A Defense of Internet Anonymity

The Internet was conceived as a network of interconnected computers that allowed information to be exchanged between users with some degree of anonymity. Until the 2000’s it was sought to sharply differentiate the real identity vs the digital identity. In most cases, there was no coincidence between one and the other. With the expansion of Web 2.0, that construction was far behind and the anonymity was diluted between accounts of state trolls and advertising bots: the cult of identity replacing the nameless @ that surfed cyberspace.

As smartphones and social media infected the social fabric, the idea of anonymity on the network was changing dramatically. Why be an Internet random? The ecosystem of big tech imposed a way to inhabit cyberspace directly associated with the total exposure of our lives for a simple purpose: collecting information from its users and seeing how to sell it. It doesn’t matter if the buyers are companies, states, marketing agencies or political advertisers. The ends are the same: coerce users or manipulate behaviors and thoughts.

NATO not only declared cyberspace as the fifth domain of war in 2016, but also in 2020 it determined that the sixth domain of war is cognitive. Cyberspace, controlled by a handful of tech corporations, is the battlefield where today’s cognitive operations are deployed. Anonymity is a form of resistance to the parameterization and extractivism of the data oligarchs, of which non-sancta states and organizations are nourished for their own purposes.

Not everyone seeking anonymity is a troll

It is quite studied that staying anonymous is a benefit to freedom of expression, and not only in digital environments but also in real life. From the leaflets against monarchical absolutisms, through anarchist clandestine propaganda in the early 20th century or guerrilla organizations in the '70's, becoming anonymous was always a tool of resistance and struggle. We can even easily bring this to the present day, with everyday life completely enclosed with video surveillance systems: from the cameras that states put to monitor, through cameras in buildings, shops, houses, neighborhoods. Or, worse, those microasaltosprivacy microassaults product of photos or videos that a cell phone gil can take you out while reading a book, you walk smoking one or just exist. Surveillance is present everywhere and is exercised with impunity by all.

The cult of identity that is currently occurring, exploited until the tiredness in the format of virus-memetic-multimedia, is so far the largest stage that has reached technological extractivism. AI is only showing the next step of this cognitive warfare fueled by our identities. The opposite of this is not asceticism and the return to the cavern but rather the struggle for cognitive sovereignty. In that fight, anonymity is one of the ways to battle.

The possibility of not being named, and of differentiating the real identity of our avatar in cyberspace, allows us to inhabit different identities at the same time, where being a troll, being no one or being you is just as possible. Everything aims to unify the real self with the virtual, with the unique purpose of continuing to parameterize people through cyberspace, which operates bidirectionally, carrying and bringing consumptions, desires and data from real life to the digital highway, with a direct connection and without toll to our minds. The more our real identity matches the digital identity, the easier it is to make that connection... and the more harmful it is.

As opposed to this, we have as an example the first communities of the network that were conceived through the differentiation of real life vs the @ of the Internet. Anonymity provided the possibility of building different identities according to the space that was inhabited: it was not the same soldier that of the forum of Age of Empire II Hispanic that the solder of the Lovecraft forum or the forum on Anarchism. When building different @ consciously we dilute our traces in the megalopolis of the network: we do not tie ourselves to an identity but pivot between several, as if they were Temporarily Autonomous Zones.

Do not give yourself: anonymity as a form of defense and resistance

Cyberspace is an infinite megalopolis and anonymity is the basis of that city. But like every city, it changes over time, and as well as surveillance and facial recognition systems were installed in large cities, digital habitats mutated into spaces for the exploitation of personal data and private life, so the most sensible option is to seek to be anonymized. In the early 2000’s, being anonymous was a no-brainer. Today, almost an exception or directly a froul-up practice due to the huge proliferation of trolls, bots and fake accounts that are dedicated to attacking, chasing and harassing users. Unfortunately for common discourse, anonymity in the network is almost a sign of criminality and not a personal search for not wanting to expose itself: cyberspace is another plane of our reality and inhabiting it with another identity is an imperative need in this era.

