WHO IS REALLY ON THE INTERNET? One of the great things about the Internet, as well as one of its biggest problems, is that people are basically anonymous on it. In Internet chat rooms and web cafés, people can use a different name and even create an entirely different identity if they want to. In some ways, this is a good thing. For many people, it gives them the chance to do things that they could never do in real life. For example, a person might be very shy in real life, but that same person may find the courage to make friends on the Internet because it feels safer. In addition, people in some countries are not free to express their opinions, especially if they dont like the government. By using a different identity on the Internet, they can express their opinions without worrying about getting in trouble. That same freedom to be another person on the Internet, however, causes many problems as well. The major problem is Internet fraud. Many dishonest people use the Internet to pretend to be a different person. Then they trick a person into trusting them in some way and take their money. In one case, two Japanese men lied to Filipinos who wanted to travel to Japan. The two Japanese men told them that they could help them get visas to Japan for a small price (about $ 400 per person). The two Japanese men took thousands of dollars from hopeful Filipinos, but none of the people ever got their visas. The number of these kinds of crime is quickly rising. Last year, Internet criminals stole over $ 350 million from trusting people. When you consider that only $ 57 million was stolen in bank robberies in all of Europe, it is easy to see that Internet crime is a serious problem. 1. The word anonymous in bold in paragraph 1 is closest in meaning to _______. A. nameless B. dishonest C. trusting D. criminal