Revision as of 21:30, 5 July 2015

There are many reasons for us for consciously creating multiple, fake, anonymous or pseudonymous identities online (without becoming the petty tyrants we fight):

• Engaging in the present with no need for past or future references.
• Being who you are naturally and freeing your speech.
• Dreaming another you into being for gaming, hobbies, (online) roleplay, trolling the trolls, defense from mass surveillance, confusing surveillance, etc. in a way that it doesn’t automatically become a part of your finger- and footprint.
• Being more resilient online.
• Career actualisation, increased individuality, autonomy and freedom by separating professional and private information.
• Exploring abandonment of being, and gaining recognition on how your "usual identity" can be a trap.
• Challenging yourself and engaging at the edge.
• Feeding (r)evolution and self-authority.

This page focuses on activist roleplay.

Because I am here.

Choose an avatar

Give your avatar a story

Refine character

Opening and closing doors

Love it or hate it, the Anonymous mask has morphed under many guises. Starting life as the face of an audacious revolutionary, it has become a political disguise turned corporate nightmare. But it’s future as a potent image remains in the balance. ^[1]

Freedom of speech

Plausible deniability

Simulation games

Games and simulations can be powerful tools for exposing the nature of problems and exploring scenario planning paths, communication and are a structured approach to instruction, not necessarily excluding each other.

The advantages gaming and simulations offer over traditional "teaching" are:

• putting emphasis is on questioning over answering on the part of players
• providing opportunities to examine assumptions and implications underlying decisions.

Some simulations and plays can be done individually, others are a group activity where players cooperate or compete, some are run to explore in what ways we can get to a desired state, some to observe the effects of start and boundary condition changes.

Some rules are explicit, others are implicit and to be discovered. Debriefing or retrospectives after play is a usual and valuable component, particularly if it's an educational game/simulation. For this reason many multi-purpose simulations include observer roles.

When a scenario is added to the game, it becomes a simulation. For an example of that see Scenario planning Simulation: The Alpha Complex.

Resources

Social Engineering

• DEFCON 14: Beyond Social Engineering: Tools for Reinventing Yourself https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-FPJ6lpRYU
• Information Elicitation via Social Engineering http://capec.mitre.org/data/definitions/410.html

Perceptual control theory

• PCT—Yeah? So What?! http://www.iapct.org/festschrift/carey.html
• Non-computer-based demonstrations http://bluwiki.com/go/Perceptual_control_theory/Demonstrations#Non-computer-based_demonstrations

Related

• Psychological warfare
• Scenario planning
• Self-dox
• Installing linux
• Trolling

References

1. ↑ A History of the Anonymous Mask: A 10-step guide to the turbulent past of the Anonymous mask http://www.dazeddigital.com/artsandculture/article/16360/1/a-history-of-the-anonymous-mask