Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Want anonymity? Make a persona not a mystery

sive.rs

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

301–310 of 329 posts

Re: Want anonymity? Make a persona not a mystery

#301

Post by ttrefa »

kerkeslager wrote: post #191
zajio1am wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.…

> There are simple ethical alternatives, just not disclose that information, or just avoid that questions. That's not always possible. > Lying in this case is clearly unacceptable. In what case? If you're really taking the stance that anonymity is never ethically more important than honesty, that's a pretty extreme stance. Are women being stalked by an ex who is a cop required to be honest about their identities? Are…

> > Lying in this case is clearly unacceptable.

> In what case?

> If you're really taking the stance that anonymity is never ethically more important than honesty, that's a pretty extreme stance. Are women being stalked by [...]

You are building a strawman argument right in front of our eyes. GP literally writes _in this case_ and you insinuate they argue for _always_ and then you are going on and on why that's extreme. Of course it is, but that's not what they wrote nor what this topic is about.

I'm quite enjoying the good faith portions of this discussion tree as I'm intruiged by the ethical dilemma of what can be considered lying in such cases.

But when strawmen are built then that's arguing in bad faith. Then the goal is not to reach new insights and understanding, but only to be right. That's pretty sad.

Please don't do this, it makes the discussion less interesting for everybody.

Re: Want anonymity? Make a persona not a mystery

#302

Post by ttrefa »

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.

Hard to draw the line though?

Situation 1: Daughter of 5 years was drawing a house and a dog. Looks terrible. Asks me how I find it. It reply "good job! what a nice house and dog!" It's a blatent lie. But obviously she'd been crushed had I replied otherwise and never drawn anything else.

Situation 2: Random acquaintance got a new hair cut. Looks terrible, asks how she looks. I reply "fits your face!" Not true, but any real criticism would have been inappropriate. We are not that close.

Situation 3: Colleague asks me casually in a team lunch setting about my favorite color. It's brown, but I don't want to say since 10 min ago the topic of nazis came up, turns out they are jewish and lost all their grandparents in concentration camps. So I reply "depends on the day". Clear lie about "something as mundane as their favourite color".

Which of these situations was an unacceptable lie and which was a "phrase / exchange with established meaning, both sided knows the protocol."

Re: Want anonymity? Make a persona not a mystery

#303

Post by Thiez »

jacobmartin wrote: post #145
OkayPhysicist wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 fal…

If everybody used deceptive but ultimately truthful statements all the time society wouldn't function either. Allowing for deliberately deceptive truths is just a ridiculous contortion to solve the "murderer at the door" or "nazi at the door while hiding jews" problem. To me it just shows that they don't truly believe in their ethical framework since they will twist it into something ridiculous as soon as it gets difficult.

Re: Want anonymity? Make a persona not a mystery

#304

Post by ruszki »

akerl_ wrote: post #278
zajio1am wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What’s the backing for this? I guess that for truthful people, lying is something that they do not even consider as an option. They could be pressed to it if situation is dire. But if someone consider lying as an option in a banal case, then they could consider it in any case. There are obviously other reasons why not to lie or deceive in particular issues, so 'totally untrustworthy' is likely too strong. > If a st…

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.

I lied the last time in September 2014. I exaggerated a man’s height. And yes, I tell everybody if it’s not going well. I don’t need to be awkward like in “The Big Bang Theory” or something either. I can be nice in every single situation without lying. Empathy and trust help a lot.

Just because something is prevalent, it doesn’t make it good, or necessary.

Re: Want anonymity? Make a persona not a mystery

#305

Post by rikroots »

I am a real person. I have a birth certificate. My problem is that people, when they learn my name[1], don't believe I'm a real person, or they believe I'm a person hiding behind a pseudonym. I blame my parents.

Examples? A dozen years ago Facebook went on a purging mission to get rid of fake accounts. I had to prove to the people behind the algorithm that I was real, and had an online presence dating back to the turn of the century. The same thing happened with Google+ (remember that?): to overcome their objections I had to supply links to real-life documents that cited my name. It was annoying at the time, but I can smile about it now.

