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Re: Anonymity versus Pseudonymity (was Re: [87attendees] procedural question with remote participation)

2013-08-03 21:24:12

On Aug 3, 2013, at 9:49 AM, Olle E. Johansson <oej(_at_)edvina(_dot_)net> wrote:


2 aug 2013 kl. 14:13 skrev Scott Brim <scott(_dot_)brim(_at_)gmail(_dot_)com>:

I'm completely against participating anonymously because of IPR issues.
I'm mostly against pseudonymous participation for the same reason.  I
need to be able to know who I'm dealing with, in order to know if there
are IPR issues that should be brought up.

THat's exactly the problem. Unfortunately the world requires the IETF to
manage IPR. There's a reason why we need to be strict with the note well.
Anonymous remote *PARTICIPATION* breaks the requirements of the
note well acceptance in my view. 

Hi Olle

The participation in the IETF is already pseudonymous. I have a driver's 
license, a passport, and a national ID card, all proving that my name is indeed 
Yoav Nir. But I have never been asked to present any of them at the IETF. I 
claim to work for Check Point, and my email address tends to suggest it, but a 
lot of participants use gmail addresses.

I had participated in IETF mailing lists for 3 years before ever attending a 
meeting, and I got RFC 4478 published before attending one. At that point, none 
of the IETF regulars had ever seen me - I was just a claimed name on the 
mailing list and on the draft.

As I don't have to prove an identity when registering for meetings, if that had 
been a ruse, I could continue running with it to this day, although by now 
there are two participants who can link the IETF participant with the name I 
use at work. BTW: nobody's stopping anybody from creating a new gmail account 
under the name "Yoav Nir", registering to IETF mailing lists, and posting in my 
name. Unless I notice it and cry foul, nobody would be the wiser.

Yoav


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