No, but you can email me and find out my real name. Though it is a very common name. My handle (orangethirty) is unique. So, its not like I'm being very paranoid or anything. I use an internet handle because I can. It is a freedom that I support, and am including in all of my projects. Privacy is required in the world.
Same for me. lucb1e is unique, I use it for pretty much everything, you can contact me in lots of ways, and you can obtain my static home IP with nslookup lucb1e.com. The only things you, as non-government employee, can't find are my physical home address and full name. And hopefully also not any family.
I try to take physical security seriously. If I ever happen to do anything provocative in a bad mood, I don't need people banging on my door. Authorities can find me, that's not it, I'm preserving privacy against the big public.
As a secondary reason, future employers can only find what I want them to find. My gaming history, private life, political views, etc. are not relevant for them. They can ask me about that in interviews and I have the right to decline comment. With my real name on the web I wouldn't have that choice.
I'm not too careful with my real name or ___location anyway, many friends and acquaintances know it even though I only know them online. I'm not really hiding it, I'm protecting myself and my right on free speech permitted to the extent of the law.
Same here, I am attached to the romantic notion of pseudonyms in terms of freedom/privacy and the spirit of judging content for what it is and not the name behind it.
With that being said my pseudonym is attached to my real email all over the internet and my email contains my name, so it's not like I am hiding behind it.
I actually find some of the comments in this thread against pseudonyms strangely similar to the reason of why people don't drink because they are bad drunks. If your being a dick under a pseudonym that means you might be and a dick regardless.
Well, I don't think a pseudonym gives people the right to act like assholes. I sometimes do, but its not on purpose. Its that I have the social skills of a rock. Anyhow, pseudonyms allow for my creativity to exists on a different plane. For example, had I started developing Nuuton under my real name, I would have already be dealing with the repercussions of my local social circle. Doing it under orangethirty gives me the freedom to simply express myself without worrying about what anyone might say. Sure, people can find out who I am, but locally, few people have heard of the pseudonym. Freedom not only protects, but gives wings.
