Anonymity

The meaning of the word "anonymity" is different for different situations. Works of art (literary works, musical plays, artifacts of fine art, etc.) and scientific works (for example, anonymous musical-theoretical treatises ) can be anonymous .

An anonymous letter is a letter whose author hides his name. An anonymous letter can be without a signature or with a signature on behalf of another person, really existing or fictitious. An anonymous letter containing defamations, false rumors, threats, is material evidence in cases of libel, insult, extortion, and some other crimes. . ^[five]

There are cases when a person does not specifically want to identify himself (for example, an anonymous contribution to a charitable foundation). ^[6]

A person who is endangered by their security may also prefer to remain anonymous. A witness to a crime may be afraid of the revenge of the criminals, so he can make an anonymous statement without giving his real name. ^[7]

In other situations, anonymity may be created unintentionally due to the loss of identifying information. An example would be the numerous Monuments of the Unknown Soldier . ^[eight]

Nickname ( Greek греευδώνυμος "false name") is a fictitious name that replaces the present, which for one reason or another must be hidden. ^[9]

Sometimes a person needs to establish a long-term relationship with a person without using the real name. In this case, a person can come up with a unique identifier, called a pseudonym . Examples of pseudonyms are fictitious names of writers, singers, actors, artists, etc. , nicknames , credit card numbers, bank account numbers. Pseudonyms are widely used in social networks and other means of transmitting information, although recently the administration of many companies (for example, Vkontakte ) is trying to fight against the use of pseudonyms by its users. ^[ten]

Anonymity can reduce the level of responsibility for their actions and eliminate the impact that these actions have on reputation . This can have different consequences for different aspects of a given situation. Thus, anonymity can be used for the realization of any goals, while people will maintain or deny any belief without prejudice to their own reputation. Anonymity allows people to overcome embarrassment, express their opinions or describe their emotions. Electronic communication in addition to anonymity and provide physical isolation of the person. This can be useful when discussing very personal matters, forbidden topics or expressing opinions that may entail physical, financial or legal danger (for example, illegal activities or extremist political views). ^[eleven]

The use of anonymous customer relations, including with company employees, increases the credibility of the organization and also affects the development of the organization. Forms of anonymous communication can be boxes for anonymous voting, donations, reviews, or hidden phone numbers. ^[12]

The lack of responsibility for their statements in anonymous or semi-anonymous forums sometimes contributes to the aggressive behavior of users. People in a large crowd also have a kind of anonymity. This anonymity forms the psychology of the crowd and the behavior of people in situations such as riot . ^[13] Anonymity also allowed highly qualified specialists (for example, judges ) to express their opinions and act objectively.

Anonymity can also be used as a defense against prosecution. For example, when committing unlawful acts, many criminals try to avoid identification by disguise, covering their faces with scarves or masks, or wear gloves so as not to leave fingerprints. They can also use special masks that will change the color of the skin or the structure of the face. ^[14] Groups of criminals in a particular project may cooperate without disclosing their names or other personal information to each other. The film " The Scam of Thomas Crown " depicts the collaboration of people who have never met before and did not know who hired them. An anonymous purchase of a weapon or knife used in a crime helps to hide the connection between the abandoned weapon and the identity of the criminal.

Anonymous business transactions can protect consumer privacy. Some consumers prefer to use cash when buying everyday goods (such as food and tools) to prevent sellers from collecting information and using this information. ^[15] Credit cards are associated with a person’s name and can be used to search for other data, such as mailing address, telephone number, etc. There are anonymous electronic money systems that are not controlled by the government and other financial institutions like WebMoney , Qiwi , Yandex.Money and Others In the United States, PayPal is one of the most popular systems ^[16] . These services open accounts (e-wallets) and users can transfer money in different currencies to each other and to the partner organizations of these systems. However, such organizations operate in strict accordance with national legislation, as a rule, have representative offices in the countries where they are engaged in attracting customers, and disclose all information about issuers at the request of the competent authorities (including international requests). Also, in connection with the recent changes in Russian legislation, in order to transfer a substantial amount through such payment systems, it is necessary to identify them with a passport. ^[17] At the moment there are more anonymous and alternative types of money, liquidity and demand for which are determined not only by consumer baskets and stock quotes (although such currencies are successfully traded on specialized exchanges), and not the legislative consolidation of their status, how many users interest and trust a growing number of companies that accept it as a payment (especially the USA). We are talking about cryptocurrencies, their emission is made using the computational power of users (for emission it is required to expend energy and computational resources) and is usually algorithmically limited. Allow you to anonymously and securely own, issue and transfer funds. ^[18]

