One View On Sociology and Online Anonymity
(1)
Privacy is a crucial
element in an individual’s self-actualization and rehearsal of socially constructive
reflexive behaviors. In The Human Condition (1958), Ardent
argues that “privacy guarantees psychological and social depth, containing
things that cannot withstand the constant presence of others on the public
scene; it undergirds the public by establishing boundaries, which fix identity;
and it preserves the sacred and mysterious spaces of life. Some phenomena are different if they are not
private; confessions of shame or guilt made public become boastful;
over-disclosure becomes false; terror, a guilty secret; love and goodness are
destroyed.”(2) The
psychological benefits of privacy are important to individuals and their personal
development. If individuals benefit from
the availability of privacy, one could logically come to the conclusion society
as a whole benefits from it as well.
I should have rights
to my individual intellectual property (the information I produce, regardless
of its origin), access to information and choices about what I choose to ingest
(to include food and medicine), freedom to choose how I make positive impact
with my life, as well as how (and under what circumstances) I spend my money. Privacy, or the perceived lack of it, plays a
crucial role in how we exercise these rights within society. Indeed, “the concept of privacy also matters
for another, deeper reason. It is
intimately connected to what it is to be an autonomous person.”(3) A surveillance state, in which privacy does
not exist, affects the social psychology of its citizens, their autonomy,
stunts honest creativity, and negatively impacts important catalysts for change
in social institutions.
(4)
Since the time I
began taking an interest in information security, corporate information brokers
and United States government privacy policy posturing do not subscribe to the concept
of private matters. They are, in fact,
so against the concept that many hacktivists who have exposed poor corporate
security have been imprisoned under unusual conditions.(5)(6) Famous whistleblowers who have played a part
in exposing government surveillance,(7) service-members’ blatant disregard
for human life are either seeking asylum in foreign countries or are imprisoned
under harsh sentences and branded as traitors.
Additionally, the technologies, forums, and groups associated with these
alleged crimes (The Onion Router (TOR) network, Bitcoin, the Silk Road, and
online Anonymous collective) endure an interminable onslaught of media
criticism and smear campaigns; this distorts the social lens through which
these entities are observed and warps the public perception of people who
believe online anonymity and privacy are fundamental human rights.
As an American citizen, these are
people and situations I would like to be aware of. I want to know if the details of my personal
life are being recorded, if they’re analyzed and the nature of that data’s
format, and what that information will be used for. I am creating the data; therefore I should
have the right to keep it private, unless I am under the scrutiny of a
legitimate criminal investigation.
(8)
“If you’re a
non-criminal, you don’t need anonymous, untraceable financial transactions. Or you could use cash, which is still almost
completely anonymous. But criminals have
a different problem when it comes to cash.
Once your criminal business becomes successful, say from dealing drugs
or running sex slaves or poaching rhinos, then the cash really starts to pile
up.”(9) To that, I would like
to retort without an academic reference: it is a known fact that even socially
sanctioned technologies are used to commit these crimes. Cellular telephones and printed money are
used in drug and human trafficking every day.
If these new, anonymity technologies are as detrimental to society as
the media portrays them to be, why did two law Drug Enforcement Administration
(DEA) agents steal $800,000 in Bitcoin during the Silk Road investigation?(10)(11) If Bitcoin is considered a “currency for
criminals,” I would think public officials would have no interest in maintaining
vast personal stockpiles of it; not unless they’re dealing drugs, running sex
slaves, or poaching rhinos.
(12)
Because I openly use Bitcoin, does
this somehow indicate I am implicated in criminal activity? If so, would the sociological way people view
my hobby be different if Bitcoin were painted under a different light by the
media? I believe so.
Bitcoin is an
unregulated, digital currency that uses a decentralized monetary system built
on complex encryption algorithms. What
is fascinating about Bitcoin is that it records each transaction in a public
ledger called the “blockchain,” which is fed back into the encryption algorithm
that keeps Bitcoin user identities secure.
