COMMENT
Recently I had a bed I wanted to get rid of - one that was, I felt, too good to spend the next 1,000 years rotting in landfill. So I decided to have a go at Freecycling it instead, which to my surprise threw up some interesting questions about online identity.
If you've not come across it before, Freecycle is a group that enables you to donate unwanted goods to the local community. There also seems to be no limit to weird and wacky items offered on Freecycle - who would have thought old video tapes or 5kg of rice could find a new home?
And so, I posted the offer of my bed on Freecycle and sat back and waited for responses, basking in the warm glow of simultaneously de-cluttering my home and living green.
Pretty soon I was gratified to see the responses rolling in, and I had to decide which of my fellow Freecyclers would win the bed. And it's here it gets interesting because it's the point at which online identity suddenly intersects with the real world.
Identity has always been a fuzzy notion online. The web has always offered a means of reinvention, with Dave the Dull becoming Vlad the Mighty at the touch of a button. But this fun has its limits.
Simply - I don't want to have someone who calls themselves doomwarrior666 coming round my house at the weekend to pick up a bed.
And besides, how do I address him? Dr Doom? Mr Warrior?
The same goes for email monikers such as fluffybunny123.
OK, so it might seem rather conservative 1.0 but in terms of someone turning up at my house on a Saturday morning I'm much happier with an online identity I can tie to a real person.
Which is why I was only really interested in giving my bed to someone who sounded like they were from this planet, not one ruled by axe-wielding dwarfs. And so it was someone with a normal name who won out.
I guess this leads to the broader question of the future of identity.
As internet-based services become a standard way to interact, shop and play, the difference between an online identity and a real identity begins to narrow.
Facebook works because you have to use your own identity with a real name and real photos. If everyone were hiding behind a pseudonym it wouldn't work at all.
Now of course there're plenty of valid reasons why people don't appear online by the name on their birth certificate. And that's unlikely to change. Online you will use a variety of avatars, user names and other representations which in some way will reflect parts of the offline individual.
But use the wrong one and you can come off seeming out of touch or just strange. The trick is to remember to use the right one in the right environment - especially if all you want is for me to provide you with a good night's sleep.
Editor's choice - three things you must check out on silicon.com this week:
silicon.com has been eagerly following Heathrow's T5 transformation over the past two years but when it finally opened its doors this week, it was plagued with problems. In this analysis we ask, just how did they get it so wrong?
A great photo story on silicon.com this week looks at getting online while on the move. Here, silicon.com reporter Natasha Lomas road tests wi-fi on trains.
And while you're at it, don't forget to catch up on what our resident Naked CIO has to say; this week - IT staff and their loyalty.
Comments
There are 3 comments. Join the discussion
1. Richard
A biometric ID card would not help.
This again shows that when dealing with strangers, what they are is far more important than who they are. This is the same even when dealing with terrorists and other criminals.
Unfortunately, this vital aspect has been completely overshadowed by the government's ill-advised ID project which concentrates only on verifying the "who" rather than the "what."
Every day, we all have many interactions with strangers: paying in shops, showing our travel tickets, using the NHS, dealing with officials, etc etc.
In most of these transactions, the stranger's name is far less important than their role. So, we judge people by their uniforms, their behaviour and the context. Our judgements are usually right. Occasionally we're conned. However, the name on their ID card tells us very little - except their name.
Unfortunately, the government's proposed ID card will verify only someone's name. In our fast-moving society, these government ID cards could never hope to verify everyone's role in their working or private lives.
Just imagine having to update our details on a government database each time we stand in for a colleague, neighbour or friend who is on holiday or ill for the day, or while we literally mind the shop.
If Britain really is to become the best place to live, work and to do business, we need better ways of interacting freely and easily with strangers. We don't need the current expensive, intrusive ID scheme, which verifies only their names.
2. Guy Herbert, General Secretary NO2ID
Of course this is precisely the logic behind the government's system, which would like you to register everything you do officially, and have an official approval first, preferably before you do something.
It is a philosophy that creeps into all sorts of policy and is not just confined to the Identity and Passport Service. Look up the new Independent Safeguarding Authority sometime. It isn't an April fool.
3. anonymous
I understand that this service is to keep things out of landfills. But who is going to put a car in a landfill? People take them to junkyards and get money for them. So, why do people ask for cars and things that people could sell.
This has happened on some of the Freecycle sites I've seen. If someone asks for something that someone has to sell, but they haven't advertised it for sale, what is the problem? At least, a person is getting what they ask for. People asking for cars and places to live should not be allowed.