Please don't ask my name. If you want to be my friend you can follow me @number.

On names: Your name serves as a number.

A key that identifies you in a larger set, it has great importance and accordingly it should be protected with care in life online and offline. Not long ago it was a common practice and well understood that one should never use one's real name on the internet. This protocol was taught to everyone young and old to protect themselves and others against exploitation and the dangers of data harvesting. When I was young it was impressed on us how important this practice would become in the coming information age. I know it sounds alien to some of you now... which makes @number of us stop to wonder...

How exactly did this security technique disappear from internet safety practices?
How did the privacy trend completely reverse direction in such a short period of time?
How did talking about and taking precautions become frowned upon and deemed suspicious?

The collection of one's real name adds little to no value for most transactions and is often completely irrelevant to the task at hand yet we continue to let this information be collected and redundantly linked and connected to most of our online activity and financial transactions. In fact we are continually handing over important information in cases where it is not at all required in instances where an anonymous handle and a magic cookie or crypto currency, or cash would suffice.

"Cash was never this weird about who I was, was with, where I was going or who I gave it too... and it certainly never asked my name... or wanted to look at my photographs"

In case asking you to give up your own privacy was not enough we are now also being asked to forfeit and betray the privacy of others with apps that require access to our phones data including the names and numbers of all our friends, family and associates. While most people do not even stop to ask why does a simple keyboard or calculator app also need access to my files, photos, messages and the internet, a number of us still do and hope that IT changes.

Is it now considered shady if we don't use our real names on the internet and social media?
Have our considerations of those using an alias shifted from smart & savvy to paranoid & shady?
Did the wise get played as fools? Subsequently were all the fools then touted as wise?
How and why did people stop caring about the dangers of being tracked as we are?

Having raised @number of questions, who will share answers?

Let the comments begin.