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0 pointshappymellon1y ago0 comments

> Mainly privacy of communication doesn't always imply anonymity, through sometimes does (and has too!).

Anonymity is simply people not knowing who you are, not necessarily what you say. It's not privacy of communication, but privacy of identity.

I can post on the internet as Anonymous Coward, and those posts are public even though my identity is private.

I can encrypt an email and send it, and it will be picked up by all the relays. They can look up the source and identify me, but hopefully not read the email contents.

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oooyay1y ago

Just because you don't use your name doesn't make the service anonymous. Pseudo anonymous is still in the privacy bucket because there's still likely (given websites today) personal information associated with your account. True anonymity could be achieved, but it'd be difficult to maintain.

dathinab1y ago

yes but also sometimes just knowing a persons identity can infringe on their privacy

I would say anonymity is an aspect of privacy, one you sometimes but not always need.

e.g. I would say leaking who was present at a anonymous self help group isn't just breaking anonymity but also infringing on privacy

happymellonOP1y ago

I didn't say that identity wasn't privacy.

I said that the post I responded to was conflating two different types of privacy.

Who said things is different to what was said.

Bob and Alice spoke about something, is not the same as Anon to Anon "The government is listening".

One is the message and one is metadata. They are protected in different ways and leaked in different ways. Mixing the two means that you will probably not get the protection that you desire.

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