Is this the End of the Anonymous Internet?

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I actually don’t think it’s parents at all, they’re simply too busy with other things. I think it’s two things actually:

  1. Governments trying to find a useful scapegoat for extra spying apparatus. Law enforcement and intelligence agencies have bureaucrats which perceive any technical regard to privacy as a hindrance making their work more difficult with little concern for privacy protections or benefits. For example you never see them arguing that companies should be more responsible for data breaches, or the data they lose to hackers, eg harsher penalties for the loss of that data, except perhaps in the EU.

    As a result it would appear there’s a coordinated effort and they all take turns being the next one to push the envelope with regard to spying laws, eg:

    • Investigatory Powers Act 2016, (UK),
    • Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Amendment (Data Retention) Act 2015
    • Assistance and Access Bill 2018 (Australia).
    • Investigatory Powers (Amendment) Act 2024 (this one includes a lot of what is in the Assistance and Access Bill such as TCN “Technical capability notice”)
    • Child Sexual Abuse Regulation (CSAR) - (not even trying to hide it with this one. Oh you’re against CSAR? “You must be supportive of child sexual abuse then.” is 100% the narrative these populist politicians are trying to create.
    • etc.

    Once one of the countries implements a law like this, you watch them all jump on the same bandwagon. It comes lock-step with accusing any adversary opinions of being pro “helping the criminals”. Therefore due to politics being highly populist in today’s world it would seem nobody (politician) is willing to stand and say that it is bad even if there are a thousand very easy talking points as to why.

  2. Companies who want to have useful identifiers to track users, to satisfy advertising industry. I think this goes hand in hand with enshitification is really a trend which is the result of the constant pursuit of infinite growth in business. Advertisers want to always make more and so do the companies with a product. They have a captive audience that are addicted and simply won’t leave in significant enough numbers no matter how bad it gets.

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