[OSM-talk] threats

Nigel Magnay nigel.magnay at gmail.com
Sun Jul 23 20:08:31 BST 2006


I don't understand why providing for anonymity requires there to be an
'anonymous' account.

All OSM requires is an email address. I think it is a *good* thing
that edits to the database be tied back to an individual account,
because if someone starts uploading junk (or, worse, starts
maliciously adding copyrighted data), it's possible isolate it and
remove it. Expecting 'the admin' (whoever they are anyway) to have to
isolate changes by IP address is unrealistic and unneccessary. And
since we are discussing it at all, it would blow a hole in any
due-diligence defence if you got sued (you knew it was a possiblity,
you knew there was a way around it, yet you did nothing about it).

To me all this privacy & anonymity stuff is a total and utter
nonsense. I understand not releasing gpx traces without an opt-in from
the user (personally, I think it's an overstated worry, but it's not
my neck).

Why do we *need* anonymity anyway? What benefit does it give the
quality of the map?




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