[PvK]

Well yes, it is easy to become anonymous to a user, harder to be anonymous to a forum admin, harder than that to be anonymous to an ISP, still harder to be anonymous to a major name service provider, and even harder to be anonymous to a government security task force. But only if any of them care.

Dialup customers to an ISP generally get a different IP address each time they connect.

Then there are anonymizer services - they know who you are, but whoever you connect to, doesn't. That'll work for everyone up to the ISP of the anonymizer service, and the best of those would take measures to prevent themselves from being (ab)used by authorities.

Etc.

On a forum though, as Gandalf mentioned, it's easier to tell via human communication skills, and by estimating the odds. Again, if you care.

So, yes we could all be Norfleet, but it would be a full-time job for us, and we'd have to be supergeniuses who nonetheless decide it is worth our time to deceive you in this way. Which we might, in our supergeniusness, have realized is actually true, since we get to goof off with Dominions so much. If we happen to be what you might call Cthuloid, it might even just be our hobby.

PvK

[ May 25, 2004, 04:18: Message edited by: PvK ]