Each time a user conducts a transaction they are charged a “mining fee”
to compute the transaction. The
transaction is “hashed” (transaction information is shortened into a numerical,
mathematic equivalent) and an exchange event is created based on the time of
the transaction, currency exchange amount, “wallet” (or Bitcoin account)
number, among other electronic details.
This hash is recorded into the Bitcoin blockchain by Bitcoin “miners”
(individuals who purchase Bitcoin transaction processing hardware to collecting
mining fees), to be used in deriving hashes for use in future transactions. The user is also issued a new, uniquely
random wallet (or account) number after each transaction, and old wallet number
is discarded. Condensing the previous
paragraph was no easy task, but by comparison, the electronic function of
Bitcoin is even more mind-bogglingly complex.
(13)
Bitcoin has come under scrutiny
because of its decentralized nature, “lack of clarity about its legal
structure,” and “creates challenges for regulatory authorities.”(14) Comprehensively, Bitcoin derives its
value from the dollars exchanged into the blockchain, but ultimately from the
perceived level of privacy it can provide to its users regardless of structure
or regulation.
Recently, a prominent Bitcoin
dealer began “stress testing” the Bitcoin blockchain by introducing a large
volume of transactions that were of little value; they were of less value than
the mining fee collected by Bitcoin miners, which put significant strain on the
blockchain transaction network.(15)
Since the stress tests began, the Bitcoin software development core
engineers have been submitting proposals to expand the transaction capability
of the Bitcoin network.(16)
Anyone who enjoyed profitable
Bitcoin trading in the first half of this year woke to bad news on July 11,
2015, after Bitcoin reached a peak of $310.00 for the 2015 year. Investors watched Bitcoin’s value slide and
by August the currency had been devalued by nearly a third to $213.00.
(17)
The devaluation indicates two important
points about anonymity services: first, there is nothing broken about the
Bitcoin blockchain except that its core functional promise of anonymity and
privacy had been undermined. Second, while
it is encouraging that Bitcoin’s Developer Core is addressing the problem
through Bitcoin Improvement Proposals (BIP), at least one of the proposals
would utilize a software mechanism (called a “hard XT fork”) that could
potentially reveal a user’s identity or location, while also exposing users of
an online anonymity service called The Onion Router (Tor) network.(18) Proposals of this type caused the Bitcoin to
lose value even more drastically than anticipated, and sewed distrust amongst
Tor users.
As an example of monetary values
placed on anonymizing services and their related software, Bitcoin is only one
product. The entire situation implicates
it in an entirely new arena of online anonymity: a human’s right to privacy on
the Internet.
The Onion Router
(Tor) anonymity network comes bundled in a powerful suite of privacy and
encryption software named TAILS Linux.
Tor circumvents typical Internet Protocol (IP) address assignment
methods and makes it appear as if the user’s computer is located in another
country.
There is an ambiguous controversy surrounding
Tor. On one hand, the infamous illicit
drug market Silk Road was built using Tor technology. On the other hand, this technology is
immeasurably valuable in protecting activists, “journalists, whistleblowers,
domestic abuse victims, and dissidents living under repressive regimes.”(19)
Within the computer science field,
it is rumored that United States federal agencies have attempted to arrest
control of (at least parts of) the Tor network.
As a skeptic, I tentatively dismissed these rumors as conspiracy
theories and consigned them to the back of my head for use in a future
information security thriller novel.
