[HN Gopher] Want anonymity? Make a persona not a mystery ___________________________________________________________________ Want anonymity? Make a persona not a mystery Author : Tomte Score : 346 points Date : 2023-02-03 17:07 UTC (5 hours ago) (HTM) web link (sive.rs) (TXT) w3m dump (sive.rs) | onetimeusename wrote: | I've noticed the number of places that let you use ephemeral | accounts has really dwindled. Spam, marketing, LE, and I am sure | other reasons have it so persistent accounts are more common. So | creating a persona is probably the easiest way to be somewhat | anonymous online but it's getting harder to create unlinked | accounts (using new phone numbers and unlinked to your other | accounts) and when it crosses into the real world like with | shipping products it gets weird. Your mailman might think a | stranger is living with you. | philwelch wrote: | A fun book about this stuff is Michael Bazell's _Extreme | Privacy: What It Takes to Disappear in America_. With extreme | effort you can keep a surprising number of things unlinked from | your government name if you really want to. | ghaff wrote: | Thanks for the link. I went down a bit of a rabbit hole on | this a few years back after seeing on of the hosts of the | reality show Hunted (former White House CIO) give a talk. | There was a long Wired article on this topic years ago too. | | https://www.wired.com/2009/11/ff-vanish2/ | JohnFen wrote: | > Your mailman might think a stranger is living with you. | | All the better! I don't know why this would be a problem. | ghaff wrote: | >when it crosses into the real world like with shipping | products it gets weird. Your mailman might think a stranger is | living with you. | | Not really a problem. A friend of mine used my address (with | permission) when they were doing a lot of international travel. | Mail (and packages) were never an issue. | | These days you'd probably be advised to have some sort of | burner phone. | | In general, the closer you get to the physical world, the | harder it is to maintain anonymity. | trinsic2 wrote: | I like what this guy has to say and I like that he is centered on | helping people. His writing reflects that. I have one of his blog | posts on my wall "How to thrive in a unknowable future" and when | this article came through Hacker News I immediately identified | the name. | | If the original poster wants to chime in how he found this writer | that would be of interest to me. Thanks for this post. Posts like | this make the world a better place to live in. | misterprime wrote: | Very good, Old Sport! | drcongo wrote: | I have an alter-ego that I release music as. I like that nobody | knows who that is, but weirdly I think my alter-ego is a much | more likeable character than me. | qbrass wrote: | I share the same name as a semi-famous, semi-local musician. | | That made for a couple interesting phone calls over the years. | BolexNOLA wrote: | I use VPN's when I can, I mix up my browsers, and I've largely | abandoned social media. Hopefully it helps _shrugs_ | didgetmaster wrote: | I feel so much more comfortable when someone cold calls me with a | thick Indian accent and tells me his name is John (or Mike) | before trying to sell me an extended car warranty or life | insurance! | dailyplanet wrote: | This works, as long as you don't have to paypal people. Is there | a way to make paypal transactions anonymous to the other party? | spaceman_2020 wrote: | I had an idea for a funny little startup once: "Adopt an alter | ego" | | Essentially a marketplace where you can buy and sell prebuilt | identities - complete with associated, aged, and populated social | media accounts, email accounts, pictures, websites, etc. | | I just like the idea of being different people online. | boffinism wrote: | I love the idea that social media accounts, like wine, are more | valuable if they're sufficiently aged. | wongarsu wrote: | Sounds like a side project idea: you enter a description of a | persona, the bot buys some phone verified social media | accounts, as well as gmail/msn/whatever (plenty of market | places around) add uses GPT3 to periodically generate posts on | said social media accounts, using the persona description. | | Then you just need to fill the pipeline with persona ideas, and | get nice account packages after a couple months. | timerol wrote: | The main roadblock here is the crime. You would need some | safeguards to make sure these people aren't real enough to | receive any government benefits, or open a bank account. | kerkeslager wrote: | I disagree. The idea that we should nerf our security tools | to prevent them from being used unethically just results in | people using nerfed security tools for ethical purposes, | while the people doing unethical things go elsewhere for | their security tools. | | Put another way, if your crypto isn't used by child molesters | and terrorists, it's probably not very good crypto. | zerodensity wrote: | Liked the write-up was a fun read. | | But I really don't get the point of being anonymous on social | media. | moffkalast wrote: | > Create a believable persona | | This is also a lot harder than it seems, once you start lying | it's easy to slip up or provide details that are aren't self | consistent. As long as you rely on people just accepting the | answer and being immediately satisfied with that it'll work. | | Inb4 "oh hey I'm also from <town suburb name you lied being | from>, remember that one thing?". | itchyouch wrote: | If one's town had a neighboring rival town/school growing up, | using the rival town could provide a semblance of | cohesiveness due to still being intimate with many of the | details of said town as a rival. | ghaff wrote: | I agree with your general point. | | But, assuming I wanted a fake background that would pass | casual scrutiny, I'd make something up that was close enough | to the truth but not close enough that anyone would think | anything was off if we got to casual chatting. I'd probably | say I was from and/or lived in some city I knew extremely | well but had never actually lived in. Maybe say I got an | undergrad degree from somewhere I got a grad degree. Etc. | JohnFen wrote: | The key is to avoid lying. Don't try to make up things that | aren't true, just emphasize and deemphasize different aspects | of your true self. That's plenty enough the majority of the | time. | jacooper wrote: | Saying what you want without worrying about being canceled in | 10 years. | underwater wrote: | If your words will get you cancelled then maybe you should | just keep them to yourself. | jxf wrote: | Now this makes me wonder if Derek Sivers is a real person or not. | alx__ wrote: | My new online persona will be Derek Sirvers | TremendousJudge wrote: | Nice to meet you Derek, I am Serek Dirvers | Derek_Sivers wrote: | [flagged] | runjake wrote: | This wasn't as funny as you thought it'd be. | minsc_and_boo wrote: | Dirk Servers here, just saying hi. | EGreg wrote: | Cool, mine too! | | I used to go by Satoshi Nakamoto and be in the group | Anonymous. I put out a few of those videos, but people kept | challenging whether I was the "real" Anonymous. | | Interesting thing, I was in Barcelona last week, and just out | of the blue I meet Bill Murray and he buys me ice cream. He | said "no one will ever believe you!" Before he left, I told | him my name was Satoshi Nakamoto. | | I'm just carrying on the work of my grandfather, Nicolas | Bourbaki. Just like David Belle was doing what his father, | Raymond Belle, began in Viet Nam. | runjake wrote: | Derek Sivers is definitely a real person. You can trace his | history, _well, back when he was in America_ , using public | records. | | But, I think as even he has admitted, his online presence is a | well-crafted persona. | | And, aren't we all doing that? | dfxm12 wrote: | Maybe it's because I'm the kind of guy who took the "On the | Internet, no one knows you're a dog" comic to heart, but I don't | assume truth about any type of online profile, and I usually | don't go cyber stalking anyone just because their online handle | sounds mysterious. | | Picking a new identity might be a good branding decision | (especially if you can get NewName dot com!), but I'm also the | kind of guy who looks at the message, not the messenger, so | whether I focus on what you're saying or not has nothing to do | with the online persona you've created for yourself. | sovietswag wrote: | Cool... this post reminds me of Fravia's "enemy tracking" essay | from his pages of reverse engineering: | https://www.darkridge.com/~jpr5/mirror/fravia.org/enemy.htm. If | you've never browsed this site, prepare to enter the mother lode | of rabbit holes... | EamonnMR wrote: | Aww hell yes, copyright 1999 and HTML to match! | userbinator wrote: | Also the identity of Fravia himself. | aliqot wrote: | Use a PURDAH, like in "Fall; or Dodge In Hell" | photoGrant wrote: | Okay 'Derek', good advice. | lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote: | > It's human nature to want to know who's speaking. If they don't | say, it creates a mystery. | | Yes it's human nature to want things but, socially, one might | learn to go without something if it's at odds with what someone | else wants. If someone doesn't let me keep private things which I | would prefer to keep private, unfortunately I will simply learn | to avoid that person. | | That's to say, "make a persona" is being offered as a panacea to | when those around me don't allow for privacy but it is a panacea | I would not choose. | macawfish wrote: | Simulacra 101 | [deleted] | gre wrote: | Maybe Adam Johnson of the Citations Needed podcast is just an | entirely made up persona? | | https://twitter.com/adamjohnsonNYC?