Internet: Transparency vs Anonymity

[9r2e5i3k]

Inspired by this infographic.
^{(warning, large image: 918x2681)}

Found this on graphjam and thought this might be an interesting topic to discuss. So, what do you think about it?

Personally I'm more anonymous than transparent, as I don't just show off all of my personal info on the Internet.

[Dangerfield]

I chose Anonymity.

[Cutt3r]

I doubt anyone would choose transparency - unless they are insane, they wouldn't want their personal info on the net.

[Gandalf]

For those who think their information is hidden, try to do some searches on yourself. You will be amazed what you can find.

To the government services and skilled hackers nobody is fully anonymous, as it is always possible to link several sources to obtain a picture. At the same time people are pretty careless with their identity on the net, and put out data that could haunt them later on.

[XSniper]

With a gun in your basement anything is fine.

Jk, I just made a search on myself, with just two sites. (Google,Yahoo). And I found almost everything. Full name, hobbies, (all my interests,etc) Address, (tracking my house phone number), House owner, everything!
Yeah no one is anonymous on the internet.

[Nathan]

Though I make sure to keep Argonath and other sites away from my social life, I noticed that rather anything you want is available within a few clicks.

[Comrade]

I have a Facebook. Guess the anonymous train has left the station.

[Pandalink]

I greatly value anonymity, and it is for that reason that I find 4chan to be an extremely interesting website.

With that said, I have absolutely no issue with people associating "Pandalink" with me. Heck, I recognise the name "Panda" in real life speech more than my actual name. I don't obsessively try to hide my information because when it comes down to it, if someone really wants to find out about you then they will. I do not, however, post my exact address openly online. That is simply foolish.

If someone like the government was to gain access to my Facebook profile, and was to spend the time to go through all my ~9000 posts on this forum and my dozens of posts elsewhere on the internet under this name, and create a comprehensive file on me or some other shit that people fear when disclosing information online - then they just wasted their time. I would have told them everything anyway if they'd just asked.

Nothing on my Facebook profile is information that I would not give out to someone I recently met.
Similarly, nothing I say on any internet forum is something that I would not repeat in real life.

The same cannot be said of my posts on, for example, 4chan.

[Hoffmann]

Everyone who needs, knows my mobile phone number, address etc.

Did a search over google, just basic information, name and city, nothing more.

As Dangerfield said, choose anonymity, you really don't know what kind of people are out there.

BTW: Good topic.   

[Murt]

I would choose the anonymous road, but though I have shared my personal things in real life to some that I can trust and they have done the same.