There's nothing to be gained from knowing someone's "Real name",... Thus, anyone who claims too loudly to be using their real name is making a bluff which is difficult to call them on...
What? Calling such a bluff is not so hard: with a full name and just a bit more info (e.g. birth date, partial SSN, mother's maiden name), you're well on your way to stealing someone's identity. With a full name and forum handle, you may have blackmail material. If the information is fake, you lose nothing by trying a dozen "John Smiths." Read Kevin Mitnick's books for how far you can get with persistence and just a bit of knowledge.
Robustly faking information takes effort; most people are too lazy or careless to do so every single time they write something online, and the Internet is Forever. However, handles add a bit of friction to the stalking/surveillance process, likely enough to prevent idle snooping and bulk collection.
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What? Calling such a bluff is not so hard: with a full name and just a bit more info (e.g. birth date, partial SSN, mother's maiden name), you're well on your way to stealing someone's identity. With a full name and forum handle, you may have blackmail material. If the information is fake, you lose nothing by trying a dozen "John Smiths." Read Kevin Mitnick's books for how far you can get with persistence and just a bit of knowledge.
Robustly faking information takes effort; most people are too lazy or careless to do so every single time they write something online, and the Internet is Forever. However, handles add a bit of friction to the stalking/surveillance process, likely enough to prevent idle snooping and bulk collection.
Regardless, if you need someone's real name, you should probably meet them in person anyway.
And this is why I use Craigslist and not Ebay: it's hard to run a large-scale scam by meeting people in person.