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7C... | aaron695 wrote: | [dead] | lormayna wrote: | Catfishers are thanking the author for the great suggestions! | sircastor wrote: | In one of his novels Cory Doctorow talks about his bad guys doing | astroturfing with persona management software to help them track | who said what to whom. | | As the advertising and tracking arms race escalates, I wonder if | there's a burgeoning industry for personal persona management. So | you can isolate your private life from your public life/lives. | vmoore wrote: | > Am I talking with someone from Australia? Philippines? Brazil? | Are they 20 or 60? Male or female | | Well due to how easy it is to create a fake identity on social | media, knowing who someone /really/ is, is the real quest. I've | experimented with creating completely false identities on social | media, and populated the profiles with plausible information. | | I went the extra mile and created fake domain names, under my | alias, fake AI created profile pictures, fake family members, | even fake boyfriends. I avoided anything that could be unraveled | like saying I work at such and such a company, when there is no | employee records under my name at that company (Fake LinkedIN | profiles are a hard problem). | orangeyouglad wrote: | Derek's father is a wealthy property developer from Portland, and | I'm sure that wealth came in real handy when CDBaby was in its | growth phase. But Derek doesn't document that in CDBaby's history | because I guess it doesn't fit with his "persona". | [deleted] | Octokiddie wrote: | > Use an AI face generator to create a completely believable face | to match your new name. Download it once and use it everywhere. | Run it through face aging software to use this same persona for | the rest of your life. | | This approach will need a plan for dealing with Zoom. It has | normalized, in a very short time, the video component of what | used to be strictly audio - the phone call. If you don't display | your face, people get mad. | aendruk wrote: | Coming soon, and recently discussed: | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34622699 | Animats wrote: | The CIA's retired head of disguise pointed out, in commenting on | a movie, that you can't really have a drawer full of fake | personas (the intel community calls them "legends") ready for | use. Good personas are high-maintenance. They have to have some | reality behind them - mail drops, email accounts, phone numbers, | social media presences, even physical offices. Those take time, | money, and ongoing attention. You can't just create them and box | them up for future use. | mxuribe wrote: | > ...Instead of block and battle, deflect and settle. | | I love that appraoch! | kayodelycaon wrote: | Pfff... people have been doing this online forever, especially | furries. | | Most people don't know who Kayode Lycaon is. I'm quite literally | a (painted) dog on the internet. | adenozine wrote: | I love Derek's writing. He's so casually eloquent, without being | up his own ass like PG. I've learned a lot from reading what he's | produced, and I can certainly attribute (in part) a few | successful endeavors to being a "slow thinker" as he calls it. | | We live in such an insane, reactionary world these days and I | find it very refreshing to hear from people who've clearly | thought hard about what they're about to say/write. | | Sometimes, I even wish HN worked this way. I wish the front page | was about 10x as slow, and that we could discuss things for a | week or two instead of a day or two. It'd be messier, but I think | the fruits, separated from the weeds, would be juicier. | [deleted] | behringer wrote: | Now I want to make a persona a just because. | xapata wrote: | The trouble is when you've been using your alternate persona, | chatting with a stranger, and encounter someone who knows your | real name that wants to say, "Hello." | | "Oh, uh, ... that's my middle name." | O__________O wrote: | Yeah, have a friend that opted to stop using their real name | online. We were on a group call with random strangers and girl | randomly yelled out his real name when she heard his voice. | Animats wrote: | Encountering someone who knows you is one of the big risks for | people working undercover. Read "You're Stepping on my Cloak | and Dagger", by Roger Hall. | hot_gril wrote: | hot_gril is my real name, honest. | kibwen wrote: | "Hush, that's my truename, and there may be witches about." | xivzgrev wrote: | Pst, "Derek silvers" - sounds exactly like a fake but believable | name | MOARDONGZPLZ wrote: | This is good advice that does feel borderline unethical. I've | found that people don't have to be defined by their actual names | though, they can be defined by activities or what they enjoy or | want. | | I personally have leaned into the latter framework. | mikece wrote: | Anonymity is impossible, especially online. About the best one | can do is to engage in clever obfuscation though there's a | benefit to creating multiple personas for online activity: it | makes it easier to keep your silos of interest separated. It's | not for everyone but it can be handy. | blfr wrote: | Why would it be impossible online? You can pay anonnymously for | Mullvad VPN, or use Tor, or open wifi. It's online that | anonymity is even attainable. | mikece wrote: | And then connect to which accounts? | onetimeusename wrote: | What about signing in to apps which often uses a phone # and | email? Also, betting on Tor is like betting there there are | no 0-day exploits in browsers or Tor's network. Not a bet I | would make. | jacooper wrote: | You could use email aliases | ghaff wrote: | It all depends on your threat model at the end of the day. | I could create a blog and social media accounts in a few | hours and, unless I do something stupid, it's going to be | pretty hard for Joe Random on the Internet to figure out | who I am. | | But if I start writing things that catch the attention of | the FBI? They'll figure things out quick enough. | onetimeusename wrote: | I am assuming you are talking about Tor. This is a | sophisticated view of things and it's correct. Tor | provides as good security and anonymity as a public VPN. | But Onion Routers and therefore Tor were built with the | intention of protecting against powerful adversaries that | can perform MITM attacks. You could argue that the FBI is | an even more powerful adversary I suppose but I think | there is a mismatch in what Tor was intended to do in | theory versus what it provides in practice and without | knowing that you could be making a mistake. So I think | it's unfortunate that people have to know how to do this | analysis before making decisions. | ghaff wrote: | Really more generally. If I create a blog on Blogger and | a Twitter account--sure my identity is very discoverable | by law enforcement, etc. But Joe Random isn't going to | find it especially easily. | JohnFen wrote: | This. If you're trying to hide from governments, that's | Next Level stuff. You have to be prepared to actually | live underground, which involves sacrifices most people | aren't willing to make. | haroldp wrote: | You can set up a VOIP phone number that accepts SMS for | about $2/mo + $0.01/minute. | onetimeusename wrote: | yes, I am not saying it's impossible. This is what I do. | It's just a nuisance and it took me a long time to find a | VOIP provider I actually wanted to use. But that said, | I've seen SMS verifiers reject VOIP provider networks. | rsync wrote: | 2FA mule: | | https://kozubik.com/items/2famule/ | kube-system wrote: | And those carriers are blacklisted by many apps that | require phone number verification. | | e.g. https://www.twilio.com/docs/lookup/v2-api/line-type- | intellig... | jerf wrote: | As always with a security discussion, it's about threat | model. | | Preventing a random internet person from tying a particular | nym to you is easy. Fooling a bunch of people is harder, but | doable. Being a top-tier youtuber would probably be | effectively impossible. | | And if your concern is nation states, well... good luck with | anything. | NoZebra120vClip wrote: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lonelygirl15 | pr337h4m wrote: | Worked for Satoshi Nakamoto :) | zirgs wrote: | It's not impossible if you don't attract attention of law | enforcement/intelligence agencies. If you use different | usernames everywhere and don't reveal private information then | a random civilian is unlikely to find out who you really are in | real life. | ghaff wrote: | I'm not convinced that a plausible pseudonym is more privacy | preserving than something that's obviously just made up. But | it's not bad advice in general to post personal stuff on social | media and blogs under a pseudonym if you want to be | controversial. | JohnFen wrote: | Everything I post online, controversial or not, is using a | persona. I have several, each for certain areas. I've been | doing this for decades. | ghaff wrote: | The thing is that a lot of what I post online is either | directly or indirectly related to my day job. So I've | always figured if I was going to have a moderately high | profile public presence anyway, it wasn't worth maintaining | a separate identity. | JohnFen wrote: | That makes a lot of sense. | | My case is different. When I've run my own companies, I'd | post stuff online related to that. But even then, it's | under a persona -- I feel it's even more important then, | actually (I also use personas in real life in that | circumstance. It's