Digg is gone again

Post by deanc » Sat, Mar 14, 2026, 7:45 PM UTC

IAmGraydon wrote: post #265

deanc wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The bot problem cannot be solved. Even if you strongly authenticate, people are letting bots act on their behalf (moltbook is a great example of this) and what's to stop people doing that in the future. Build your identity and reputation autonomously with the benefits that come with that. This happens now on Onlyfans too. Content creators hire agencies which in the best case outsource chatting to "customers" to armie…

The bot problem can easily be solved. It’s just that no one likes the cure. Think about this for a minute: what would happen if you had a country where all its citizens could act anonymously with no consequences, no reputation, no repercussions, and no trace? Would you want to go there? Live there? No, because it would be a lawless wasteland dominated by the worst of the worst. Yet people act like the internet is som…

Post by code_duck » Sat, Mar 14, 2026, 7:47 PM UTC

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #359

mschuster91 wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You need to ditch and replace all your devices and acquire a new phone number. I'm serious. Virtually all large websites these days employ a lot of fingerprinting and persistence technologies. And yes, ditch them. Even well over a decade ago, Wikipedia of all places already employed IP address matching to link sockpuppet accounts. You must be extremely careful of never using any device that was associated with your o…

Just don't use apps. Then the only association is a discardable cookie and IP.

Post by deanc » Sat, Mar 14, 2026, 7:52 PM UTC

Terr_ wrote: post #151

JimDabell wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> people are letting bots act on their behalf (moltbook is a great example of this) and what's to stop people doing that in the future. Verifiable credentials; services can get persistent pseudonymous identifiers that are linked to a real-world identity. Ban them once and they stay banned. It doesn’t matter if a person lets a bot post inauthentic content using their identity if, when they are caught, that person cann…

I'd rather have a system where there's a small investment cost to making an account, but you could always make another. Imagine A system where there's a vending machine outside City Hall, you spend $X on a charity for choice, and you get a one-time, anonymous token. You can "spend" it with a forum to indicate "this is probably a person or close enough to it." Misuse of the system could be curbed by making it so that…

Post by b112 » Sat, Mar 14, 2026, 8:02 PM UTC

pixl97 wrote: post #381

b112 wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, precisely. This means that only sites which verify identity will have any value in the future. And by verified, that means against government ID and verified as real. No amount of sign up fee works as an alternative. Note that a site can verify identity, prevent sock puppets, ban bad actors and prevent re-registration, all while keeping that ID private. You still get a handle and publicly facing nick if you want…

>No amount of sign up fee works as an alternative. Simply put money is worth too much, at some point someone will want access to this human audience and offer too much to be resisted. >It should be noted that falsifying ID is a crime Lol, no one gives a shit on the internet. People will use stolen ID'S to get accounts. If the network is lucrative enough, governments will provide fake IDs to spread propaganda.

Post by HughParry » Sat, Mar 14, 2026, 8:11 PM UTC

dangus wrote: post #269

tlonny wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HN may not be “mainstream” but it is certainly _very_ vulnerable to bot spam given the topics discussed and the make-up of the audience. You can already see it happening now - at least the bots that write like vanilla Claude/ChatGPT. Presumably there is a much larger hidden cohort of bots that are instructed to talk more naturally and thus are better adept at flying under the radar…

I would say that HN has a lot of features that would be seen as draconian in how much they limit your interaction by other platforms. You can barely comment before you are rate limited. You can’t upvote until you’ve been around a pretty long time. New accounts are given a green badge of dishonor that makes users scrutinize their comments more. I’m not saying these are bad things but they’re probably too restrictive f…