How important and ‘real’ do we
perceive our online identity to be?
To what extent do we and
should we trust identity online?
“ANY GIRLS wanna p/m me?” In
cyber speak p/m translates to ‘personal
message’, which involves a
conversation with somebody from a
chat room but in a sub room outside of
the initial vicinity between only two
persons.
Its hard work being a bloke on the
net: not only did no girls want to p/m
me but they didn’t seem to want me to
p/m them either. After several
thwarted attempts, I came across a
young woman who went by the chat
name of ‘chubbygirl’.
We got talking; I asked her the
usual questions- a/s/l (age/sex/location)
which were met with clear cut
answers- in fact despite being in a UK
chat room, it turned out she was from
the US, New York: in her own words
she said she was “tired of talking to
crazy American's”. This already gave
us some common ground- I had just
come back from a trip to New York so
there would be plenty to talk about.
I proceeded to ask her some further
questions and soon established her real
name, age and birthday, marital and
family status and siblings, where she
lived and worked in New York, the
university she attended and the courses
she was taking, where she liked to
spend her spare time and her interests
and musical tastes. After a while it
became apparent that she knew very
little about me and subsequently she
asked a similar set of questions.
So I told her: ‘My names Mark, I’m 26
years old and living in Bristol, and I
work as a journalist’. She seemed
impressed.
Except my name isn’t Mark, I’m
not 26 years old and I don’t live in
Bristol; in fact I’m not even male and
yet she never once questioned me. So
why would I lie?
People lie about their identity all
over the net for reasons ranging from a
bit of fun to those who have malicious
intent. In this instance the girl in the
chat room was unwittingly partaking in
an experiment which intended to prove
how, when some sort of rapport or
trust is established online the
participant is likely to have little
concern for and display extensive
naivety regarding their identity.
Examples of identity fraud online
include ‘phishing’ emails, whereby a
person sets up a fake company
(impersonating for example a bank or
charity) to collect details from
unsuspecting web users (usually bank
account details). It is also common for
paedophiles to use the net as a means
to establish and gain trust in order to
groom children into believing the false
identity they assume.
A study by Infosecurity revealed
that a staggering 92% of 200 people
surveyed were willing to part with all
the personal information necessary to
steal their identity, simply with the
incentive to win a theatre ticket.
One would assume that most people
would agree that these statistics are
quite shocking, and supplementary
research to accompany the online
observation experiment in the form of
questionnaires showed that the
respondents (who were regular internet
users) did coincide.
However further answers did not
support this, where participants
admitted to having virtual friends
whom they knew only on the internet,
and the majority trusted that these
friends were ‘who they said they are’
online, exactly as the participant in the
observation showed no signs of either
not believing, or being wary of ‘Mark’
and his identity.
It was obvious from talking with
her that she was articulate and
intelligent (she was majoring in
Political Science) and considered
herself a feminist; her only downfall
was that she was too trustworthy, and
not unlike a lot of internet users.
Fortunately for her I had no desire to
use or exploit any of the identifying
information she had given me; in fact it
was deemed unethical to even include
it in the research write up, however
other people who lie about their
identity online in order to gain
personal details from unsuspecting
strangers do so of an un-benevolent
nature with the explicit intention to
exploit or use these details for their
own gain.
Many questionnaire participants
also admitted themselves that they do,
or have in the past lied about or at least
embellished the truth regarding their
identity, yet the general vibe was that
of ‘I could see why others would fall
for it, but I wouldn’t’, which the
observation rapidly disproved.
 So why is it that many of us lie
about our identity yet are so quick to
believe and trust others?
Addressing the first question, the
fact that many people lie about their
identities online is predominantly
because they can. The internet is the
one medium of communication which
allows for freedom of identity or
complete anonymity whereby we can
present ourselves in the light that we
choose as opposed to that which is
assigned to us.
Where in real life we are
represented by legal documents such as
passport, drivers licence, medial card
etc which detail exactly who we are
according to the government or state;
online it is we who pull the strings and
dictate which aspects of our
personality we choose to show and
those we wish to camouflage.
However, it seems that perhaps the
choice to withhold identity information
will be made for us and come in the
form of ‘Identity 2.0’. Identity 2.0 aims
to provide a single identity online,
which will verify that we are who we
say we are, similar to a real life
document for example a passport,
which can confirm our identities when
travelling to different countries, or
simply buying alcohol in the off-
licence.
This will eradicate the need to give
our personal information to multitudes
of unknown companies, however many
web users are sceptic as regards all of
their information having to be
surrendered at all, and because it is a
relatively new development in identity
online, most people are currently
unaware and would therefore be unable
to make an informed decision as to
whether they are in favour or not.
Single sign- on identities include
Sxip, Yadis, Microsoft’s ‘Net
Passport’ (which failed but is currently
being recreated), Higgins, inames and
LID. It is also a collective concern that
a single and controlled identity on the
net would merely encompass yet
another form of big brother- where our
every move could be watched and
logged and passed on to others
regardless of whether we are behaving
in a responsible manner. Yet the
purpose of Identity 2.0 is to tighten
security, not to put people at further
risk; however it is easy to see why the
public would be sceptic. Nevertheless
it all boils down the deliberation that
when monitoring identity on the net,
unfortunately it is difficult to police
one area without policing the others
and ultimately it would need to be
decided that the bad aspects of identity
online outweigh the good in order for
Identity 2.0 to fall into common place.
So it seems
that until a
concrete,
reliable form
of Identity 2.0
is trusted and
used by the
majority we
must all keep
our wits about
us on the web;
to by all
means enjoy
the freedom
that cyberspace
brings,
overcoming the
geographical
“My names Mark, I’m 26
years old and living in
Bristol, and I work as a
journalist”
“Identity 2.0 aims to
provide a single
identity online,
which will verify
who we say we are”
boundaries of time and space to bring
us a medium whereby we can
communicate so closely and yet from
an infinite distance, but it must be born
in mind how the internet also provides
the ultimate tool of manipulation in
gaining details about us which most
people would never give out to a total
stranger in a similar ‘real life’ scenario.
Which is what it all boils down to: an
online identity is not assigned the same
importance as or even considered an
extension of- our real life identities,
but one unto itself to which the
significance is not realised until it is
too late and the information cannot be
restored.
People are not necessarily who they
say they are- if you don’t have solid
proof then don’t trust on instinct. We
would all like to believe that we can
trust others but this is not always the
case; within an hour of talking,
‘chubbygirl’ genuinely thought she had
met the perfect man, stating that she
‘could not believe’ how well I knew
women, obviously not for one minute
envisaging that I was more ‘in touch
with my feminine side’ than she could
ever have imagined!
If when we are online, we expect to
be able to trust other people, then we
must behave in a trustworthy manner
ourselves, and that means of course
that if ‘chubbygirl’ actually turned out
to be a gay Bristolian man then ‘Mark’
would be in a lot of trouble! However
considering I’m not planning to chat
up any more American women on the
net in the foreseeable future, for the
time being I think he’s pretty safe! ●