Motivation For Anonymity
There are many reasons to use anonymous P2P technology; most of them are generic to all forms of online anonymity.
P2P users who desire anonymity usually do so as they do not wish to be identified as a publisher (sender), or reader (receiver), of information. Common reasons include:
- The material or its distribution is illegal or incriminating
- Material is legal but socially deplored, embarrassing or problematic in the individual's social world (for example, anonymity is seen as a key requirement for organizations like Alcoholics Anonymous)
- Fear of retribution (against whistleblowers, unofficial leaks, and activists who do not believe in restrictions on information or knowledge)
- Censorship at the local, organizational, or national level
- Personal privacy preferences such as preventing tracking or datamining activities
A particularly open view on legal and illegal content is given in The Philosophy Behind Freenet.
Governments are also interested in anonymous P2P technology. The United States Navy funded the original onion routing research that led to the development of the Tor network, which was later funded by the Electronic Frontier Foundation and is now developed by the non-profit organization The Tor Project, Inc.
Read more about this topic: Anonymous P2P
Famous quotes containing the words motivation for, motivation and/or anonymity:
“Self-determination has to mean that the leader is your individual gut, and heart, and mind or we’re talking about power, again, and its rather well-known impurities. Who is really going to care whether you live or die and who is going to know the most intimate motivation for your laughter and your tears is the only person to be trusted to speak for you and to decide what you will or will not do.”
—June Jordan (b. 1939)
“Self-determination has to mean that the leader is your individual gut, and heart, and mind or we’re talking about power, again, and its rather well-known impurities. Who is really going to care whether you live or die and who is going to know the most intimate motivation for your laughter and your tears is the only person to be trusted to speak for you and to decide what you will or will not do.”
—June Jordan (b. 1939)
“Kindness is a virtue neither modern nor urban. One almost unlearns it in a city. Towns have their own beatitude; they are not unfriendly; they offer a vast and solacing anonymity or an equally vast and solacing gregariousness. But one needs a neighbor on whom to practice compassion.”
—Phyllis McGinley (1905–1978)