Same thing happens in real life. I've had people ask me if I changed my name by deed poll (answer: no). Some people have told me that when they heard my name they thought I must be some sort of wannabe rockstar (answer: no, but I do write poems). Sadly, a few people have confessed that they thought I was Black before they met me - I cannot even begin to understand the thought processes they used to reach that conclusion!

I don't believe my name has been a barrier to my advancement in life. It does offer me some anonymity (evidence: I'm not famous) while at the same time making it very easy for people to find me via Google.

[1] - Rik Roots[2]

[2] - Okay, it's Richard Roots[3], but I shortened it when I was at school because people kept shortening it for me to 'Rick' and then asking me if I spelt my name with a silent 'P'

[3] - Turns out that the Roots surname has a pedigree dating back to the Norman conquest of England[4]. The origins of the name come from the Old English word 'rot', which meant 'glad' or 'pleased'

[4] - See https://www.houseofnames.com/roots-family-crest - and yes, I was born in Kent.

PS for Australians: please don't tell me the Wombat Joke. I've heard it many times.

Re: Want anonymity? Make a persona not a mystery

#306

Post by O__________O »

langsoul-com wrote: post #299
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…

I wonder if there's a service for online persons with other online persona friends. With AI generation, it wouldn't be impossible maintain fake networks then insert someone new in. It just has to seem plausible enough.

Common among: email spam networks, social media bot networks, propaganda networks, pretext social engineering, etc — average person has no interest in this. This based on briefly trying to launch an anonymity service that allowed people to freely create unlimited real phone numbers with voice, voicemail and SMS support — and persona management. Even being free and leveraging existing platform were common sense would say it was a good safety practice and it was easy to generate 1000s of free leads a day — no one was interested, even with it being completely free.

Re: Want anonymity? Make a persona not a mystery

#307

Post by O__________O »

kerkeslager wrote: post #209
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…

> > If you defiantly refuse to say who you are, it can make people angry that you’re upsetting social reciprocity. > Citation needed. Look around. In this thread there are people who are upset. > 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. I have had a few o…

> Authorities and corporations aren't people (which is important because people have rights).

Depends on the jurisdiction; for example, in the US, see “How the 14th Amendment Made Corporations Into People” for a brief explanation:

https://www.history.com/.amp/news/14th-amendment-corporate-p...

Re: Want anonymity? Make a persona not a mystery

#308

Post by [deleted] »

rco8786 wrote: post #93
rlt wrote: post #31

Satoshi is the only very high profile person I’m aware of to remain completely (pseud)onymous. Many others have tried and failed (though they often broke the law, so that might be the main distinguishing factor)

Banksy Daft Punk Deadmau5 Members of KISS (for a while) Blue Man Group But if you're following the advice in this article...nobody should ever know that you're not actually a real person. So you might "know" lots of folks online who are not who they say they are.

[deleted]

Re: Want anonymity? Make a persona not a mystery

#309

Post by nullc »

O__________O wrote: post #279
Animats wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Encountering someone who knows you is one of the big risks for people working undercover. Read "You're Stepping on my Cloak and Dagger", by Roger Hall.

Interesting, never heard of the book, thanks! While it’s been awhile, whenever I ran into that situation earlier on I first attempted to avoid them being aware I was nearby and would immediately leave the area. Once thought had no option, but to politely ask if we might talk for second and let them know not to say anything, which they were happy to do. Soon after for unrelated reasons ended up moving and have not run…

One option is to immediately walk up and introduce yourself.

"Hi, (shakes hands), I'm ascii-frogface. (forceful stare)"

They'll either get the point or be oblivious enough to be gaslit into thinking you're someone else. :P

Re: Want anonymity? Make a persona not a mystery

#310

Post by O__________O »

tqi wrote: post #296

You look down, they know you're lying and up, they know you don't know the truth. Don't use seven words when four will do. Don't shift your weight, look always at your mark but don't stare, be specific but not memorable, be funny but don't make him laugh. He's got to like you then forget you the moment you've left his side. And for God's sake, whatever you do, don't, under any circumstances...

Related movie clip:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=VTKgyZZP5KQ

Post reply on HN