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Large-Scale Online Deanonymization with LLMs

simonlermen.substack.com

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Re: Large-Scale Online Deanonymization with LLMs

#241

Post by Taek »

txrx0000 wrote: post #236
john_strinlai wrote: post #48

many people tend to overlook how little information is needed for successful de-anonymization. i like to introduce students to de-anonymization with an old paper "Robust De-anonymization of Large Sparse Datasets" published in the ancient history of 2008 ( https://www.cs.cornell.edu/~shmat/shmat_oak08netflix.pdf ): " We apply our de-anonymization methodology to the Netflix Prize dataset, which contains anonymous movie…

We don't need everyone to be completely anonymous to state and corporate actors. We just need to make it so that they can't identify and surveil everyone at once, because it would be too expensive. The US defense budget is about $1T dollars. They can't spend it all on surveillance, but let's say tech companies + gov spends about this amount per year on surveillance in total. If we can raise the cost to surveil the av…

Unfortunately the cost for this stuff is going down. Cheaper to collect information, cheaper to store it, cheaper compute, and better algorithms that mean you need fewer resources.

If the cost to surveil the population is $10k per capita today, it'll be $1k in a few years and $100 a few years after that.

This is a war that can't be won, it's just part of the changing landscape of technology in the information era.

Re: Large-Scale Online Deanonymization with LLMs

#242

Post by c22 »

the_af wrote: post #223
c22 wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A silver lining of the ai apocolypse is that users may be able to use the technology to maintain their anonymity via llm paraphrasing.

My guess is that a statistical analysis of other things such as access patterns, timestamps, content you engage with, etc, could de-anonymize you regardless of the phrasing you use, so LLMs won't save you.

True, but you could also use llms to autonomously engage with content you're not interested in, batch replies for times you're not around, inject coherent, consistent, plausible, but false details into your messages, or modify/flag details you didn't mean to disclose.

Re: Large-Scale Online Deanonymization with LLMs

#244

Post by c22 »

john_strinlai wrote: post #230
c22 wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A silver lining of the ai apocolypse is that users may be able to use the technology to maintain their anonymity via llm paraphrasing.

as the_af says, stylometry is only one technique in a bag of techniques used for de-anonymization. a big one to be sure, but nowhere near the only one.

As you say, the_af mentions this an hour before your reply. I'm curious what is the point of your posting a "me too" comment here? Was it to teach naive readers the word stylometry?

Re: Large-Scale Online Deanonymization with LLMs

#246

Post by hliyan »

danielodievich wrote: post #88

I post under my real name here, pretty much the only place I post. It keeps me honest and straight in what I say when I choose to say it. I tried talking to my children about leaving as clean of a footprint on the internet as one can in anticipation of future people/systems taking that into consideration. I don't know what it will be but I would expect some adversarial stuff. Trying to keep clean is what I'd prefer f…

I've come to a similar conclusion. I now almost exclusively post under my real name online, and before writing something, I ask myself whether it's something I'd say to a person's face and whether I'm comfortable being quoted on it. If not, I look for a more neutral, stronger version of the argument I'm trying to make (stronger, as in strong enough to stand without rhetorical devices or fallacies), or, I qualify the statement as an opinion or something I consider to be a possibility.

Re: Large-Scale Online Deanonymization with LLMs

#247

Post by ectospheno »

goatlover wrote: post #128
ectospheno wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I expect more people over time to use local LLMs to write every single post they make online.

What would that accomplish? Just to keep their social credit score in the acceptable range while they go touch grass?

If you are trying to keep your secret accounts secret then you don’t want them to have your writing style. By having a LLM author each post you help eliminate that as a metric. Couple that with the usual opsec of posting via tor at random times and you arrive at something closer to anonymous. The hardest remaining item would be not exposing all of your real interests in the prompts.

Re: Large-Scale Online Deanonymization with LLMs

#248

Post by txrx0000 »

Taek wrote: post #241
txrx0000 wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don't need everyone to be completely anonymous to state and corporate actors. We just need to make it so that they can't identify and surveil everyone at once, because it would be too expensive. The US defense budget is about $1T dollars. They can't spend it all on surveillance, but let's say tech companies + gov spends about this amount per year on surveillance in total. If we can raise the cost to surveil the av…

Unfortunately the cost for this stuff is going down. Cheaper to collect information, cheaper to store it, cheaper compute, and better algorithms that mean you need fewer resources. If the cost to surveil the population is $10k per capita today, it'll be $1k in a few years and $100 a few years after that. This is a war that can't be won, it's just part of the changing landscape of technology in the information era.

I don't think the cost has been doing down or will continue to trend downward long term. You're assuming that the public hasn't gained and won't gain additional capabilities while our adversaries evolve. But look at our communication reach, bandwidth, latency, and cipher strength.

How easy was it for the government to deliver mass propaganda before the Internet without the public realizing? How quickly and how many bits of information can Alice in Seattle reliably get to Bob in Houston with a strong cipher in the 1960s? Was there ever such a thing as a cipher that's widely used yet unbreakable by the state? Why do you think China banned TLS 1.3? Do you think it will be harder or easier to pretend to be a different person when there are open-source LLMs that can run on a gaming computer?

The Internet is a recent invention. Smartphones and seamless network coverage are even more recent, and so is curve25519. We're closer than ever to what is effectively secure instant telepathy with anyone in the world. We just need to stay vigilant and not be fall for doom and gloom in this last stretch.

Re: Large-Scale Online Deanonymization with LLMs

#249

Post by leptons »

SchemaLoad wrote: post #151
slopinthebag wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think as the younger generations come of age they simply will not care about that sort of thing. Like it or not, it's part of the culture and might just be accepted as the norm.

I think it's kind of happened already. All the time we see news of politicians or famous people having their very old photos, comments, or reddit accounts found with distasteful takes. And it seems they can mostly just handwave it away with "Hey that was 10 years ago and I wouldn't make those comments today" and nothing seems to come of it.

Tell that to people who are tangentially mentioned somewhere among the 3 million Epstein files. It doesn't matter how insignificant the involvement, people are losing their minds and "cancelling" anyone and everyone without any nuance or critical thinking.
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