Bug Dout wrote:

stol writes:

Ron, me, Jay and a very few others actually use our REAL names and can
and will defend ourselves.

True enough. The single best thing to add to the Internet might be a
voluntary, certified non-anonymous ID, to be used for purchases and
groups where the participants don't want the nimrods. Well, you'd still
have nimrods, but you could screen them out a lot easier.

Microsoft Passport (now "Windows Live ID") attempts (or attempted) to do
just that:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Live_ID

The service might have gained more traction if it had been done by a firm
with few or no conflicts of interest with other Internet entities (i.e. a
firm that did nothing but single-sign-on and user authentication.)