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Maigret: Collect a dossier on a person by username from thousands of sites

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Re: Maigret: Collect a dossier on a person by username from thousands of sites

#171

Post by voakbasda »

c7b wrote: post #159
jhugo wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hopefully they read one sentence about what the tool does before using it. If they don't, their arguments will be weak due to their own sloppiness in research, which doesn't seem like a new problem.

the thing is, people who want to use this for defamation don't have an incentive to sanitize the data - the message might stick around regardless of whether it has any merit (we've seen this happening even at the most publicly scrutinized national level, imagine how much fewer defenses smaller players have)

Defamation is definitely one problem with this tool. Once there is “evidence”, it can be (ab)used without consequence by someone, because they can simply point at the tool output. If the output is usually “good enough”, it will provide an alibi for their actions: “I didn’t make a mistake, the computer did.”

Re: Maigret: Collect a dossier on a person by username from thousands of sites

#172

Post by voakbasda »

jhugo wrote: post #153
lol768 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup; for common/short usernames it's all too common for other folks to register using the same identifier. The end result seems to be that this tool decides you're interested in "dating", "porn", "stocks" and tags you with a "ru" country code - despite not owning any of the accounts that the determination has been based off of. The README should come with a disclaimer really.

Isn't it obvious just from reading one sentence about what it does? As it clearly says, it's based on username only, so multiple people's results may be mixed in the dossier if they share a username. We don't need a disclaimer for every thing that a moment's thought can reveal.

The people that use this tool to dig up dirt on someone will love to see a mixed bag, because it could be useful to cast shade on their actual target. This tool will be abused on purpose.

Re: Maigret: Collect a dossier on a person by username from thousands of sites

#173

Post by d0mine »

Closi wrote: post #165
c7b wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You always need to balance Precision and Recall. For something like this, you want to be exhaustive. Respectfully disagree. You're right in principle if you build a tool like that for yourself. But since this is Open Source, you have to take into account that people who don't understand that will use the tool as well and then use that as "evidence" in whatever arguments they're having with someone.

> Respectfully disagree. You're right in principle if you build a tool like that for yourself. But since this is Open Source, you have to take into account that people who don't understand that will use the tool as well and then use that as "evidence" in whatever arguments they're having with someone. Respectfully disagree with you respectfully disagreeing - this line of thinking can be used to argue against almost a…

Actually, there is a recent ~"law"? (discussed on HN) that essentially forbids publishing research that may be misinterpreted by the pronoun people (i.e., any research can be banned).

Re: Maigret: Collect a dossier on a person by username from thousands of sites

#176

Post by BawsMcGee »

d0mine wrote: post #173
Closi wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Respectfully disagree. You're right in principle if you build a tool like that for yourself. But since this is Open Source, you have to take into account that people who don't understand that will use the tool as well and then use that as "evidence" in whatever arguments they're having with someone. Respectfully disagree with you respectfully disagreeing - this line of thinking can be used to argue against almost a…

Actually, there is a recent ~"law"? (discussed on HN) that essentially forbids publishing research that may be misinterpreted by the pronoun people (i.e., any research can be banned).

Do you have a link / source for this?

Re: Maigret: Collect a dossier on a person by username from thousands of sites

#177

Post by vintermann »

EdwardDiego wrote: post #120
vintermann wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, the question is: are you more afraid of random nobodies online, or are you more afraid of already organized, already powerful people who had similar capability already?

I'm a nobody, and fiercely proud of it. And I pity the NSA employee who has to monitor my Internet usage, they're going to see an awful lot of Javadoc, programming blogs, websites about plane crashes (and I hope they read some AdmiralCloudberg on Medium for themselves), and websites about rocks and faultlines. In reality, as mentioned by other commenters, I'm not anything they're interested in, at best I'm a datapoin…

This, and all the sibling comments, is just sad.

Not only are you happy to never challenge current power in any meaningful way, but you are sure you never will be. If there is a revolution tomorrow and the Trumpists are in charge, or the Marxists, or the Russians or whatever, you're still sure you will be fine with that order too and will never rock the boat.

You're also confident that if you do nothing wrong by them you have nothing to worry about.

Instead, you've been taught to fear the weak, the nobodies. The nameless savage in the night. As if they have any more reason to hate you than the powerful have.

Re: Maigret: Collect a dossier on a person by username from thousands of sites

#178

Post by c7b »

Closi wrote: post #165
c7b wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You always need to balance Precision and Recall. For something like this, you want to be exhaustive. Respectfully disagree. You're right in principle if you build a tool like that for yourself. But since this is Open Source, you have to take into account that people who don't understand that will use the tool as well and then use that as "evidence" in whatever arguments they're having with someone.

> Respectfully disagree. You're right in principle if you build a tool like that for yourself. But since this is Open Source, you have to take into account that people who don't understand that will use the tool as well and then use that as "evidence" in whatever arguments they're having with someone. Respectfully disagree with you respectfully disagreeing - this line of thinking can be used to argue against almost a…

I'm just stating that I think the data is likely a priori garbage (without a lot of sanitizing work), in the hope that that message spreads faster than the use of the tool. I think having that discussion is both important and preferable to censorship.

Re: Maigret: Collect a dossier on a person by username from thousands of sites

#179

Post by Mezzie »

trinovantes wrote: post #21
Entinel wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's only bad from a privacy perspective if you are sharing things you don't want linked together or are sharing things that can be unintentionally linked back to your real life. If you are the same username across multiple sites and you want those linked together then that's just branding.

Using the same username may allow you to manually poison your own profile to make your data less useful than a shadow profile generated through stylometry

I do this. I have a handle I've been using for 20+ years (not this one and nothing on HN) and I lie about stupid shit rather frequently.

I also also create one-off usernames in addition to my 'permanent' name. That way everybody sees the permanent name and assumes I'm too stupid/ignorant to use different names, so nobody ever suspects the other names are me. (Using different emails because I do the same thing with email addresses and - when I can afford it - phone numbers).

Re: Maigret: Collect a dossier on a person by username from thousands of sites

#180

Post by oceanplexian »

orange_fritter wrote: post #75
eek2121 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I intentionally steal nicknames I've seen. I'm an asshole as well, so sometimes it works out. I have 13 different nicknames so far that I use/have used since 1997, though I tend to rotate between all of them regularly. I DO hope they try to use "AI" to track me. That will be fun.

What's the benefit? It sounds like you might have to explain yourself one day if someone posts something racist/horrible.

It’s not so much of a benefit, as that some of us simply don’t care what others think. Actions speak louder than words and all that.

A Internet comment from 10 years ago might cost you a job, or it might cost a friendship. But at least I’m not living a facade about being a perfect and flawless individual, and that helps me sleep better at night.

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