very useful to be able to identify as | the secretary, the sales guy, whoever, in order to dodge | time-wasters such as salesmen.) | | But if I'm working for someone else, I'm not posting | anything directly related to my work. | ghaff wrote: | >But if I'm working for someone else, I'm not posting | anything directly related to my work. | | Obviously depends on the company and role. I was hired in | part because I had a pretty big online presence on tech | topics. (In part, I was writing for CNET at the time when | they still had some enterprise computing coverage.) | JohnFen wrote: | Indeed. In your sort of job, that's a whole different | kettle of fish. | tablespoon wrote: | > I'm not convinced that a plausible pseudonym is more | privacy preserving than something that's obviously just made | up. | | I think that's true, but vibe I got from this was more about | wanting anonymity _and_ to avoid certain social frictions | (and maybe not incur a trust penalty). An obvious pseudonym | comes with certain costs. | JohnFen wrote: | Absolute anonymity may be impossible (it's not, actually, but | it is prohibitively difficult and you have to be highly | motivated to have it), but useful anonymity is absolutely | attainable. | | The key thing is -- who do you want to be anonymous with? | minsc_and_boo wrote: | The fact that you take any action to obfuscate your identity | only makes you stand out more from the herd, not blend in. | | It's like wearing a ski mask in a store. Your profile(s) are | more noticeable even if you're not immediately identifiable. | SyrupThinker wrote: | Maybe to some actor that has sufficient data to correlate | identities. | | But if I introduce myself to someone with an alias or claim | false traits, they will not immediately just know it's fake | unless they have additional contradicting information. | | Most people do not casually wear ski masks, but they tend to | not lie when asked for a name. | minsc_and_boo wrote: | We're talking about fingerprinting here. Even a person | wearing a ski mask could give a name, they still stand out | because they have a ski mask on. | | Deviations from the norm make you stand out, even if it's | lying. | SyrupThinker wrote: | > We're talking about fingerprinting here. | | I think the whole subthread is more mixed in terms of | fingerprinting and social interactions. But if you only | consider the the former then yes, one would probably only | care about what I called "resourceful actors" to which | you would end up standing out. | | I was more referring to the social aspect, were if you | give someone a name they will (usually) not immediately | assume it is false. Thus giving a false name does not | make you "stand out" unless there is already other | information in play. But I'm just clarifying what I | meant, considering your point was meant for a different | context. | uoaei wrote: | Want to cover your genitals? Make a beer gut not a pair of shorts | rlt wrote: | Satoshi is the only very high profile person I'm aware of to | remain completely (pseud)onymous. | | Many others have tried and failed (though they often broke the | law, so that might be the main distinguishing factor) | zem wrote: | Banksy is way more famous than Satoshi and has remained | pseudonymous | j0hnyl wrote: | From what I understand art world folks very well know who | Banksy is, but I don't think such is the case for the tech | world and Satoshi. | Adraghast wrote: | Hardly just the art world. That he's Robert Del Naja (aka | 3D from Massive Attack) has been semi-public knowledge for | a long time. | MrOwnPut wrote: | I love there's no reference of that in his wikipedia | article directly, but it appears 3 times in the | referenced source titles: | | https://en.wikipedia.org//wiki/Robert_Del_Naja | | Out of curiosity, why do you believe it's not Robin | Gunningham? | | That seems to be what | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banksy suggests, and the | reasoning seems sound. | imhoguy wrote: | Proof? Please | j0hnyl wrote: | Banksy is represented by the world's top gallerists. You | think they don't know who they're doing business with? | hgsgm wrote: | Why would they care? | | They just have to meet with Banksy's agent. | | Knowing who Banksy is puts them at real risk of | demystifying him/them and lowering their profit. | yieldcrv wrote: | its only entertainment that Banksy is anonymous, the fact you | haven't looked this up bolsters the point | | personas are good enough information, it satisfies the | curiosity well enough to not dig deeper | vmoore wrote: | Banksy is purportedly Robin Cunningham. Google is the | greatest OSINT tool ever created. | zem wrote: | that's just one theory. everything i've read lists both del | naja and gunningham as possibilities at the least, and | often tosses a couple of other names into the mix. | thro1 wrote: | ..and some others making fakes (that's why they 'sign' | it) | Andrew_nenakhov wrote: | Anyone who has access to to passenger rosters of flights | going in and out of Britain can figure out who he is pretty | easily. | ghaff wrote: | Law enforcement/intelligence services involvement raises the | bar on maintaining anonymity a lot. They can access a lot of | information that even an army of armchair sleuths probably | can't. | rco8786 wrote: | Banksy | | Daft Punk | | Deadmau5 | | Members of KISS (for a while) | | Blue Man Group | | But if you're following the advice in this article...nobody | should ever know that you're not actually a real person. So you | might "know" lots of folks online who are not who they say they | are. | philwelch wrote: | Satoshi also dropped off the face of the internet almost as | soon as he became famous. | throwaway4837 wrote: | I had an idea a few years ago around anonymity, but now it seems | even more possible with things like billion parameter LLMs. A | service where you enter text that you want to post on | Reddit/Twitter/etc. but you instead give it to your locally- | running model, which is trained to output the text with the | following transformations: 1. Writing style | change 2. Degree of extra/reduced fluff 3. Degree of | typos 4. Typing style change (e.g. using semicolons a lot, | misusing commas consistently, conventions like S.O.S vs. SOS) | | All in an effort to further anonymize your text. The idea is that | people have different, consistent grammatical habits and | mistakes, writing, concision, etc. You create a "profile" for | each identity you want, usually one per account. | | Another interesting concept to explore is platform style. Have | you ever noticed that everyone on Reddit sort of sounds the same? | People on HN sort of sound the same. I think there's an emergent | platform-based profile that top comments hover around, because | adhering to this style is more likely to get upvotes. The hive | mind is real! | gbN025tt2Z1E2E4 wrote: | The social media equivalent of fuzzing basically. | jimbobimbo wrote: | I'm surprised to see commenters comparing use of made up personas | to lying. | | There're communities that create/change their personas to match | how they perceive themselves, encourage their members to | experiment with presented identities, and expect the society to | respect and accept presented personas without questioning. I'm | totally OK with that. How is this different from presenting | oneself as an alter-ego though? | wmeredith wrote: | This is one of my favorite features of 1Password (no affiliation, | but I've used them for 10+ years and am a fan). They have an | identity section that you can use to store all kinds of personas | securely and even use the information to autocomplete forms. With | the ability to add custom fields, you can easily store more than | just the standard metadata like name, dob, etc. | jasonjmcghee wrote: | Derek Sivers- rare, but believable. | somecompanyguy wrote: | been explaining this security policy of mine to people for years | in different words. when people think they have answers, they | stop looking. | | this is why when you look up my dox or grep for my passwords, its | not hard to find my fake social security number, address and | password in the usual place. | | in the future i want to build this into a server. What kind of | server are you? Oh, I'm IIS running ASP (not rlly). send your ops | down rabbit holes to nowhere instead of depriving them of the | feedback they rely on. i love it. | O__________O wrote: | As a counter example, I have been largely anonymous online and | offline for awhile; yes, aware it is nearly impossible to be | completely anonymous, that's fine, largely a "hobby" for me. | | Very direct about it, and yes, some people completely shut you | out once you tell them, but vast majority don't; while my | opinion, those who do aren't people I am interested in knowing. | Very similar prior to me being largely anonymous, people would | ask me what I did, I would respond saying I did nothing, which at | the time was true and did not feel the need to make something up. | Oddly, discovered their response almost immediately told me a lot | about who they are as a person; they might think I am: cool, on- | the-run, lying, nomad, spy, wealthy, homeless, etc. | | As for making personas, long ago I tried that, though now it to | me feels like lying, especially in context of establishing long | term relationships. That said, with personas I created, other | than generic names, I would keep them true to myself, though | never complete representations of myself. In doing so discovered | that the variety of personas rarely played a factor in people | engaging me, but it did appear to make a difference