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Skin in the Game

lucumr.pocoo.org

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Re: Skin in the Game

#11

Post by yjftsjthsd-h »

> Maybe verified identities an illusion, but sometimes these illusions is all that's needed to feel more relaxed.

Author almost realizes that they're asking for something that is at best a mirage and then bats away that thought[0]. But that's not something that you can casually dismiss near the end of your post, it's a crucial flaw in the whole idea! The comfort that you get from seeing "John Smith" as the contributor instead of "rand_user_43" is indeed an illusion; not only do you have no way of knowing that "John Smith" is their real name, even if you did demand to see their government ID, and even if that was forgery-proof and definitely identified them, they can still commit malicious code; the best hope is that you can impose after-the-fact consequences, but that's... really optimistic, especially as a deterrent.

[0] An alternative steel-man is that the author does grasp that they're pining after something that doesn't actually work but still argue for it, but that feels even less charitable so I'm going with the other interpretation.

Re: Skin in the Game

#13

Post by makeitdouble »

__s wrote: post #8
cbsmith wrote: post #4

TIL that untypical is a word that means the same as atypical. It's funny. I think of anonymity as something that has been part of the Internet going back through at least the last three decades of my experience with it. Back in the day you had anonymous retailers, let alone people using pseudonyms. It was very much part of the fabric. If anything, it feels like anonymity on the Internet is harder to achieve these day…

I agree Part of that is getting older. A decade ago I contributed to Python under the name "Demur Rumed" & that's what they put in the 3.6 contributor list. Back then I worked at a company that didn't use GitHub so it was all personal stuff that I'd put under that name Since then I started working in open source companies that are operating on GitHub. An early meeting someone asked "who's this Demur Rumed making rand…

> the advice for teenagers going online is that they should protect themselves by not sharing their identity.

To me this is still the basic advice. This is not just for when sommething really bad happens, it's also all the smaller things. Like whether they need their employer to know they had a strong pro-union stance in the past. Or if they really like and promote some artist, that later happens to have an incredibly bad reputation dragging their fandom down with them, etc.

There's just no real upside IHMO...except many companies will expect kids to have some online presence and expose what they're doing to the world, and might give preference to people with a strong following online.

So they are still advised still keep a safe and positive "public facade" somewhere to deal with these kind of expectations, and have their "real" accounts anonymized.

Re: Skin in the Game

#14

Post by Terr_ »

MichaelZuo wrote: post #5

Pseudonyms are fine, as long as each person has only one, and multiple alts are guaranteed to be extremely costly to create. People are primarily just afraid of being duped or tricked somehow by someone hiding behind multiple identities, otherwise they don’t treat pseudonyms much differently. Of course there’s a practical difficulty in making sure creating the first pseudonym identity has a low bar but also to make s…

> Pseudonyms are fine, as long as each person has only one

What's the problem with real person John Doe also having an account called anon12345?

The problem isn't one person having multiple identities, the problem involve mismatches between the quality or qualities of those identities versus particular use cases.

Re: Skin in the Game

#15

Post by bluefirebrand »

__s wrote: post #8
cbsmith wrote: post #4

TIL that untypical is a word that means the same as atypical. It's funny. I think of anonymity as something that has been part of the Internet going back through at least the last three decades of my experience with it. Back in the day you had anonymous retailers, let alone people using pseudonyms. It was very much part of the fabric. If anything, it feels like anonymity on the Internet is harder to achieve these day…

I agree Part of that is getting older. A decade ago I contributed to Python under the name "Demur Rumed" & that's what they put in the 3.6 contributor list. Back then I worked at a company that didn't use GitHub so it was all personal stuff that I'd put under that name Since then I started working in open source companies that are operating on GitHub. An early meeting someone asked "who's this Demur Rumed making rand…

> Since then I started working in open source companies that are operating on GitHub. An early meeting someone asked "who's this Demur Rumed making random pull requests?" sheepishly I declared myself, "Please update your profile with your real name

