Random person name generator • Hacker News Board

Re: Random person name generator

#21

Post by ASVVVAD » Sat, May 30, 2020, 5:05 PM UTC

ape4 wrote: post #10

Oh I was hoping DuckDuckGo would fake your browser personality somehow. Mac -> PC, etc

That's beyond DuckDuckGo's control since that data is controlled and sent by the browser. There are many addons for doing what you said though just look for user-agent changer or faker

Re: Random person name generator

#22

Post by Raed667 » Sat, May 30, 2020, 5:08 PM UTC

hart_russell wrote: post #3

I can only think of one use case: filling out form data that you don’t want to use your real identity. Any others?

Filling out fake data for your testing or demo environments is also a good use-case.

Re: Random person name generator

#23

Post by saagarjha » Sat, May 30, 2020, 5:09 PM UTC

I’m still very disappointed that DuckDuckHack was ended…

Re: Random person name generator

#24

Post by Memosyne » Sat, May 30, 2020, 5:22 PM UTC

voisin wrote: post #18

Memosyne wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes when I'm feeling blue I write letters addressed to fake people and share my thoughts with them.

Can’t tell if this is /s or not, but have you considered a real life pen pal that writes back?

I have considered it before but I just don't trust real people enough to share my personal thoughts with them.

Re: Random person name generator

#25

Post by snazz » Sat, May 30, 2020, 5:35 PM UTC

ASVVVAD wrote: post #21

ape4 wrote: post #10

Oh I was hoping DuckDuckGo would fake your browser personality somehow. Mac -> PC, etc

That's beyond DuckDuckGo's control since that data is controlled and sent by the browser. There are many addons for doing what you said though just look for user-agent changer or faker

Startpage's private browsing feature does something similar but far more effective.

Re: Random person name generator

#26

Post by codazoda » Sat, May 30, 2020, 5:35 PM UTC

hart_russell wrote: post #3

I can only think of one use case: filling out form data that you don’t want to use your real identity. Any others?

Authors (pen names), musicians, bloggers, anyone else who wants a little privacy but still wants to share publicly.

Re: Random person name generator

#27

Post by pridkett » Sat, May 30, 2020, 5:36 PM UTC

hart_russell wrote: post #3

I can only think of one use case: filling out form data that you don’t want to use your real identity. Any others?

Inside of companies with data protection requirements, these can be handier and more natural than censoring PII or PCI or replacing them with an encrypted string. It’s much more natural for the data science process.

Re: Random person name generator

#28

Post by inetsee » Sat, May 30, 2020, 5:42 PM UTC

I have on occasion created pseudonyms for various purposes. One of my favorite techniques is to combine a first name common to a particular nationality with a last name common to a different nationality. E.g. a French first name with a Japanese last name. Surprisingly, such combinations occur somewhat frequently in real life.

Re: Random person name generator

#29

Post by rmrfstar » Sat, May 30, 2020, 5:47 PM UTC

ape4 wrote: post #10

Oh I was hoping DuckDuckGo would fake your browser personality somehow. Mac -> PC, etc

If you just want to blend in with the crowd, you can use the tor browser without the tor proxy.

They have invested a lot of effort crafting its fingerprint. Now that they have moved away from Firefox ESR, it shouldn't come with much of a security penalty.

Re: Random person name generator

#30

Post by drusepth » Sat, May 30, 2020, 5:47 PM UTC

Is it just generating a random name and birthday?

That seems... underwhelming compared to the hundreds of services that already exist for doing this (see: any of the results given to DDG's query) and generate a much more extensive dossier.