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Want anonymity? Make a persona not a mystery

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Re: Want anonymity? Make a persona not a mystery

#141

Post by toolz »

OkayPhysicist wrote: post #121
chaboud wrote: post #19

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 so…

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…

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.

Re: Want anonymity? Make a persona not a mystery

#142

Post by Thorentis »

rt4mn wrote: post #100
chaboud wrote: post #19

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 so…

> 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.…

> 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.

Re: Want anonymity? Make a persona not a mystery

#143

Post by spitfire »

3pt14159 wrote: post #76
chaboud wrote: post #19

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 so…

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…

What is a NOC agent?

National occupation classification? Network operations centre?

Re: Want anonymity? Make a persona not a mystery

#144

Post by RobotToaster »

chaboud wrote: post #19

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 so…

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

Re: Want anonymity? Make a persona not a mystery

#145

Post by jacobmartin »

OkayPhysicist wrote: post #121
chaboud wrote: post #19

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 so…

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…

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.

Re: Want anonymity? Make a persona not a mystery

#146

Post by wmeredith »

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.

Re: Want anonymity? Make a persona not a mystery

#147

Post by catchnear4321 »

zajio1am wrote: post #119
rt4mn wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.…

> 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.…

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?”

Re: Want anonymity? Make a persona not a mystery

#148

Post by jareklupinski »

chaboud wrote: post #19

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 so…

Rusty Shackleford, pleased to meet ya

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okN4P2l1QCk&t=45s

Re: Want anonymity? Make a persona not a mystery

#150

Post by prepend »

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.

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