I make a new GitHub account for any new job I start using my company email

I never use my personal accounts for anything work related

I once got a message from HR telling me to update my LinkedIn with a company approved Bio section and a company photo they provided, and I just ignored it. They badgered me a bit, complained to my boss and such, but ultimately it's my account so they could not compel me to change it

I hate that companies feel entitled to do so, though

Re: Skin in the Game

#16

Post by kdmccormick »

bluefirebrand wrote: post #15
__s wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree Part of that is getting older. A decade ago I contributed to Python under the name "Demur Rumed" & that's what they put in the 3.6 contributor list. Back then I worked at a company that didn't use GitHub so it was all personal stuff that I'd put under that name Since then I started working in open source companies that are operating on GitHub. An early meeting someone asked "who's this Demur Rumed making rand…

> Since then I started working in open source companies that are operating on GitHub. An early meeting someone asked "who's this Demur Rumed making random pull requests?" sheepishly I declared myself, "Please update your profile with your real name I make a new GitHub account for any new job I start using my company email I never use my personal accounts for anything work related I once got a message from HR telling…

For open- or closed-source work?

If I'm doing open source coding, whether professional or not, I'd always want that associated with my personal GH account.

Re: Skin in the Game

#17

Post by MichaelZuo »

Terr_ wrote: post #14
MichaelZuo wrote: post #5

Pseudonyms are fine, as long as each person has only one, and multiple alts are guaranteed to be extremely costly to create. People are primarily just afraid of being duped or tricked somehow by someone hiding behind multiple identities, otherwise they don’t treat pseudonyms much differently. Of course there’s a practical difficulty in making sure creating the first pseudonym identity has a low bar but also to make s…

> Pseudonyms are fine, as long as each person has only one What's the problem with real person John Doe also having an account called anon12345? The problem isn't one person having multiple identities, the problem involve mismatches between the quality or qualities of those identities versus particular use cases.

Like I said a limit of one pseudonym on top of the real identity. If everyone knows everyone else is hard limited to a max of 1 pseudonym, then they wouldn’t be afraid any longer.

Re: Skin in the Game

#18

Post by MichaelZuo »

Palomides wrote: post #6
MichaelZuo wrote: post #5

Pseudonyms are fine, as long as each person has only one, and multiple alts are guaranteed to be extremely costly to create. People are primarily just afraid of being duped or tricked somehow by someone hiding behind multiple identities, otherwise they don’t treat pseudonyms much differently. Of course there’s a practical difficulty in making sure creating the first pseudonym identity has a low bar but also to make s…

the cost of pseudonym is the amount of work you invest to build a reputation, I don't think there's really a problem here

A bonafide genius might be able to build a similar reputation for 3 pseudonyms in as much time and effort as it takes for a more average person to build 1.

Obviously most people are not bonafide geniuses and they know it, so there’s always a lingering fear of being taken in somehow.

Re: Skin in the Game

#19

Post by woodrow »

The author seems particularly hung up on the legal implications and consequences of being an open source contributor or project maintainer: "not all legal consequences can be waived", "distance to the legal system", "the real world legal consequences are then stuck with me", etc. It would benefit us all for the author to be specific about these if they are indeed real, as to my knowledge these are mostly FUD.

There are certainly negative aspects to being an open source project maintainer [1] but being legally liable for code offered as-is that you did not author, or being droned by a foreign military intelligence service for accepting a backdoor contribution are not it.

[1] https://daniel.haxx.se/blog/2021/02/19/i-will-slaughter-you/

Re: Skin in the Game

#20

Post by [deleted] »

Ukv wrote: post #7

> There was a bit of a kerfuffle ( https://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2024/03/29/4 ) about subverting open source projects recently > [...] > A well established identity on the internet creates a form of inner piece Worth noting that the motivating incident (xz backdoor) was a user with legitimate history under what at the time appeared to be a real name. Even mandatory ID verification may not have helped in…

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