Google’s Vint Cerf talks identifiers vs. pseudonyms online:
Cerf suggested to imagine a device running on hardware that can generate public and private key pairs in which the private key can’t be extracted without destroying the pair. Furthermore, imagine that the private key can’t be computed from the public key — at least not in any amount of time that would be useful. Finally, this device needs to encrypt or decrypt digital objects on demand.
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He continued to say that there might be hundreds of devices associated with us (and therefore, our personal data) at home, in cars, at work, and elsewhere. Thus, he said we don’t want them to be interfered with or release information to parties other than the ones we want to authorize.
Too bad the article doesn’t really mention what he said abot pseudonyms, but here’s a bit more.