I refer to the postface declaration by John Perry Barlow — Founding EFF Member (22 years prior).
My take is that the Internet is an odd experiment — one more-so about understanding self.
To explore usernames and users — they are yours, your representation. It is, essentially the idea of proxied ownership. At its core — the owner of a server is the root user, and the owner of the user is the invoked self. Users are the interface mechanisms we use to traverse the networks, and networks of networks of the internet. Whatever users do, has been a request — and a response.. ping pong fingerprints, peppered everywhere, all attached to users.
And they’re cool — it’s exactly what the graffiti guys did when they developed their own selves with their own usernames in their own communities and cultures — then putting them up all around the city as their own representation and fingerprints..?
Back inside the protocols of the internet, some users identify in some circles as identities — as in Facebook or email, others as pseudonyms; Twitter or Instagram.
Our sense of self is how we integrate with the internet.
You need a user for a computer to be useful — a self integrates with the computer, becoming the user — thus enablement of the computer.
The Internet invokes our true sense of self
— one we create, blank.
Anonymity is not dissimilar to space — nothing, no existence. It is the within of the entity in which we exist. As with stars, users exist within the anonymity of space.
This universe is built on foundational laws that all parts are free to exchange with all parts — interconnected everything — networks of networks — redundancy as architecture, et cetera.
The ability to be heard — or at least to have spoken on permanent record, is a fundamental element that has been forged with this universe.
At it’s core..
This information can be spoken for;
or not spoken for.
‘Not spoken for’ are responses, floating in anonymity — without a request, some meaningful, most not. Events captured as fluctuations in background radiation, or as singularities etc.
If we listen — we will hear.
Anonymous will always exist because we exist in anonymity — if you just shut up, no one will hear you. The frame of the anonymous ideology; is not about being known or unknown. But rather the power of being an anonymous user, and what that represents. They are two, very distinctly seperate things.
Without seasonality, it’s more difficult to communicate purely between users, or nodes now — than it ever has been.
The overwhelming mass of communication happening on privatised and state controlled systems. — We are creating black-hole communication knick-knacks to perform basic operations — the anonymity of our space has eroded and degraded so — completely lacking basic security measures you would expect of such a system — contaminated — a system bug.
And no-one knows.
continue;
Nothing exists before the user. Internet birthing events of self — akin to stars forming. Where-ever you are, how-ever you are, what-ever you are — at some point you become a user — another fusion birth, igniting self-sustaining transfers of energy reactions — invoking another self as another user, one after the next…Chinese New Year all up in here — all year round.
Imagine that once you pop out, you are handed a form titled Birth Certificate and a pen.
What would you write?
Would you write?
You can hold anonymity in a box in the same way you can trap space in a room — it just doesn’t work like that.
Our world is different.
By no means do I claim to be an expert on anything, or know anything about writing, journalism, maths, physics, science, computers etc. apart from binge-watching some docuseries on Netflix.
Originally published September 13, 2018
