Let’s say the internet gets so bad that it becomes almost impossible to carry on a civilized conversation on a social network or to avoid a flood of anonymous emails. The people become fed up and can’t take it anymore. A revolution takes place and a miracle happens: every one is required to get a real id that can be traced back an actual person. This id is then required to do anything on the internet.

How many people are going to still post death threats, character assassinations, or make racist or sexist comments. How many people are are going to email you saying they’re a Nigerian prince that wants to give you money. It would sure go a long way to cleaning up some of the cesspools that make up social networking and the garbage pit that is email today.

Knowing who you are cuts both ways. A woman trying to hide from an abusive boyfriend or husband would want to keep her identity unknown. People facing political persecution would like to keep a low profile.

Perhaps the biggest hurdle to setting up ids would be verification. How do you prove someone is who they say they are when documents can be easily forged and fake identities created. You could use finger prints or eye scans, but the effort to set up the infrastructure to do so would be massive.

Then there is the issue of maintaining the information in a safe and secure manner. We couldn’t rely on any countries government. They wouldn’t be able to resist the temptation to use it to track people. It would have to be an independent agency.

Is setting up such a system unfeasible? Even if all the hurdles could be overcome and a real id system could be created, is that something we would want? Are we better off with the way it is today and just live with its ills or relying on mods and spam filters to keep thing somewhat under control.

I’m aware that Web 3.0 is making strides in this area. It remains to be seen if it will be viable.