I already know there's been a lot said on the internet about how people can act like total 'tards if they feel like they have complete anonymity. But I wanted to do a blog entry on one of the annoying and one of the dangerous types.

Let my start by saying that there's no where in the United States Constitution that allows the right to complete and total anonnymity.  That's a myth. I've been through there a few times, and just like the phrase, "separation of church and state" (a topic for another entry), there's no mention of that. Trying filing for taxes or buying a car without putting in your name and physical address if you're dumb enough to think there is. I'm not sure where the myth comes from, but let me give you a couple of examples of how people actually knowing who you are can change things.

The first has to do with actually knowing who a person is. I'm going to have to be fairly vague on this because while I don't believe the person has the right to annonymity, I do believe that a person has a right to privacy. Be sure to not confuse the two. It's a little like the difference to the right of free speech and the right to decide not to spend my money or time listening to someone else's right to free speech. It's a very important destinction.

In the various MMOs I play and have played, I came across someone that was known to be of the internet child-predator type. The company hosting the game claimed to have their hands tied because they had no hard evidence, but when you have about 50 customers screaming in rational fear for their children and about 100 more screaming out of fear because of what the other 50 know, you'd think there'd be more to be done.

I started gathering information. The person happened to have a web site that used Pay-Pal. I did a lot of talking and found the site. I won't go into details of what I did next because again, I don't want to encourage people to violate other's privacy, but I tracked down the actual name, email address and physical address of the offending party.

Then I sent one (that one, as in a single (1), and not at all related to sending multiple) email to the person. I didn't say much. I gave my name and some basic contact information, and let him know that I'd heard reports of some of his activities and that it concerned me. I signed off with his real name, address, and phone number.

He wasn't seen under that name on that game again.

Many people act diffently if they think you have no way of knowing who they are. This is well enough known that many schools and churches have banned masks as part of Halloween parties. There's also the type of person out there that acts differently because they think that they are in an environment where no one will challenge them.

This came up just a fews ago while I was playing Lord of the Rings Online. My wife and I had used a quest item to get a special mob ("monster") to spawn ("show up"). From out of nowhere this person came running up, and before I even target the monster, hit it once ("tapping" this is sometimes called. It makes it so that no one else can get credit for the kill) and took it down. They were about to leave when I mentioned that what they had done was pretty rude. And yes, I didn't word it any more harshly than that.

I was told that they were sorry, but they didn't know it was a quest mob and that they hadn't seen the two players there (one with bright red armour and bright orange hair.) I mentioned that the mob didn't appear in any other form anywhere in the area and the fact that even if my bright colors had been missed, my wife's character was wearing bright blue armor.

The person then got on my case for not excepting the apology. I told them that the apology was welcome and accepted, but the lame excuses weren't. Either someone was embarrassed by what their five-year old did while they were afk, or they thought they could get away with it without anyone saying anything.

I'm not saying that I'm immune to acting like a 'tard when people don't know I am, but I do like to think that I try to not roll downhill with the rest of it. I also encourage others to think a little bit about and try to do the same. It sure would change the internet if words like: troll, flamer, and ashatt, were removed from our vocabulary because they no longer described anything valid.