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Internet Anonymity in ContextsChristina Allen

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Internet Anonymity in Contexts

Christina AllenDirector of Product Marketing, Electric Communities, Cupertino, California, USA

One approach to developing policy for Internet anony-mity and pseudonymity is to focus on Internet identities.In this approach, policymakersin private andpublic spheresdebate how much should be revealed about the real-lifeidentities, locations, or attributes of users engaged in com-munication. Identity-focused approaches tend to discussInternet anonymity as a monolithic issuea matter of ho-mogeneous policy for the whole Internet. The argumentsweigh privacy issues against those of responsibility andaccountability.

Another approach to policy deliberations is to focuson Internet contexts. With this approach, policymakersconsider how much can or should be revealed about thereal-life identity, location, or attributes of communicantsgiven the context of engagement. By focusing on contexts,rather than solely on identities, policymakers can regu-late Internet communications based on a demonstrated so-cial or legal interest in the sorts of transactions that are

occurring.Off-line societies have hadcenturies to develop the rulesand norms of engagement in different social and profes-sional contexts. Yet every geographical space and humaninteraction cannot reasonably be regulated. Much happensin private that is simply unavailable to scrutiny. Nonethe-less, these private contexts are subject to regulation basedon societal interests in certain types of activity. Whileindi-viduals may seek to avoid regulation through secrecy, theyleave traces (social, physical, informational, or technical)of their activities that allow others to investigate possibleviolations of laws and norms. How these traces may be

investigated is legally regulated to balance the interests ofsociety with the rights of individuals.

Received 7 April 1998; accepted 17 November 1998.

Address correspondence to Christina Allen, Ph.D., Director of

Product Marketing, Electric Communities, 10101 N. De Anza Blvd.,

Cupertino, CA 95014, USA. E-mail: callen@communities.com

Similarly, the Internet has private spaces that increingly are unavailable to scrutiny. As applications proerate that place server-level functionality on PCs, andencryption becomes more sophisticated, individuals organizations can create secure, private networks that difcult to detect, let alone to regulate systematica Therefore, attempts to create global anonymity regtions are likely to be difcult or impossible to enforcespecially if the violations of these global policies mundane and unworthy of prosecution.

A context-oriented approach does not, therefore,tempt to regulate anonymity in any global manner. Sregulation is not pragmatic in increasingly distributed stems. Nor does it abandon efforts to regulate anonymon the Internet because of the complexity of the issand technologies. Rather, borrowing from real-life exrience, policies dene those sorts of Internet-based ctexts or interactionslegal, social, or commercialt

society wishes to regulate. For each of those contedifferent identity policies are constructed. It is requithat the individuals or institutions engaged in those acities collect and manage the identity information requifor legal participation. The conditions of release of idtity are negotiated by policy, just as journalists, psychogists, lawyers, and the police have policies for managanonymity in different circumstances. For example, line banking may require stable pseudonyms that cancertain circumstances, be tied to real-life identities heldtrust by third-party institutions. For each context, lawpolicy must determine the types of surveillance that m

be used.The process of developing regulations for online ano

mity can benet from these steps:

1. Mapping on-line contexts to similar regulated oline contexts as a beginning point for policy detion.

2. Developing policies and laws for on-line contebased on off-line analogies.

The Information Society, 15:145146, 1999

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146 C. ALLEN

3. Developing mechanisms for signaling, supporting,tracking, and enforcing policies and lawsboth forpublic interests and for use by private organizations.

4. Developing policies determining the conditions forsurveillance, types of surveillance, and jurisdictionsfor adjudication.

5. Testing policies and mechanisms on a case-by-casebasis in private and public jurisdictions.

Key to the success of a context-oriented approach isdeveloping technical mechanisms and social protocols forcommunicating about, and controlling the ow of, infor-mation and people over context borders. Current Internetcontexts largely fail to signal to users the social and tech-nical responsibilities and consequences of participationespecially in light of novel aspects of Internet communica-tion such as the widespread availability of good enoughanonymity. In many instances, the failure comes from lackof knowledge (on the part of forum developers and oper-ators) about what these responsibilities and consequences

might be for an International Internet.Electric Communities is an Internet software company

that has implemented certain mechanisms that exemplifysuch border controls. The software uses certicates allow-ing ne-grained control of where and how code may bedeployed in distributed systems. Context owners can de-termine which certicates are required in order for a personor virtual object to enter. If a user tries to enter a contextwithout the proper identity certicates, the user will beturned away. Likewise, if a user tries to deploy code thatis not properly certied, such as a virus or an unaccept-able picture, the context will prevent the introduction of

the code and instruct the user of the norms with warnmessages.

Yet technical code controls do not solve all of the prolems. Social cues tell users the conditions of participaton a context-by-context basis. In the Electric Commu ties software, contexts have watermarks in the upleft corner. These watermarks are clickable objects tconvey the expected behaviors and requirements of t

context. Some of these expectations may be a matterprivate policy, and some may be a matter of law.Technical and social mechanisms can be tied togeth

For example, a context may claim to enforce child-frienpolicies. A third-party agency may grant a certicate to tcontext, based on its reputation for consistent enforcemeParents may set their childrens identities to demand child-friendly certicate before the child can enter. If context has failed to maintain child-friendly standarthe context loses its certicate and children can no lonvisit. Or, a child-friendly-certied context may require teach participant present a certicate stating that a thi

party agency has the real-life identity information of participant in escrow, to be released to authorities uncertain conditions.

With such policies and mechanisms in place, a contefocused approach to regulating anonymity provides Intnet users and organizations with assurances that persoidentities will be required and revealed only accordingagreements, policies, and laws. With such an approach,Internet can evolve into a conglomerate of public and pvate spaces that develop reputations for their trustwortness and civility based on the behaviors and accountabiprocedures they establish and maintain.