Security expert pans Google+ pseudonym policy

[Simon]

A security expert has criticised Google's stance on pseudonyms on its social network, claiming the hard line will damage privacy.

Google+ has been closing down accounts where people were using false names because it is against the company's community standards.

According to Chester Wisniewski, a senior security advisor at Sophos, the policy erodes privacy and shows Google to be acting like an official identity authority.

"By requiring people to only use their real names, unless they just happen to be a celebrity, they have eliminated the ability for people to be private in any meaningful way," he said in a Sophos blog post.

Read more: http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/security/368908/security-expert-pans-google-pseudonym-policy

[zappaDPJ]

That's quite interesting. I go to great lengths to keep my online presence and real world details entirely separate (I'm Zappa Dpj on Facebook for web development purposes ). I don't actually like having to hide behind a pseudonym because I'm exactly the same pain in the neck at home as I am online! However I've learned it really is necessary having been doorstepped in real life by someone from the Internet.

A lot of people live out their fantasies from behind a computer screen and it horrifies me how much information people are prepared to give away to these fantasist.

[Simon]

How do they know whether it's the user's real name or not anyway?

[zappaDPJ]

It's actually not that hard to associate a real name with an online account. Keeping in mind just how much data Google collects, if you are on the net the chances are you will have used your real name to make a purchase or perhaps you use your real name is in the sender field of your email. Most people do.

[Simon]

Yes, but I could set up a Google account, say, fredsmith01010101@google.com, specifically for that purpose, and they wouldn't know I wasn't Fred Smith, would they?

[zappaDPJ]

I suppose it depends on their criteria but if I saw that as the sender I'd automatically assume it wasn't a real identity and look for your prices on Viagra

Or more seriously it certainly could be a real name but they may choose to flag it otherwise.

[Inkblot]

Although I have recently started to use my real name on the web I was wary of doing so for many years and still have both forum accounts (Such as this one) and email addresses that use pseudonyms - either obvious ones such as inkblot or some that resemble 'real' names - I have a forum account on another site in the name of nickjohnstone for example, that's not my real name but it could well be, I do see this as being hard to implement for Google, not that it will affect me though - I don't have a facebook account and won;t be starting a google+ one either

[Technical Ben]

I always warn people that I have one opinion of the internet. AFAIK it could just be one guy, typing really fast. All of you could be Rik in disguise for all I know.     

It's a joke, and hyperbole, but it shows how much we take it for granted. Yet how little we really know.

[Rik]

Actually, it's how I got my post count up.

[Glenn]

"I'm Rik",
"No, I'm Rik"
"No, I'm Rik"
"No, I'm Rik"

[Rik]

Actually, I'm Keyser Soze.

[Niall]

Google, collecting peoples info and only wanting their real names to pair it with? Who'd have thunk it?