11–20 of 329 posts
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The key thing is -- who do you want to be anonymous with?
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.
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.
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.
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.