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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

#281

Post by O__________O »

Animats wrote: post #186

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 ju…

Agree.

Unlike most people that lie in a one off situation knowing it wouldn’t come up again, if you’re lying about who you are, it lives on forever. All those little things add up and if you’re living out multiple identities, it’s hard to keep them compartmentalized.

Even worse, much like actors that go too far with method acting, there is always risk you will buy into the lies and believe that’s really who you are.

Re: Want anonymity? Make a persona not a mystery

#282

Post by akerl_ »

zajio1am wrote: post #280
akerl_ wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you may want to revisit whether your guess is actually accurate. As others have pointed out, "little white lies" are a relatively prevalent part of society. To pick a mundane example: if somebody asks me "how's it going", I'm almost certainly going to say "good", even if it's not.

> "little white lies" are a relatively prevalent part of society. And many consider them bad and cowardly. > To pick a mundane example: if somebody asks me "how's it going", I'm almost certainly going to say "good" That is not really white lie, more a phrase / exchange with established meaning, both sided knows the protocol.

I'm glad you're around to arbitrate what's a cowardly white lie and what's a societally normal false phrase.

You're welcome to find lying reprehensible in all cases. But "there is a universal social contract not to lie" seems clearly false.

Re: Want anonymity? Make a persona not a mystery

#283

Post by Nadya »

erstorreyk wrote: post #32
O__________O wrote: post #16

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,…

https://stylometry.net/user?username=O__________O

I mean you'll have to trust me when I say I don't - since if I did I would obviously claim that I don't - but I have a strong match with 3 users where I'm in their top 20. But I don't have an alternate HN account as I don't see any need for separate identities for the ideas I hold on HN. Where as if I want nuanced discussion on Reddit without someone trolling my post history and discounting anything I say because 4 years ago I once posted on a subreddit they don't approve of - I do need an alternate Reddit account. So I will admit to having at least one alternate Reddit account.

Moreover - since Nadya is my "primary" pseudonym, I deliberately make it easy for people to find me across social platforms: https://nadyanay.me/identities

Based on this list you can assume I am Nyu, Nadya, NadyaNayme, or Yuno in a number of places. Three of those names are common and so are commonly already taken by the time I create an account somewhere - so it isn't an exact science. For example - the account "yuno" also exists on HN but isn't me. If it were I'd have capitalized the "Y" and this account wouldn't exist.

As far as I have been made aware - nobody has ever identified any of my other personas as belonging to me.

Re: Want anonymity? Make a persona not a mystery

#284

Post by O__________O »

throwaway4837 wrote: post #131

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…

My understanding is that a lot of the APT units use methods like these to make attribution harder and/or make it appear another entity is responsible.

I have done a startup related to anonymity and identity protection, and at least at the time, it was amazingly hard sell, rapidly killed it off. Generally speaking, people simply don’t care about anonymity, privacy, etc.

As for same style topic for cultural fit, yes, thought it would be funny to communicate with YC using same style as PG; one of the partners now even oddly talks very similar to him, but didn’t in the past.

Re: Want anonymity? Make a persona not a mystery

#285

Post by O__________O »

nonbirithm wrote: post #222
Waterluvian wrote: post #83

> 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 tho…

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 entir…

I tend to be super social, and agree, there’s frequently people that either clearly state not being identifiable is a deal breaker or just fade away. One’s that are the worst though are people that after you have set boundaries assume that they’re special and your boundaries don’t apply to them; frequently they share information that wasn’t requested, then demand because they did you must too. If someone’s not able to respect your boundaries, just politely communicate it’s not good for and wish them well.

There’s 8 billion people on Earth, wouldn’t worry about it, at least I don’t, but clearly limits population of people that are interested in having meaningful relationships.

Re: Want anonymity? Make a persona not a mystery

#286

Post by calderknight »

saurik wrote: post #249
buildsjets wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

FWIW, none of those are even scored even slightly high, so I don't think it is claiming something horribly incorrect.

And his actual alternative accounts may not have enough content to be included in the search.

Re: Want anonymity? Make a persona not a mystery

#287

Post by waboremo »

zajio1am wrote: post #280
akerl_ wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you may want to revisit whether your guess is actually accurate. As others have pointed out, "little white lies" are a relatively prevalent part of society. To pick a mundane example: if somebody asks me "how's it going", I'm almost certainly going to say "good", even if it's not.

> "little white lies" are a relatively prevalent part of society. And many consider them bad and cowardly. > To pick a mundane example: if somebody asks me "how's it going", I'm almost certainly going to say "good" That is not really white lie, more a phrase / exchange with established meaning, both sided knows the protocol.

Nonchalantly redefining lying just because everyone is vaguely aware the lie exists is silly.

You do realize you can just adjust your original absolutist position on lying = indicator of future trustworthiness by just recognizing the nuance of human communication, correct?

Re: Want anonymity? Make a persona not a mystery

#288

Post by User23 »

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…

The easy out is that you make it eminently clear that the persona is a fictitious character. At that point it becomes much like any other performer who wears a costume and uses a stage name.

Re: Want anonymity? Make a persona not a mystery

#289

Post by User23 »

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.…

> 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.

No, that's not how ethics works. Sometimes you're just in a no win situation and there is nothing moral other than self sacrifice.

Re: Want anonymity? Make a persona not a mystery

#290

Post by waboremo »

O__________O wrote: post #281
Animats wrote: post #186

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 ju…

Agree. Unlike most people that lie in a one off situation knowing it wouldn’t come up again, if you’re lying about who you are, it lives on forever. All those little things add up and if you’re living out multiple identities, it’s hard to keep them compartmentalized. Even worse, much like actors that go too far with method acting, there is always risk you will buy into the lies and believe that’s really who you are.

The compartmentalized problem is serious, it's not easy and therefore personas should be sparingly used. You have to increase the points of trust to create any sort of sustainable persona handling system. These points themselves becoming stress inducers!

When it comes to believing your own lies, one way to prevent that is to take persona creation seriously as if you are really preparing for a role or writing this character. Method actors have a bunch of external factors encouraging them to stop that persona, but for the rest of us we really don't so we have to create those factors. Whether this is a dedicated device with dedicated software, or physical cues to remind us who we're being.

Youtubers are a great digital example of persona creation not being taken seriously. So many "jerk" characters wind up being really abusive people who just used that character as an excuse. Unfortunately, they're also a good example of how being haphazard with persona creation can wind up leading people to desperately link pieces of yourself to find the "real you" and reveal all that private information.

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