if I just | happened to contact them randomly in close proximity to them | having free time. | | All and all, being anonymous really is not that hard. Not even | something at this point I spend lot of time thinking about. | eastof wrote: | I'm really curious about the offline piece. If you're at a | conference or bar and someone asks your name, what do you say? | O__________O wrote: | While little odd, it's honestly my position that I don't have | a name; happy to explain, but that's my position. If people | are dead set on having a name to call me, just suggest they | pick a name and that's name we use; for example, today guy I | have known a few weeks decided I was a "Bob" and we joked | about it. | | It clearly limits options I have, for example, I don't drive, | but for whatever reason it's hobby I enjoy, one of the few I | have kept up with. One of reason currently I continue to | remain anonymous is it is an easy way to engage people on a | topic that I sincerely believe is important, that being the | right to privacy. | lioeters wrote: | That's very interesting. I for one am intrigued by the | idea, and will continue thinking about it for sure. Well | done, nameless one! | spiderice wrote: | Unfortunately "the guy who claims he doesn't have a name" | is WAY more identifying than just giving a generic name. | Doesn't sound to me like you're anonymous at all. This | makes me think of the Nate Bargatze bit about the guy with | two thumbs on one hand: https://youtu.be/Hd31dbJvGaU | O__________O wrote: | Yes, you're right that people remember me, but being | rememberable to me does not make me identifiable; unlike | the example you provided of having two thumbs on one | hand, which clearly is an identifiable visible unique | physical trait. | erstorreyk wrote: | https://stylometry.net/user?username=O__________O | [deleted] | INTPenis wrote: | They need to expand their dataset beyond HN, why would I have | two HN accounts? Maybe if I had a public persona that | mattered... but I mostly want to be anonymous once to avoid | issues with my employer. | | But if they expanded their dataset to other sites like reddit | I would be concerned. | ghaff wrote: | For me, it's that I generally default to public for | professionally-related things. But every once in a great | while I want to comment on something that is obviously | about my present or a past employer if you know who I am. I | could certainly just not do that but, given as I did, I | didn't want it to be under my regular identity. | O__________O wrote: | Yep, like I said, I have very healthy expectations of how to | maintain anonymity. Fortunately GPT will largely fix the | issue of statistical analysis of variations in writing style | between one writer and another. Stylometry been around a long | time, as with all security, you have to know you threat | model, and adjust accordingly. To my knowledge stylometry | never made me less anonymous. | jacooper wrote: | Assuming your GPT prompts aren't logged | O__________O wrote: | Plenty of open source GPT projects, though if you're at | point of a local machine being trusted, likely have | larger issues. | mym1990 wrote: | Can you give insight into how that top 10 chart | demonstrates anonymity? | O__________O wrote: | Sure, feel free to point out how it makes me less | anonymous. | costco wrote: | Not saying these are necessarily all yours but the | cluster of accounts O__________O, billme, saycheese, | wonderous, endlessly, nxzero, v2hle0thslzrav2 are all in | each others top 5 or so which is usually a sign of a good | match and unless you are saying that you never revealed | any identifying info in any of the several hundred | comments you have made there is likely some loss of | anonymity. If you used a VPN consistently on one account | but didn't on one of your earlier accounts then the whole | point of the VPN goes right out the window if someone say | gets a subpoena. | O__________O wrote: | One of the advantages to being anonymous all the time is | nothing is tied to an identity; not an IP address, not a | physical address, etc. | serial_dev wrote: | I guess that the rest of the users in the list aren't him | / her, or the user accounts that belong to this person | are also anonymous? | buildsjets wrote: | stylometry.net is hot garbage. Zero of the candidates that it | identifies as being related to buildsjets are my actual | alternate accounts. The DBCooper one is interesting, it | sounds like a username I might use, but it's still not me. | ghaff wrote: | Stylometry is probably mostly useful if you have a small | number of suspects with a decent-sized public corpus that | you want to match against a book/set of blog posts etc. | Even then it's just going to be statistical. | Kiro wrote: | In what situations do people you don't know ask you what you do | where they actually care what you respond? And why not just say | that you don't want to say? Among the online friends I have | anonymity is the norm. | boring_twenties wrote: | In 99.9% of offline social situations, "what do you do" will | be one of the first few questions asked. How much they | actually care is an open question, but it is always more than | zero in the very practical sense that if you refuse to | respond the conversation will either end or shift to some | combination of pressing for the answer and/or making fun of | you. | | On the other hand, I used to be in the habit of responding | with some kind of bullshit, ideally at least a little | suspicious but just barely plausible enough to prevent the | other party from calling you on it right away. This always | resulted in much more fun conversations than talking about my | actual work with strangers. | | Simply refusing to answer is just not socially acceptable | outside of venues where anonymity is already the norm, e.g. | online and IRL hacker cons. | O__________O wrote: | Yes, agree, your response reflects my experiences. | giaour wrote: | "Tell white lies to avoid awkward conversations" is perhaps not | the revelation the author thought it might be. | BTBurke wrote: | Now no one will believe my real name is Gill Bates. | EGreg wrote: | Many people have a hard time believing these folks when they | introduce themselves: | | https://www.facebook.com/a.m.Jain.meenambakam/posts/for-othe... | | Or these guys to get elected: | | https://www.ranker.com/list/funny-politician-names/nathandav... | dingosity wrote: | Hmm. Makes me wonder if Derek Sivers really is his given name. | Maybe it's a pseudonym? I guess I could email him and ask. And | before you ask, yes, Dingosity is not the name I was born with. | chaboud wrote: | Ah yes... I'm Skimmington Harborough, Esq., I come from a family | that made its fortune in philanthropy generations ago. | | This seems like a pretty straightforward mechanism for covert | operatives, to generate a believable (and memorizable) cover that | pulls attention away and maintains coherence. | | That said, as someone who prizes ethical behavior, it's not | possible to practice this and remain wholly honest without some | sort of ethical loophole like "character work for entertainment | only". A persona requires misrepresentation, which is not the | same as de facto anonymity. | | So, while I love the write-up, I don't think it's saying what | they think it's saying. | geph2021 wrote: | made its fortune in philanthropy | | Already sounds dubious to me. Don't you need a fortune _before_ | you go into philanthropy? Making a fortune _in_ philanthropy | sounds like embezzlement. | [deleted] | splitstud wrote: | Hence the name Skimmington | neogodless wrote: | No relation to Skimmington Harbordough? | geph2021 wrote: | Haha! I actually missed that... well done. | O__________O wrote: | Agree, it's extremely toxic to real relationships. In some | situations, it's even illegal to do so depending on the context | and representations made. | | Pretexting as a social engineering method is basically same | thing: | | https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Pretexting | didgetmaster wrote: | Am I being unethical when I tell the medicare supplemental | insurance salesman from India that I am only 22 years old | (while hoping to be taken off their list of potential | customers) when he asks me my age? | OkayPhysicist wrote: | Is lying in-of-itself unethical? | | I'd be curious to probe a framework that thinks it is, while | not holding that axiomatically. As someone who leans heavily | into consequentialism, I can think of plenty of times lying can | lead to a net positive for everyone. Likewise, there are | harmful truths that should be suppressed. | | That suggests to me that lying is, in-of-itself, amoral. The | effect of the lie (or the intent, if you swing that way) | determines whether it's ethical or not. Who is harmed by your | assuming a fabricated identity? For the vast majority of | people, who exactly you are matter little. So it's hard to | suggest they are harmed by having an incorrect model of you. It | may be manipulative to those trying to piece together your | identity, but being doxxed can and often does lead to harm | befalling your person, so your lies against them can be plainly | justified under self-defense. | altruios wrote: | There are frameworks that have lying as axiomatically evil. | But to be consistent - a painful truth must be preferable to | a rewarding lie. To live a lie free life is to invite pain, | and to view that pain as both functional and necessary - it | is not for the weak to try. | toolz wrote: | I agree with this line of thinking. Especially the focus on | effect. If your persona is made with the pure intent