However, on September 10, 2015, an article was published describing the
interaction between a library in New Hampshire that wanted to offer Tor
services to its patrons, and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). I whole-heartedly agree with the library’s
position, even if Tor is merely used for educational purposes within the
library. I was baffled at the reasons
for DHS’s reservation in allowing the library to offer Tor services; DHS
spokesman Shawn Neudauer was quoted in the article, saying “the protections
that Tor offers can be attractive to criminal enterprises or actors and HSI
[Homeland Security Investigations] will continue to pursue those individuals
who seek to use the anonymizing technology to further their illicit activity.”(20)
While I was reading the article, I
asked myself why citizens of the city were not being asked to offer their
opinions on the issue. Near the bottom,
the library’s director reflected my concerns, saying “we need to find out what
the community thinks. The only groups
that have been represented so far are the Police Department and City
Hall.” The article was updated on
September 16, 2015, mentioning the “overwhelming support from the community to
restart its participation in the anonymous Web browsing project.”(21)
(22)
The library board Chairman Francis
Oscadal, at a meeting about the Tor service, said “with any freedom there is
risk, it came to me that I could vote in favor of the good… or I could vote
against the bad. I’d rather vote for the
good because there is value to this.”(23) The community support for Tor is just a small
example of public interest in anonymity technology. Another, much broader example of public
interest in anonymity, clothed as a global sociological Internet movement, is
the group Anonymous.
(24)
Anonymous is an Internet collective
with no central leadership, which uses its vast membership and a number
ideological propinquities found within its members to carry out vigilante forms
of social justice. They were founded
within the Internet message board 4chan.org and evolved into the first Internet
collective to physically protest in the streets while conducting disruptive operations
online simultaneously.
(25)
I agree that a portion of
Anonymous’ activities, both on and off-line, are morally questionable. Modern Anonymous is fractured and
misdirected, but there must be a social mechanism that is not being fulfilled
elsewhere if so many citizens flock to its ranks. Dabbling in Anonymous’ communications, even
momentarily, reveals a jarring (but often respectable) point of view that seeks
to be a new type of online “agent of socialization” by bringing attention to
issues of racial discrimination, animal cruelty, pedophilia, government
overreach, and the atrocities of war.(26)
(27)
If nothing else, it seems the
collective thrust of its members is to burst the bubble of comfort that citizens
surround themselves with, in a much less-carefully packaged material than is delivered
from main-stream media companies. Media
produced by Anonymous often depicts the Guy Fawkes mask wearing activists as
typical people, powerfully poised to restore justice and power to the common
citizen.
(28)
In 2011, a prominent member of
Anonymous and co-founder of the infamous hacking group LulzSec(29)
became an informant for the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).(30) Other members who chose to “unmask”
themselves became targets of law enforcement sting operations, which led to a
convoluted string of convictions under questionable circumstances.(31)(32)(33)
(34)
Why does fear of unknown, and recently-invented
methods of social construction and digital protest illicit such a fierce
response from authority? Dissenting
opinion and competition between ideas is healthy for the development of more
enlightened ideas and social change, but also seem to provide enough “evidence”
of crimes by Internet security activists, privacy advocates, and disruptive
journalists to convict them, geographically banish them, or place them in
solitary confinement. Not only does this
disrupt the communications for prominent advocates for these technologies, but
it distorts the sociological narrative of remaining members by inciting fear
and self-censorship.
If so many people subscribe to
these collective values, why are they not spoken about publicly and encouraged
as a contradictory point of view in wider debate? My belief is, they challenge the purpose and
roles of long-standing social institutions (such as government, the war on
drugs, the monetary system, and war in general), change the dynamics of typical
roles within a society, and in some ways it puts power back into the hands of members
of society when they cannot be pursued or prosecuted for their most genuine
beliefs unless they reveal their identities.
Within the complex
debate of one’s right to privacy, the point is often lost between the laws of
the land and the responsibilities and roles of citizens within society. This causes an ambiguously poignant, yet
sometimes hopeful paroxysm in what I feel my
role is within society: to be unafraid, give a second look to technology that
protects the human rights of individuals, and educate others in this
technology’s intended utility.
The Internet isn't going away. Human beings will continue to use it to socially organize, to express our concerns, and our most fervent hopes.
(35)
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(17)
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