I ran into one, at a FlashPix conference (dating myself -no one else will), last century.

He worked for Kodak, at that time. I used to have his card, with his smiling mug on it (Kodak used to have picture business cards).

One advantage of having a fairly old and robust online (and offline) ID, is that it actually makes it harder for people to assume your ID, as there is so much "prior art," pointing to your real persona. It makes it fairly easy to short-circuit hijacks.

Of course, it all becomes problematic, if I decide to go around pissing everyone off, or poking bears.

But, if I piss off people that have the willingness and ability to do me harm, they'll find me, anyway.

I don't choose to live a life in a shack in the woods, typing manifestos. I want to be a part of Society, and reap the benefits of participation.

It also helps me to help others. A lot of my life, these days, is around helping others. Hard to do, if I'm hiding in a dumpster.

The only hijack attempt I've ever experienced was some card fraudsters I pissed off creating a fake paedophile blog under my full name (and then spamming a large chunk of IRC with links to it for a year or so).

Happily for me everybody I've seen comment on it laughed it off as "I wonder what happened to make them that angry but I'm sure they deserved it" - with a few exceptions of people I've previously pissed off who basically said "nah, he's an asshole moderator but there's no way he's a paedo".

And, well, sometimes I -am- an asshole, and some of those times I deeply regret. But reputation can be useful in general.