What difference between obscurity and anonymity?

Answer 1

Obscurity is the state of being relatively unknown. I can honestly say that most people live in obscurity. There are about seven billion people living in our world, and you will never hear the names of most of them. You will hear about celebrities; those are the people who do not live in obscurity. Anonymity is quite different. When a statement is made anonymously, that means that the person who is making the statement does not wish his or her identity (as the author of that statement) to be known. It may well be the case that the author of an anonymous statement is a famous person, and if we heard the name we would all know who it was. Anonymity is quite common on the internet and on this site. By using pseudonyms we conceal our actual names. A pseudonym does not confer perfect anonymity, since it is still an identity even if it is a false identity; to be truly anonymous, the statement should be attributed only to anonymous, or the equivalent of anonymous on this site, which is called contributor. To some extent that is because we recognize that becoming known has its risks. It is easy to get into arguments and conflicts on the internet, and we would at least like to be able to limit them to the internet and not have them spill over into the rest of our lives.

Answer 2

Obscurity refers to being unknown or not easily understood, while anonymity means not being identifiable or having one's identity concealed. Obscurity is about lack of clarity or prominence, while anonymity is about being nameless or unidentifiable.