of | anonymity and you make an ordinary persona whose abilities | aren't exaggerated and could easily be swapped with your own | persona without much impact on the people you converse with, | then I don't think any harm is being done and you're merely | keeping your anonymity while still presenting your authentic | abilities and personality to some online community. | bobkazamakis wrote: | You seem pretty confident in a subjective opinion. | mlyle wrote: | We're having a normative discussion and we have our own | beliefs. It's to be expected. | jfengel wrote: | In deontology, lying-is-bad is practically the canonical | example of a basic rule. Kant especially is famous for that | -- leading directly to extensive arguments about whether | "lying to the murderer at the door" is ethical. | | It goes deeper than you might expect. There are good reasons | to think that it might indeed be unethical to lie, even when | the consequences are bad. I don't necessarily agree with the | premises involved, but it's worth researching rather than | dismissing out of hand. Especially since consequentialism has | problems of its own, and it's a way to get an alternative | take on the criticisms of consequentialism. | | Personally, I'd like to see deontologists accept that lying | isn't such a great example, and instead take up a different | one. There can be good deontological approaches that accept | that consequences can be part of rules. | jacobmartin wrote: | The deontologist believes lying is against the universal | maxim. If everybody lied all the time, we wouldn't have a | functioning society. | | The virtue ethicist believes it is bad to be in a habit to | lie because being predisposed to lying is opposed to the | virtue of the truth. We've all known people who lie by habit | and they are unpleasant and vicious to be around. I don't | know if most virtue ethicists (who don't also fall into the | natural lawyer camp, below) would say it is per se bad to | lie, but most would say it is vicious. | | The natural lawyer believes that speech has as its natural | end telling the truth and therefore it is _contra naturam_ to | lie. See the almost-impossibly-extended discussion here, for | that: https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09469a.htm | | For all of these groups, there has variously been admitted | something like an "equivocal statement"---a statement which | has some interpretation that is technically true, but not the | interpretation that the speaker knows will be taken by the | listener as a falsehood. For example, my friend invites me | out on Friday and rather than saying I'd rather be at home, I | say, "I have something going on that night." He takes it to | mean that I have other plans, but I don't. But technically, | breathing is "something going on" so I haven't lied. (Whether | your social relationships will stand your doing this is | another matter ;)) | | I'm personally fall in something like the virtue ethicist | camp, but I do believe sometimes, in justice, a lie must be | said, and not all of those situations can be covered by an | equivocation. | prepend wrote: | > If everybody lied all the time, we wouldn't have a | functioning society. | | This is true. But I don't think anyone makes the point that | someone should lie all the time. Especially not that | everyone should lie all the time. | | I think that there's an ethical argument for lieing for | some greater purpose (eg, a spy working for the Underground | Railroad). | fiddlerwoaroof wrote: | That phrasing has to do with how Kant thinks you come to | discover moral truths: it's an appeal to Kant's idea of | the categorical imperative which, for him, is the basis | of all morals. So, essentially, the claim here is "since | you cannot lie all the time and have a functioning | society then, by my prior arguments about what morality | is, you can never lie" | [deleted] | rzzzt wrote: | > This seems like a pretty straightforward mechanism for covert | operatives, to generate a believable (and memorizable) cover | | I think the official term is "legend" for this one. This | occasionally comes up in spy movies and I also get some search | results for it. | xpe wrote: | It is not categorically imperative to never lie nor | misrepresent. The opposite is true. There are some situations | where "standard" ethical principles (don't lie, don't kill) are | unethical. If left with no alternative, lethal self-defense is | not just acceptable, but is morally necessary. An exception to | the exception might exist if your attacker is acting justly, | but that takes it to another level of analysis. | haswell wrote: | The existence of those opposites does not justify a general | case though, i.e. those limited exceptions are by definition | limited. | RobotToaster wrote: | Is it a lie to choose a name to go by at different times? Why | should you always have to use the name your parents gave you. | Some people are even better known by their nom de plume than | their real name, from Mark Twain to Lenin. | | In many cases the law even protects the right for artists to | use a pseudonym under artist's moral rights. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_rights | RealityVoid wrote: | I used to think lying wash wholly inethical. But I don't think | this anymore. Lying is somethimes the ethical thing to do. I | believe the goal matters. | 3pt14159 wrote: | I was an NOC Agent for Canada then I got married. There's so | much data out there, nothing is easy with creating a false | persona. Your eyes, walk, fingerprints, etc. | | It's possible in the short run, but you're leaking a lot of | data doing it. My MO when I really didn't want to end up | Googleable was to just give my real first name and leave it at | that even if people pressed. | | Edit: The reason is simple. If someone gives a false name and | you know their real one then you're much more certain that | they're trying to conceal their identity. So the downside is | real, even if it is practical in some circumstances. | RealityVoid wrote: | Fascinating. How long were you a NOC for? I guess your spouse | did not know of it while she was your GF. Did it impact your | life negatively, having to maintain secrecy? You must have | been for quite a while, I understand a long time passes | before agents are fully functional. | 3pt14159 wrote: | Well, I'm allowed to talk about it publicly but I still | would like to default to undersharing. It was a little over | five years. Long enough. | | My spouse and I got married very quickly after meeting and | yes the impact on one's life is real, but so is the upside | and I find few online that talk about it. The upside is | real. You see the extremes of humanity and it clarifies the | importance of ethics in life. | RealityVoid wrote: | Perfectly understandable, I did not want to pry but found | it fascinating and could not help myself. | 3pt14159 wrote: | No problem at all. If we were at a bar I'd say more, but | with online stuff the safety margins are tighter because | every word is picked over by everyone. It's not just | states. There are a lot of mentally ill people out there. | | That said, I think others should consider working in this | field. The impact is real and I think many HNers would | make good agents and officers. So I'm starting to talk | about it online and I'm reworking my website and other | things. Think of it as continued public service. We (Nato | and friends) need good people doing this work. | | One thing I should have mentioned is that I'm still | working in this area, just not directly for the Canadian | government any longer. | spitfire wrote: | What is a NOC agent? | | National occupation classification? Network operations | centre? | RealityVoid wrote: | I believe that is Non Official Cover Agent. Basically, a | intelligence agent that, well, they do a lot of stuff, but | from my understanding, not having worked in the system, | they mostly handle informants and turn sources and handle | intelligence gathering. A spy. It's non-official cover in | the sense that they don't come as a diplomat attache or | anything of the sorts but go there and present themselves | as a private individual. Some countries, not sure of the | case of Canada, you can't share your real job with your | friends or family but have a cover story instead. They | mostly present their real name as well, since it's hard to | produce fake personas, hence... his original post. | | Much less glamourous than James Bond, but I believe it's | an.. interesting job. | 3pt14159 wrote: | This is a good summary. Most people I knew didn't know | and if they knew anything it was only a hint here or | there and most assumed I was doing sigint work. | bilegeek wrote: | Don't forget stylometry; though AI actually looks like a | promising tool to help with it. | bilbo0s wrote: | All of what you say is true. | | But it's even worse than that. | | A persona won't even confer anonymity these days. So now you're | dishonest _and_ attributable. | RajT88 wrote: | Indeed. Despite your best efforts, they know that Sir Olivier | Stubbingwicke lives at the same address as Bill Swerski, who | pays for the Comcast internet. | | Similarly, very few people are unaware that XFinity is the | pseudonym for Comcast. | hyperdimension wrote: | I know I'm running with the off-topic comment, but I like | to point that out whenever possible. Companies know that if | they just change their name, they lose any bad connotations | they had with the previous name. | | Comcast changed the name of its Internet service to | "Comcast Xfinity" for a few years, then silently dropped | the "Comcast" at one point. | | Spectrum is also Charter, and Altria is Phillip Morris. | It's crappy that it actually works most of the time, so I | like to point it out to try to counteract that. | Taywee wrote: | Maybe I'm from a different era, but I still think that the best | default position is that anything somebody has listed about | themselves online may be a work of fiction that we shouldn't be | expected to take at face value in most contexts. If encryption | is not immoral, encrypting your personal information is also | not immoral, even if you also want plausible deniability. | Privacy is not unethical. If a persona and pseudonym is the | best route to that, you aren't hurting anybody. | | As a person who prizes the idea that what we say and do are | more important than who we are, I disagree that honesty and | ethics always align. If some dishonesty maximizes peoples' | actual wellbeing, then that dishonestly is probably actually | more ethical than the honesty that compromises and hurts people | for no gain other than ideological purity. | ljm wrote: | I'm not sure how you're pulling encryption into this | argument. | | You can be honest or dishonest and it will be encrypted and | decrypted all the same. | | Your second argument to me doesn't follow. You are saying | what you say and do is more important than what you value, I | think, but you are also saying that what you say and do are | not important so you can be dishonest. | | My conclusion is that you prize winning over being ethical. | | Just think of all the other cases where honesty and ethics | have been put on the back burner on the basis that you think | your thing is more important; a lot of them legal. | 1659447091 wrote: | > As a person who prizes the idea that what we say and do are | more important than who we are | | I am not sure I follow - what we say and do is who we are, | how could it be otherwise? | daniel-grigg wrote: | People practice personas everyday of their lives, the only | difference in the post is the explicit labelling of them. The | avatar I present here is different to how I behave in person, | or how I engage at work, my friends, my family. | vehemenz wrote: | Before it was de rigeur to use real names on the Internet, most | of us used personas that were informed by our handles. | | It's unusual--I might even say unethical, if moral realism were | coherent--to insist on real names as a matter of honesty given | that real names disproportionately benefit the powerful. The | powerless cannot use their real names on the Internet because | often there are real world consequences. | jareklupinski wrote: | Rusty Shackleford, pleased to meet ya | | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okN4P2l1QCk&t=45s | kerpotgh wrote: | There is no ethical issue here. The companies asking for your | identity generally don't need it and providing them with a | persona could be argued is the more ethical route given the | implications it has on privacy and mass surveillance. | rt4mn wrote: | > That said, as someone who prizes ethical behavior, it's not | possible to practice this and remain wholly honest without some | sort of ethical loophole | | The primary "ethical loophole" here is that there is no viable | ethical alternative. Something can not be immoral if it is the | best of a series of bad options, and if you want to exsist in | the world and protect your privacy, the _only_ real option is | to create a persona. | | There is literally no other option that I have been able to | find that both protects your privacy and also does not require | you to sequester yourself from humanity entirely. | | Pure anonymity bars you from the following activities: joining | a social group, signing up for some longish term business | relationship (hiring a contracter, signing up for a service), | engaging in the political process, holding a job, and probably | more that I cant think of. You simply wont be able to do any of | those things if you tried to give your name as "chaboud" or | "rt4mn". | | The best option if you care about your privacy, in those | scenarios, is to use a nickname/alias/persona, and be honest | and say "no its not" in the vanishingly rare case where you are | asked directly whether or not that's the same name you have | your birth certificate. | JackFr wrote: | > Pure anonymity bars you from the following activities: | joining a social group, signing up for some longish term | business relationship (hiring a contracter, signing up for a | service), engaging in the political process, holding a job, | and probably more that I cant think of. | | Why do you believe that's your right? You have the right to | be left alone, but in all the examples you offer you are | explicitly not minding your own business. | | Rather there should be an expectation of reciprocity with | respect to identity. | hgsgm wrote: | Do you have that reciprocity with every corporation you | engage with? | | I bet not. They all hide behind personas. | Thorentis wrote: | > Something can not be immoral if it is the best of a series | of bad options | | Woo, big claim. You're basically saying "best" can be | determined entirely in terms of utility with no consideration | for morality. A utilitarian world view, which not everybody | shares. | fsckboy wrote: | > _A utilitarian world view, which not everybody shares._ | | you make it sound like it's not a complete or consistent | system, but it's just a worldview where only some people | have the attribute of being in the right, unfortunately an | attribute not everybody shares. | prepend wrote: | I don't think OP made that claim. "Bad" can be determined | holistically with morals and utility and other factors. | | For example, I think it's moral to portray a false persona | to avoid invasion of privacy. | | Not to mention that most people project some level of | falseness just in day to day operations. For example | replying "I'm fine, how are you?" Whenever asked. | akerl_ wrote: | > Something can not be immoral if it is the best of a series | of bad options | | You're presenting this as if it's a fact, but it doesn't seem | like it is. If for no other reason that it relies on a shared | understanding of what's "best" and what makes options "bad". | | You could justify some pretty horrible decisions if you're | holding that as an axiom. | prepend wrote: | Of course you can. But you can justify horrible decisions | with any axiom. It's not like this is a worse approach than | others. | | Is there some rule set you're aware of that if you follow, | horrible decisions cannot be justified? | akerl_ wrote: | I tend to just not invent "rules" out of thin air. | | In absence of this supposed "rule", where "Something can | not be immoral if it is the best of a series of bad | options", you'd need to actually consider whether a | decision is immoral. The rule shortcuts that and lets you | say "well, there's no other option, so I must be in the | clear morally here", which would be laughable if it | wasn't so dangerous. | hgsgm wrote: | How is "do the best you can possibly do" not (a) a rule | and (b) not moral? | akerl_ wrote: | That's not a quote that appears anywhere prior to this in | the thread, from what I can see. You seem to have made it | up from scratch here. | | The rule given above is "Something can not be immoral if | it is the best of a series of bad options". In the | context of the thread, it's being used to justify | creating a fake persona and providing false details about | yourself as part of a strategy of maintaining anonymity. | And already the cracks start to show: the other option, | "just don't respond" is classified as bad, and thus | doesn't count as a viable option. So what you're left | with is "lie about yourself", which the rule holds up as | being definitely moral because it's the "best" option. | But "just don't respond" is only described as bad because | it doesn't give you maximum anonymity. | | If I'm broke, and I need some money for lunch, "steal | from my richest friend" could be reasonably argued to be | the "best" of "bad options". I need to eat, it'll hurt | them the least, so lets crack open their wallet. Because | I get to arbitrate the option pool and the definition of | "bad" and "best", I've got a neat package that lets me | absolve myself of all tricky moral quandries. | prepend wrote: | I don't think you can argue that steal from friend is the | best in that situation. If truly the options are steal | from friend or starve to death right now, then perhaps | but that's not realistic. | | I'm not sure what you think someone should do rather than | make the best decision given all options. | | There are many ways to absolve yourself of tricky moral | quandaries. But I don't think using a fake name on a web | form is a mora quandary. | | If we're in a world where the only options are that one | can't lie about themself online or not participate then | that's a bad world. | | I think it depends on the intent of the lie in that lying | to get out of advertising seems ok, but lying to trick | someone into a date seems bad. | | Of course it's hard to truly know, so people have to fall | back do what they think is best and rely on the guidance | of trusted friends. | | This is how morality in general works, I think. And we | just have societal morals that are widely accepted. I | think advertising is immoral and unethical, but that's | not a belief commonly held by enough to make it into | culture and laws. | akerl_ wrote: | Your entire comment here seems to agree with mine. There | are no quick and easy rules for morality, it's complex | and case-by-case. | ianai wrote: | "The road to hell is (often?) paved with good intentions." | bdw5204 wrote: | You can definitely participate in political discourse under a | pseudonym. The anonymous Twitter account "Catturd" is one | currently famous example. | somecompanyguy wrote: | ethics are for suckers. source : observe the world in 2023. | lo_zamoyski wrote: | > Something can not be immoral if it is the best of a series | of bad options, and if you want to exsist in the world and | protect your privacy, the only real option is to create a | persona. | | Let's substitute some of the bits with variables... | | "Something can not be immoral if it is the best of a series | of bad options, and if you want to exist in the world and X, | the only real option is to Y." | | ...and see how this holds up... | | X="be rich"; Y="kill your neighbor" | | Now, you might object "that's absurdly extreme!". True, I | have chosen an extreme example, but only because it makes the | fallacy conspicuous. Ethical principles don't have loopholes | or dispensations. It's not as if big lies are bad because | they're big and small lies are okay because they're small. | They're both bad because they're both _lies_. An evil | _effect_ of one 's actions may be tolerable under specific | circumstances, but a means that is inherently evil doesn't | cease to be evil because you have no other option to attain | the desired good. Ends don't justify means. | | In this case, a pseudonym is not a lie when a) the intent is | not to deceive but to conceal, and b) there is no normative | expectation that the name given is real and thus when you do | not owe others your real name. On social media, while we know | many might conclude that a pseudonym is real, generally | speaking, I would say that error is a tolerable side effect | (it depends on the particular social medium; LinkedIn is | different than Twitter, for example). However, IMO, things | start to become more dicey with active fabrication. There is | a fine but definite line between lying and mental | reservation. There is a difference between speaking | ambiguously or evasively on the one hand and lying on the | other. This places rather severe limits on what you can | licitly say or express. Constructing a persona means you must | actively engage in creating a fictional character that you | intend people to believe is real _as a means_ of concealing | you identity. This is by definition a lie and different from | allowing people to falsely infer a persona based on what is | ambiguous information that is intended to conceal truths | others have no right to. | | "Create and post a back-story to answer (instead of avoid) | the frequently asked questions." | | The article's author's advice is effectively _precisely | because it involves lying_. Lying works exactly because the | default expectation based on the essential function of speech | is to communicate the truth. | zajio1am wrote: | > The primary "ethical loophole" here is that there is no | viable ethical alternative. Something can not be immoral if | it is the best of a series of bad options, and if you want to | exsist in the world and protect your privacy, the only real | option is to create a persona. | | There are simple ethical alternatives, just not disclose that | information, or just avoid that questions. Lying in this case | is clearly unacceptable. | | It is also a signalling issue. There is a universal social | contract not to lie. If someone is willing to lie in such | minor issues, then such person is totally untrustworthy, | because there is no reason to assume they would not lie or | hold other social contracts in more serious cases when it | does not suit them. | akerl_ wrote: | > If someone is willing to lie in such minor issues, then | such person is totally untrustworthy | | What's the backing for this? If a stranger asks me what my | favorite color is, I don't feel any particular obligation | to give them a truthful answer. But at least in my | experience, that hasn't manifested as a willingness to lie | or deceive in cases where it matters. I think it's possible | that your personal social contract is not as universal as | you think. | mynameisvlad wrote: | > There is a universal social contract not to lie. | | The entire concept of "white lies" existing would indicate | that it's not nearly that universal. | deegles wrote: | I don't agree that your RL identity is a "minor" thing. | It's right up among the most important things. | mynameisvlad wrote: | That entirely depends on who you're interacting with and | the context of that interaction. | | Your best friend? I would hope you feel comfortable | enough sharing your RL identity or deeper secrets. | | A random company you interact with? Why would it matter, | let alone be one of the most important things? | pessimizer wrote: | The fact that the first person you mention is "your best | friend" is an indication of the importance you're placing | on it. Nobody is using a nom de plume for their electric | bill, you're being deliberately obtuse. | mynameisvlad wrote: | I mentioned two extremes. | | A best friend, by definition, is one of the people you | _choose_ to trust the most. If you want to replace it | with someone else significant in your life, by all means, | it doesn't change the point in any way shape or form. | | A random company is the other end of the extreme, it's an | example of a very limited relationship. | | The point is that the bigger your relationship, the more | you'd entrust them with secrets. Secrets like your real | identity. It's a pretty basic and obvious concept. | jrm4 wrote: | There is emphatically no "universal social contract not to | lie," nor should there be, because what this leads to is | "invisible obligations to parties more powerful than you, | since you're expected to tell the truth to whoever asks | it." -- but right to truth ought to be earned. | | It is true that it most cases it's not favorable, but the | way you're putting it is the stuff of repression. | | Self defense, it's good to misinform bad actors, Santa | Claus, surprise parties,etc. | kortilla wrote: | Oh really? You're gonna have a hard time with the monsters | in WITSEC then. | catchnear4321 wrote: | Telling you a fake location would likely be an indication | of a lack of trust, in you. | | Have you never told a lie? Should I trust the answer if it | is "no?" | kerkeslager wrote: | > There are simple ethical alternatives, just not disclose | that information, or just avoid that questions. | | That's not always possible. | | > Lying in this case is clearly unacceptable. | | In _what_ case? | | If you're really taking the stance that anonymity is | _never_ ethically more important than honesty, that 's a | pretty extreme stance. Are women being stalked by an ex who | is a cop required to be honest about their identities? Are | reporters investigating sex trafficking required to be | honest about their identities? | | In a more broad sense, there are many corporations and | governments out there who follow no ethical rules | whatsoever and are sucking up as much information on | everyone as they can. These people don't have any sort of | right to that information, and don't have a right to my | honesty. If anything, I think the moral thing to do, if | any, is to hamper these people's efforts by feeding them as | much incorrect information as much as possible. | | > It is also a signalling issue. | | Everything is a signaling issue. Your post, for example, | signals you as a person who has not-very-nuanced opinions | about nuanced topics, and therefore can't be trusted in | nuanced situations. If you wouldn't lie to the police to | protect a pot smoker, or lie to an advertiser to protect my | privacy, you aren't an ethical person by my standards. I do | believe you have good intentions, but intentions that don't | translate into the correct actions don't mean much. | | > There is a universal social contract not to lie. | | This is what I mean about not-very-nuanced opinions. | | > If someone is willing to lie in such minor issues, then | such person is totally untrustworthy, because there is no | reason to assume they would not lie or hold other social | contracts in more serious cases when it does not suit them. | | 1. What issues are you considering minor? You seem | extraordinarily willing to generalize some specific-but- | not-described situation you're imagining to all of reality. | | 2. There are lots of reasons to assume that someone who | lies to cops won't lie to me, for example. | jameshart wrote: | > hiring a contracter, ..., engaging in the political | process, holding a job | | These are all situations where the desire for anonymity is | outweighed by the requirement for accountability. | | You're aware that 'hiring a contractor' requires _entering | into a contract_ right? And so does being employed. | | Entering into a contract without establishing your identity | implies a desire not to be bound by the terms of that | contract. Is that your intent? | | As for 'engaging in the political process', I have never | heard anyone argue that the problem with politics is that | people are too honest and open. Do we need more anonymous | political party donors? | tsumnia wrote: | > That said, as someone who prizes ethical behavior, it's not | possible to practice this and remain wholly honest without some | sort of ethical loophole like "character work for entertainment | only". A persona requires misrepresentation, which is not the | same as de facto anonymity. | | I don't think the persona needs to be completely falsified. | Rather, you consider which topics you engage in on a