Anonymous Internet posting: Wikis

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Anonymous Internet posting was originally unrestricted worldwide, but in January 2006 a U.S. federal law made it illegal to make anonymous posts "to annoy". [966]

It may be unclear to some people how much privacy they enjoy (or give up) when they post anonymously:

:The apparent anonymity of Internet is misleading. Whatever you do on the net, your IP address is usually used as your "return address" in any communication you carry on. If you visit a website, post on a web forum, take part in a chat, your correspondent (or the remote server) can always find out your IP address, which points directly to your Internet provider and ultimately leads to you, not to your virtual identity you may have invented for yourself, but to you as a real person with a street address, a job and a family. Some web-based services (e.g., discussion boards) not just detect your IP address themselves, but also display it as a part of your posting. As a result, anybody on the Internet can try and hack into your computer. [967]

Trolling

Main article: Internet troll

: Kwak Keum-joo, a psychology professor at Seoul National University who has studied the issue, said people who post malicious remarks often get hooked on the habit of seeing others respond to their inflammatory remarks. [968]

See also: