Perhaps you've noticed, perhaps you haven't. The anonymous web is closing. If you've tried to post anonymous content to a web site recently, you will find a variety of new mechanisms in place.  Everybody wants your email address. Most of them will actually verify your email address by sending a confirmation link there. Those that don't are using 'captcha', that picture with five or six random characters against a fuzzy background that you have to be able to read and enter into the box.

It's all about fighting 'comment spam'. Turns out that Google's page rank mechanism has completely altered the internet landscape. It's all about getting links. There are folks out there whose job description is to find ways to get their employer's website link on as many pages as they can. The first place they go? Weblogs, bulletin boards, public forums. They post a comment. It has nothing to do with the article they are commenting on. It's just some text with a link in it. A link that presumably Google will find and increase their page rank.

Most of the truly public forums have closed already. This has helped to reduce the problem because the first wave of attacks was automated. Now the spammers have to do a lot of stuff by hand. Find the security mechanism and get through it to post the link.  That's why everything is being moderated these days.

Netscape anticipated this back in 1995. The SSL protocol was revised to include a personal identity. It was known at the time as an 'internet driver's license'. Without an established identity, you wouldn't be able to access the majority of web services being envisioned. This also would centralize authentication and create a new business model - some company or three would get very wealthy by being the gatekeepers of internet identity.

The internet driver's license died a horrible death due to privacy (and monopoly) concerns. Without privacy, the web would not flourish and reach its full potential. So went the argument. And without a credible universally acceptable identity mechanism, the only way to establish identity is the way we do it now. Every website that wishes to track identity has a login mechanism that is different from everybody else. That's why you now have hundreds (or thousands) of user accounts with passwords.

Now fast forward ten years or so. The web has indeed flourished. It still has yet to reach its full potential. In order to get to the next phase, it may be time to bring back the internet driver's license...