.
One of the many reasons why the internet industry boomed is the freedom it provides us to speak our hearts out without any fear. The anonymity of the web is frequently utilized by minorities to talk transparently with freedom. There are countless internet users dealing with drug abuse or domestic violence who seek help anonymously over the internet. Assuming that this anonymity ended, numerous suppositions would be concealed due to fear of legitimate repercussions. This is not just hazardous for individuals who might be kept from talking—it would be harmful to human rights in general.
The Modern Era of Lost Anonymity
In the digital world, almost every person around you owns a mobile phone and knows how to make use of the internet, which means a larger percentage of our actions are recorded every day somewhere online. You will be shocked to know that most of the activities we take part in on the Internet—like reading articles, visiting different websites, listening to music, watching videos and, most importantly, making online purchases—are recorded somewhere online.To make matters worse, even activities that do not take place on the internet are recorded online. For example, with the increasing usage of apps like Snapchat and Instagram on our smartphones, the places that we visit, the food that we consume and the people we meet in our daily lives are also recorded and stored online. With the speed at which technology is advancing, artificial intelligence algorithms now have the power to dig into our personal information, including where we live, what we eat, where we work and who we spend time with.
Future Expectations
Although there are data privacy regulations in the picture, it is expected that pieces of our information will fall into some wrong hands through organization acquisitions, data breaches or data theft.
Have you at any point asked yourself why banks you have never opened an account with flood you with calls offering loans and credit cards? Or why you receive countless spam messages from unknown numbers asking you to update your KYC? How do these people you never shared your information with know your full name and your number?
It is important to understand that your number is not simply a number. It is connected to a lot of information that may be sensitive—for example, your employer information, bank balance, personally identifiable information (PII) or maybe even personal health information.
This information might begin from data you provided to a bank, to an e-recharge website or to a retail/e-commerce store where you might have made a purchase; however, from that point onward, your consent does not make any difference. Your information could be sold to anyone, from a marketing agency to criminals looking for targets.
A few data sets are even accessible to download, free of charge, on the Internet. Try Googling your name with your number and email, and there is a good chance you will end up finding some of your leaked information.
The impacts of this freely available private information on the internet can affect our offline lives very seriously. When I say this, I am referring to an age of youngsters who cannot grow up living an internet-free life. A generation of youngsters who will need to think twice before sharing secrets. Young minds who will not have the opportunity to discover that mistakes are forgivable and are chances to learn but rather live in dread of being laughed at online.
How can we expect future generations to be smarter than us and overcome failures when all their mistakes, decisions and disappointments, whether intentional or unintentional, will be online for public mocking?
Were technology and the world wide web created to make things easier or to put our future generations in an “e-cage” and welcome everybody to watch? Is this the online environment we are planning for the future?
Who Will Be Impacted?
Everybody will be impacted in one way or another. The coming generation should be well prepared to deal with all the problems that celebrities are facing nowadays: living a public life with cameras around all the time. Unfortunately, lost anonymity is not something that can be re-established.The internet is a dangerous place. It does not forget anything. Once something is uploaded to the internet, it stays forever. The internet is unforgiving, because unlike our brains, it has unimaginable memory to store and remember and has no room to forget.
Recovering Some Lost Anonymity
Having complete anonymity is nearly impossible these days. You can shield your web-based traffic and IP address from being spied on; however, because of the regulations that are mandatory for communication over the internet, it is not difficult for your internet service provider or a website to find information about the device you are browsing the web from.
Yes, some things can be done to hide our real identity online to protect privacy. For example:
Ad Blockers—In addition to blocking spam ads, most ad blockers also come with functionality to block ads from tracking you.
Private Wi-Fi—Using public Wi-Fi is one of the most dangerous things to connect to, from both a protection and a security viewpoint. Public Wi-Fi is an opportune spot for bad actors to steal personally identifiable information by intercepting your traffic as both of you are accessing the same network.
HTTPS Sites—One strong yet straightforward step you can take to remain private and secure while visiting any website is to pick HTTPS sites over HTTP. Unlike HTTP, HTTPS sites are encrypted and prevent private information from being leaked.
Disabling Location Tracking—Whether it is an application or a website, never allow them to track your location until necessary, or only turn it on when you want it on. Your mobile phone or tablet is not the only one following you. Your location information is shared with your service provider and advertisers, too, which can be misused later.
About the author: Rahul Pandey is a Cybersecurity Engineer and a Cybercrime Investigator presently a part of Securing Alacriti, a leading financial technology company based in New Jersey, USA. He has worked with Uttar Pradesh Police on training officers on cybercrime investigation. He has been a district topper and has also received the Director General’s Merit Award for academic excellence. Rahul volunteers with multiple NGOs all over India to promote cybercrime awareness with prevention and intervention skills to. Rahul has been recently awarded The Karmaveer Chakra Award, which is a global civilian honor given by the International Confederation of NGOs (iCONGO) in partnership with the United Nations to people across the globe for relentless courage and unleashing extraordinary potential.