Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!princeton!mind!harnad
From: harnad@mind.UUCP (Stevan Harnad)
Newsgroups: news.misc
Subject: Re: Pseudonymous Postings
Summary: pseudonymy promotes neither fairness nor objectivity
Message-ID: <1803@mind.UUCP>
Date: 12 Feb 88 17:08:12 GMT
References: <2929@dasys1.UUCP>
Organization: Cognitive Science, Princeton University
Lines: 27



"G Fitch" (allegedly) "gf@dasys1.UUCP of The Big Electric Cat" wrote:

>	There has been a lot of traffic about pseudonymous postings 
>	lately.  I'd like to point out that they serve a real function.
>	...[they] prove that authorship can be forged, and no offendee
>	can be sure his/her reprisals will fall upon the right head.
>	The only thing available to chew on is the offending article itself.

Which makes the net look like a global graffiti board instead of a
responsible medium of communication. The net's immunity to laws intended
to protect people and their careers and lives from defamation and libel
doesn't make it a freer, more objective forum. Words CAN do damage, and
freeing their authors from answerability is no solution. I can hide my
name, but you can't hide yours, if I use it for you, protected under my
cloak of pseudonymy. But, unfortunately, I am told that this is not a
problem that net administrators could fix even if they wanted to:
The "authentication problem" is theoretically unsolved in network
theory. Too bad. It's another factor slowing the progress of
electronic networks toward realizing their enormous potential in
advancing scholarly communication and the evolution of ideas.

"Stevan Harnad" (allegedly)
-- 

Stevan Harnad		 harnad@mind.princeton.edu	 (609)-921-7771