The Phantom of the Blog

I had a surreal conversation recently. A friend pointed me a certain blog where every author uses “nom de plumes” He speculated the identity of each of the authors. He then proceeded to tell me some posts and contradictory comments on it were actually by the same person using different nom de plumes. Then there were assorted anonymous posts.

Made me wonder what extremes the authors were going to conceal their identities. Using different IP addresses depending on their identities? And why? Were they in the FBI witness protection program? Were they blogging from a country with a repressive regime? I certainly understand if they are.

But even from repressive regimes, I was fascinated to read this interview with a blogger in Teheran – Mohammed Ali Abtahi. It is one thing to criticize IBM or Microsoft, it is another to blog in those treacherous waters - and he does so openly.  He says "Earlier this year, my blog was hacked for seven days by security forces. This happened because I had become a voice for some Iranian bloggers who had been jailed because of what they were writing. I wrote about how they were tortured and interrogated in prison. After being hacked, I was forced to route my blog through a server based outside the country so they couldn't interfere with it again."

Compared to that what do we in the West have to fear? I realize companies have policies against conversations with press and frown on posting comments to blogs. Well, lobby to have them changed. It is healthy to engage in open, healthy debate.

Update: Apr 24, 2006  LA Times suspended the blog of one of its Pulitzer Prize winning journalists for posting comments using nom de plumes on his own blog and those of others.