Precisely, a few weeks ago there was a change in the cyber patrol regulations of the Ministry of Security: the figures of digital undercover agents are enabled, a practice that we knew existed but now is whitewashed. Not only can we be attacked and pursued by para-state forces in the format of trolls or bots, but also the digital arm of the law can fall on any citizen, not counting all the links that are made between cyberspace and the territorial: facial recognition systems, telephone towers that track the position of our phones, tax cameras, patents, biometric readers, etc.

At this specific time in Argentina, it is key not to give yourself away completely and take certain collections. Problematizing these issues is far from falling into paranoia. You don’t have to look too much to find some digital attack in packs or a doxxeo that has gone on to surpass digital life to fall into in real life attacks. Given this problem, which is real and concrete, we have to build an anonymity with tools that allow us to at least put some barriers to avoid being so gifted in the face of the number of attacks that are being carried.

The construction of that identity may vary according to our needs. Of course, people who are publicly exposed (journalists, communicators, celebrities, political activists, influencers and others) cannot afford to be anonymized: their life depends on the exhibition. But the rest of the mortals, do they need to continue to strengthen that artificial connection between the real self and the virtual self? The ecosystem of the data oligarchs is so finely organized based on likes and reposts that it always generates a false feeling of being to "stick" it with some post that goes viral to infinity, at the cost of interacting, exposing us, showing us. Then comes the return, which is paid for with social anxiety, insecurity, apathy, leaks and more or less targeted attacks.

Change the cognitive software

There is a key concept of cybersecurity and cyber defense that is to think about a threat model. In a big way, this is to raise what possible threats and vulnerabilities our computer systems have and how we can go one step ahead so as not to give ourselves to attackers. This can be applied to many aspects of everyday life and precisely when it comes to building anonymity it serves us as a parameter to think. How anonymous can I be? How much can I split my real self from the virtual? Do I need or not become anonymous? What effort can I make to do that?

The questions are thousands, and the more we do ourselves better because the first step is to break the widespread apathy around these issues. Questioning the status quo is always a symptom of mental independence and in this case it is no exception. Let’s start from the basis that we are all traceable to a greater or lesser extent: we barely connect our cell phone to a data network or we turn on some wifi, we are leaving stains. Cultivating irrastreabilidadtotal unshrillability, trying to take all possible care to provide no data to anyone, is an almost titanic and impossible task. The connection involves a trace, to a greater or lesser extent.

For the common of Internet users, with small actions we managed to mislead both compulsive trackers and state trolls and digital agents. First of all, we must try to avoid using names that link us to our real identity. Return to the old and reliable nicknames, without real photos or birthdays or anything; if possible, eventually rotate the @ we use. At the same time, however much we are despite, avoid continuing to put the face in each post and even be the cracks that do not want to be uploaded this or that photo: privacy is a right and as such we must exercise it, either to tell our friends not to upload photos of ours to Instagram, as to stop anyone who takes a photo on the public road of queruza. We must think of our identity as a daughter worthy of liquid society: our digital self must be a fluid that is mixed with the tidal wave of the network.

Avoiding constantly joining the discussion, "trend", hashtag or psyop of the social networks of the data technocrats is elementary to cultivate anonymity. Most of those movements in networks are orchestrated to continue capturing bytes en masse. The close story is full of examples: from the apps that made us old and then they fed the facial recognition systems, to whether a dress is of this or that color. In cognitive warfare, nothing is randomly waged and nothing is by chance. There is no sense of paranoia, because unless you are a precise target no one is following you on time, but they are following you as part of a pool of real identities to which you must parameterize. Avoiding it is resisting, and acting accordingly is infecting that data pool. The above actions basically consist of changing habits, modifying our mental software.

Precisely, changing our patterns of consumption and use of the network is the ABC of cultivating the dissociation between real and digital identity. It doesn’t depend on being more or less hacker, but basically not being one more of the bunch that prides itself on saying “I don’t care if they track me down, I have nothing to hide.” Or worse, "I don't understand anything about technology." Widespread apathy to these issues is the greatest enemy we have and digital ostracism is what we must overcome at all costs.