given | account. For example I consider "tsumnia" to be | unofficial/official "professional" username - while I don't | explicitly say my name, it'd take you looking at my profile to | know exactly who I am. | | On the other hand, I have my hobby/nerdy username on Reddit for | when I want to talk about the latest Last of Us episodes. Same | person, but different aspects of my personality are on display. | Its not that the other one is a troll or anything, just one | name to talk about deliberate practice in CS education in one | thread and then another to make jokes about video games. | ChrisMarshallNY wrote: | I don't really bother hiding anything. | | Anyone who wishes me harm, can figure out who I am, fairly | easily. I own a home, and I'm not sure if people know how much | that exposes folks. | | I _want_ people to know who I am. I don 't think that I have much | bad about me (although a number of folks think I'm a stuffy old | boomer -they're probably right). | | It also helps me to behave better. I was not always a stuffy old | boomer, and I behaved ... _not like an adult_ ... on the | Internet. | | I'm big on Responsibility and Accountability. I'd like to see | more of it in others (but am frequently disappointed). I find | that it's best for me to act like I'd like others to act; whether | or not they do, is not my business. | | I was told "We teach people how to treat us." | boring_twenties wrote: | > I own a home, and I'm not sure if people know how much that | exposes folks. | | OT but even more maddeningly, only those of us not rich enough | to own our homes outright are subject to this stupidity. If you | don't need a mortgage, you can just buy your home under an LLC | or other entity. If you do, this becomes difficult or maybe | impossible. | ChrisMarshallNY wrote: | Well, around here, the tax rolls are public. That's how I | find out who owns the crack house down the block, etc. | | _> difficult or maybe impossible._ | | For now. There's a lot of movement to expose the Principals | of LLCs. Too many bad actors hiding behind them. | | This is why we can't have nice things. | hnthrowaway0315 wrote: | I guess it's useful to drive away curiosity from laymen but how | does it stop corporate knowing me by crosschecking multiple docs? | For example the banks for sure need my real name and id and phone | number, all other services need those too. | userbinator wrote: | I was reminded of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8336036 | which was in the pre-AI era. | kaashmonee wrote: | This is so based. Now I don't know anything anymore is the author | Derek Sivers from California who now lives in New Zealand even | real. Is anything on his about page even true? How are we | supposed to trust it? Then again, it doesn't matter. | [deleted] | jimkleiber wrote: | makes me think of disinformation and differential privacy: too | hard to hide the truth so fill the space with lies so it takes | too many resources to find the truth. | jabroni_salad wrote: | My strategy for this is actually to use other people's names. | You can try to dig in but if you try to look me up on any other | website you're gonna be playing the wrong game. | PragmaticPulp wrote: | One very important thing to keep in mind: If you generate a fake | persona _and_ present it as entirely real, you are being | dishonest. | | This may not matter for inconsequential things like the pen name | for your SubStack or something. However, it definitely matters if | you plan to engage in anything serious or do any business under | that persona. | | If you run into situations where you're forced to switch to your | real identity (e.g. employment relationship, legal matters, or | even an accidental leak) then you could lose a lot of | credibility. People will naturally wonder if you were trying to | hide something from them, regardless of your initial intentions. | prepend wrote: | This reminds me of Taleb's story about how he says he's a limo | driver at cocktail parties. | | He chose this to be boring but plausible and move the | conversation on. | | To me it seems like if you dodge the topic of employment some | people will get curious and dig in. If you say what you do, they | might be curious and nothing is more boring to me than talking | about my job to "normies." | | I think there's a concept of digitally hiding through being | normal. Evading Google leaves a black hole around your activity. | Making a digital "Bob" who just does boring, normal stuff creates | an ad profile that no one cares about. | rodolphoarruda wrote: | That is a good approach. My persona is going to turn five years | old now, but it looks much older. In fact, my persona looks older | by design, which reduces the need for profile maintenance but, in | turn, is often targeted for age prejudice. I'm called "old fart" | many times a week, and it kinda sucks. | patientplatypus wrote: | [dead] | rspeele wrote: | Art Vandelay, importer/exporter. | mxuribe wrote: | That's funny, we have the same name! I must be the next Art | Vandelay in the phonebook, right under you...But i'm an | architect! :-) | class4behavior wrote: | >Once people start wondering, they need to know. | | You're projecting. | | >That's a problem if you really want to be anonymous. | | Large emphasis on really. | | Stop conflating secrecy with privacy. The former is another pair | of shoes entirely. | Waterluvian wrote: | > If you defiantly refuse to say who you are, it can make people | angry that you're upsetting social reciprocity. | | Citation needed. | | This entire post/idea seems to be based on "you can't just make | up an obviously anonymous avatar/username anymore (like | BakedPotato138)" and I frankly don't see why not. It's been | working fine for decades. The only people who are upset over this | are authorities and corporations. And in those cases, making up a | fake person is quite possibly criminal fraud. | rco8786 wrote: | Wait what, the entire post is literally "just go make up an | avatar/username". | | > If you don't want any attention, just pick a very common name | like Mary Kim or Adam Johnson. | | > Use an AI face generator to create a completely believable | face to match your new name. Download it once and use it | everywhere. Run it through face aging software to use this same | persona for the rest of your life. | | > Pick a city and say it's your location, to avoid that | question too. | | > For email, Mailbox.org is great, and doesn't care who you | are. | | > Create social media profiles with your new name, email, city, | and face. | | > Nobody will wonder who you are if you answer that question. | Instead of block and battle, deflect and settle. That's better | anonymity. | Waterluvian wrote: | The entire post is about making up a deceptive human username | and AI generated human photo. What I'm talking about is | making a name like rco8786 and using the avatar of | whatever... a delicious ham sandwich. | | There is nothing novel about making up an avatar. The point | of the article is "trick people by making it a believable one | so they'll think that's you, and not just an avatar." Ie. | there's an incredibly important social signal in having a | name that's obviously not your actual name. | kerkeslager wrote: | > > If you defiantly refuse to say who you are, it can make | people angry that you're upsetting social reciprocity. | | > Citation needed. | | Look around. In this thread there are people who are upset. | | > This entire post/idea seems to be based on "you can't just | make up an obviously anonymous avatar/username anymore (like | BakedPotato138)" and I frankly don't see why not. It's been | working fine for decades. | | I have had a few obviously anonymous avatars/usernames over the | years (this isn't one of them--it's actually my real last | name). There have been a few attempts to doxx me during that | time. | | > The only people who are upset over this are authorities and | corporations. | | Authorities and corporations aren't people (which is important | because people have rights). But that's an aside really. | | The bigger point is that authorities and corporations are made | up of people, and those people, are often acting on behalf of | their authority/corporation. In the worst case, they're true | believers that what their authority/corporation is doing is | right (i.e., all the people who defend invasions of privacy by | corporations on hacker news). | | > And in those cases, making up a fake person is quite possibly | criminal fraud. | | Not always. For example, with Facebook's shadow profiles, they | won't even admit they exist most of the time, so they certainly | aren't going to prove they exist by attempting to prosecute | someone who feeds them fake data. | nonbirithm wrote: | I have lost many potential friends because I chose not to give | my real name. It gives me some anxiety thinking about whom I've | lost, but it's a normal thing to respect other people's | boundaries, and my boundary is that I don't feel comfortable | with giving my real name to people I haven't met in person. And | I have ethical reservations to go as far as lying to make up a | real name just to keep a friendship founded entirely on | something I'm not comfortable with. | | It almost makes it seem like it's wrong to keep the social | boundaries I have and that I'm doing harm to myself by | withholding new human relationships just because of my | discomfort. But I know that if those people are generally going | to carry those standards then I can't change them, and it's my | choice to disagree. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2023-02-03 23:00 UTC)