Linking identity to appearance makes identity theft easy

Evidence

The difficulty of so tightly connecting identity to appearance, as was the case in the preindustrial city, is that an individual can rather easily alter the one by altering the other. When identities can be donned, they can also be appropriated. And the appropriation of identities would appear to have been one of the favorite pastimes in the historic urban settlement. — Lyn H. Lofland, World of Strangers_ Order and Action in…, 286

Categorization

• XREF: Directly relevant to Lofland’s later argument about anonymity strategies; also echoes Erving Goffman’s work on the presentation of self and the precariousness of identity claims.