The Swiss Army Knife of Anonymity

After the stage of change of mental software, it remains to start with more concrete actions, around the use of digital tools that help us protect privacy. Navigating the web using Chrome can not even be considered: everything the browser does is registered, processed and used by Alphabet. Are you going to come looking for a nation prosecutor because you read our emails? No, you don’t have to be so boludo to fall for it, but also to give everything to Google. A company that also makes every effort to make it impossible to browse the Internet without blockers, precisely a key tool to cultivate anonymity without too much effort.

The web browser is a very powerful tool, since practically everything we do from there. But those who spend more time on the phone are likely to use messaging and social media apps more than the web browser. As we mentioned before, leaving networks is not usually an option but leaving them from the cell phone yes. And, if not, there are apps like TrackerControl, developed by the University of Oxford, which analyzes, reports and blocks the data leaks generated by applications.

Contrary to the social apps of large corporations, there are free, community and self-managed networks where the cult of identity does not exist. They are open source social networks, like Mastodon, the most well-known microblogging network (as it used to be twitter). Cybercirujas (wich could be translated as cyberhobos or cyberbums) manages the Rebel.ar server and has just incorporated a Pixelfed instance, an Instagram "emolum" under the pixel.rebel.ar domain. Free-network ecosystems are designed to respect the privacy and identity of those who want to inhabit them. Do you want to be a public person of cyberspace? No problem. Want to be a total anonymous? Zero drama. Want to be an infumable troll? It's okay, champ, but hold the bans.

If we want to go a step further, and really start thinking about leaving no traces on the network, we have the option of using a VPN (Virtual Private Network) When we connect to the Internet, whether on our PC or cellular, we do it through an ISP (Internet Service Provider) that assigns us an IP address, a number that can be identified and more or less geolocated with some ease. When we use a VPN we connect to a closed tunnel, our IP and location changes, and neither the ISP nor any attacker can analyze the network traffic. VPNs are usually paid and there are dozens that offer the service, but you have to know who to pay.

Protonmail is a Swiss-based company that offers the free basic VPN service, along with your email. If we don’t like companies that so much, Riseup.net is a historic community of anarchist hacktivists who also provide free email and VPN services. But we are not used for all these actions if we are going to use an operating system with their default settings, and by this I mean Windows or Mac OS. In its default installation, the Micro$oft system shares from the passwords we save in the system to metadata of the hard drive: if you can not change the system, at least, be pill@ enough to touch it so as not to give away all the info without blinking.

Finally, we should not neglect real life. As we said, the streets are full of surveillance systems of all kinds: from facial recognition to people, not forgetting those delicious open WiFi that act as honey pots for the unsuspecting. Every time we connect to a WiFi we are leaving another brand, and the leca is not enough to show all the steps. In the big cities, the surveillance domes populate all the corners and a good mental exercise is to see where there are cameras and where there is not. Not to speak if they live in the city of Buenos Aires, where manifesting with an uncovered face seems to be a romanticization of "nothing hidden", when rather it is to give yourself to the video surveillance of the security forces: the hooded is not necessarily a service but someone who knows who is the enemy that is in front.

The anonymous synthesis

Definitely, inhabiting cyberspace, so hooked on real everyday life, has become a completely laborious task: between spam, trolls, police, bots, scams and so many loose crap, it is very difficult to move around the street online without receiving some balubi, even from the real world. Especially since the shots are very well directed, and by shots I mean anything: an attack of trolls, advertisements, consumptions, arbitrary detentions, anything that polishes in the network or in the territory will try to reach us thanks to extraction algorithms that have located our patterns.

Cleaving the real identity of digital is an imperative necessity for the common people. It is not a simple task to carry, since after years of hegemony of the data oligarchs everything is done so that we put the face and the back of it in every digital movement we make. The latest events and the smearing of all Internet content must cease to be a mere sense of alertness to become a need to act.