• Bitcoin is the most liquid and most popular cryptocurrency at the moment. The form of privacy that bitcoin offers is limited to pseudo-anonymity: an individual is represented in the blockchain by a pseudonym. However, this does not guarantee the impossibility of restoring connections. Two transactions can be linked if they are held under a single pseudonym. But even if they pass under different pseudonyms, they can be correlated as a result of deanonymizing attacks on the transaction schedule. Talk about privacy in a transparent transaction system is possible. For example, Bitcoin aliases offer some form of anonymity, but at the same time all transactions with it occur publicly - we see a compromise between privacy and openness. ^[nineteen]
• Litecoin is a popular cryptocurrency, conceived as an evolution of Bitcoin.
• Other cryptocurrencies: Namecoin , Ripple , Peercoin , etc. ^[20]

An artist may try to remain anonymous for various reasons: by adding an element of mystification to himself or his work, he avoids the so-called “personality cult” or hero worship, where charisma, appearance, wealth and other factors are the main cause of interest in the artist’s work. People can use anonymity and pseudonyms in an area in which only people of the same sex or profession usually work. For example, Tiptree Jr. , a famous science fiction author, was actually a woman named Alice Bradley Sheldon.

There may be other reasons for using anonymity and pseudonyms. For example, Thomas Pynchon and J. D. Salinger , wanted to have a normal personal life. ^[21] Hiding the personality is found in fiction and cinematography. For example, " Lone Ranger ", " Superman " and " Batman ."

It is generally accepted that charity must be anonymous. A philanthropist may have different reasons for wanting anonymity. The reason for this may be the non-disclosure of his condition, the reluctance of a personalized feeling of gratitude, etc. ^[22]

Anonymity is not always recognized in society. In political, governmental and some private organizations anonymity does not occur. For example, in many countries only under a real name a person has the right to vote. At airports in most countries, passengers are not allowed on board the aircraft without presenting an identity card. ^[23] On the other hand, some political processes require anonymity. ^[24]

Anonymity refers to the process of protecting an identifier and data about a user's location. The ability to provide anonymous access to services, which avoids tracking personal information about a user and user behavior, such as user location, frequency of service use, etc. Quality or state of anonymity that is a condition of owning a name or identifier that is unknown or disguised . ^[25] .

In other words, anonymity on the Internet means various ways to go unnoticed on the World Wide Web. The reasons for hiding your actions on Internet sites are varied. They can be associated both with the desire to protect themselves from possible unlawful actions of third parties, and with the commission of unlawful actions by the person himself, seeking anonymity. ^[26]

To achieve anonymity, anonymous networks are used that work over the global network. Anonymous networks are computer networks created to achieve anonymity on the Internet and work over the global network . The specificity of such networks lies in the fact that developers are forced to compromise between the degree of protection and ease of use of the system , its “transparency” for the end user. ^[27] The aspect of maintaining anonymity and confidentiality is also important, subject to the impact of social engineering methods or any pressure on the server operator. Multi-level encryption and the distributed nature of anonymous networks, eliminating a single point of failure and a single vector of attacks , allow you to intercept traffic or even hacking part of network nodes with a non-fatal event. ^{[28] [29]}

For anonymity, the user pays for an increase in response time , a decrease in speed , and also large volumes of network traffic. The first relatively successful anonymous network was the commercial service Freedom, which operated from 1998 to 2001 ^[30] . ZKS installed dedicated servers to which clients connected using a cryptographic protocol . The node to which packets arrived from the user Freedom could not identify the real sender. The network itself functioned at the IP protocol level. At the same time, other projects began to develop actively ^[31] .

In order to achieve a higher level of anonymity on the Internet, anonymizers are used. They represent the technical means for hiding information about the Internet user and his actions on the Web. These include proxy servers , which are resorted to, if necessary, to hide the source of the Internet request or to display false information about the user.

You can also refer to the VPN- service, which allows the user to hide the real IP-address and independently choose a virtual location.

One of the most reliable methods is Tor , which helps to anonymize traffic by means of onion routing ^[32] .