Via Ace, by David Wong over at Cracked.

#1. Pass Some Kind of Law or Something Ending Anonymous Internet Use

And here we go. If all else fails–and I suspect it will–this will happen, eventually. And it will simply be the death of what most of us know as the World Wide Web. But of course this is silly, alarmist thinking, right? How can you ever regulate the wild-wild-west Internet?

Well, they’ve already started doing it in Korea. Everybody gets a 13-digit PIN and you’ve got to enter it any time you want to leave a comment somewhere. They enforce it site by site, via a government agency (the Korean version of the FCC). They’ve started from the top down, forcing every site with more than 200,000 visitors to require the PIN, and they’re going to expand it to every site with 100,000 or more.

There’s a similar movement in Brazil and years ago they tried to do it in France. And don’t forget that American lawmakers are pushing for the same.

And no, there is nothing about the Internet that would keep them from making such tracking universal. All they need is a redesign of the protocols, which is why the US military is doing exactly that. Once they’ve got their secure, transparent network in place, it’s just a matter of forcing its adoption.

If Web 2.0 was about social networking, Web 3.0 will be about the death of anonymity. You say nobody wants that, but there are three very important and powerful somebodies who do:

1. Copyright holders who want to be able to track pirates;
2. Law enforcement agencies who want to track child predators (don’t forget the Oprah moms demanding the same) and to hunt down hackers;
3. Online advertisers who want to make billions off that 92% of housewives and adults who don’t use social networking for fear of being called a Shitwhale in public.

Yes, it turns out there’s a reason the Wild West didn’t stay wild. The gunslingers loved it, but the other 99% of the world wanted laws and security and highways. And they were the ones with the money.

Thor honey? Are you happy to know that you’re contributing mightily to the crackdown on Internet privacy and anonymity?

Is this really what you want for yourself? Because if you thought that Getting Extreme Satisfaction From Pissing Off ReTHUGlicans was the only effect of your vile and revolting behavior, think again.

Thanks for nothing, ya freak. How you look yourself in the mirror every morning I don’t know.

UPDATE: If you’ve never heard of David Wong, he used to do the Total Waste of Time blog. A classic DW bit is 50 Reasons Lord of the Rings Sucks.