cyberspace impersonation

August 01, 2003

Peldi has enountered an impersonator. I had wondered whether the addition of video communication with Flash would reduce this kind of on-line mischief. By the way, I don’t think it is off-topic at all.

I suppose that if you don’t know what Peldi looks like or don’t know his personality, you might be taken in. Viswanath Gondi notes: “We all will soon evolve into learning not to believe every thing we see and hear. We will learn to fit what we hear by comparing it to their personalities.”

Nobody knows you’re a dog observes JD, linking also to a wonderful article that he wrote with some sage advice on debugging net rumors.

Reading these articles this morning reminded me of Julian Dibbell’s article, A Rape in Cyberspace: How an Evil Clown, a Haitian Trickster Spirit, Two Wizards, and a Cast of Dozens Turned a Database Into a Society. I believe there is a significant difference between manipulating psudeonyms in virtual worlds and impersonating real life identity; however, I enjoyed re-reading this thought-provoking tale.

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