One potential solution here I suppose is to make deanonymization or contributing to it a serious crime. I doubt that will happen in most places, though, since it’s often the government that wants to do this to its own citizens.
downvoted because the government doing stuff is communism
Pseudpocalypse
81–90 of 92 posts
Re: Pseudpocalypse
#82Perhaps remarkably, the US intelligence community is funding work on this problem in the open, as part of IARPA HIATUS [1]. The program's initial phase is winding down now, so some of the performers' papers ought to be hitting the ArXiV before too many more months. [1] https://www.iarpa.gov/research-programs/hiatus
[dead]
If you scroll down to "Prime Performers" on the page I linked, it lists a Massachusetts company and a USC lab that turns out to have a branch office in Massachusetts.
Re: Pseudpocalypse
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
It takes many bits to identify an individual. Let's say I offhandedly mention your email in this comment, for example, like we had an out of band conversation somewhere else. Then, someone takes that email and links it to another forum where they find your phone number. Then another person looks up that phone number in a phone book. Then another person finds your github account from the email associated with your PGP…
Laws aren't cryptography. They aren't all or nothing. Making something illegal has a chilling effect on that thing, even if not 100% enforceable. It would be illegal to try to hack the NSA, so I'm scared to do it, even through Tor.
... And even though it's hard to define whether any given action is or isn't hacking.
Re: Pseudpocalypse
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
probably means publicly identifying an individual
It takes many bits to identify an individual. Let's say I offhandedly mention your email in this comment, for example, like we had an out of band conversation somewhere else. Then, someone takes that email and links it to another forum where they find your phone number. Then another person looks up that phone number in a phone book. Then another person finds your github account from the email associated with your PGP…
The article is about plugging in one or more pieces of writing and getting a name. That’s not leaking their phone number, their email address, their location, their associations, or other information and piecing together an investigative file on someone. It means that with AI, based on the idiosyncratic writing style of “tarpitt” on HackerNews, I could get your real name no matter the topics you commented about. It assumes only that you have other writings available somewhere that can be tied to your real name.
Re: Pseudpocalypse
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
Things like it have happened. The Unabomber was identified through his writing idiosyncrasies. Lots of criminals have been identified by reanalyzing old DNA samples using data and genealogical techniques that weren't possible at the time the samples were left.
> The Unabomber was identified through his writing idiosyncrasies. By his brother, apparently. His brother read the manifesto, and said, “hey, sounds eerily familiar!” But wouldn’t it be deliciously ironic if A.I. had caught Kaczynski‽
[deleted]
Re: Pseudpocalypse
#86I wonder if this could be used to unmask satoshi. I remember a piece about applying stylometry to satoshi's writing, but they just compared him to the usual list of suspects (finney, back, etc.)
If you help fund the research team, I'll contribute the $5 wrench, and we can split the the profits
Re: Pseudpocalypse
#87So anonymity of written speech is toast. We should, however, strive to preserve other forms of anonymity. For example, donations given to political causes should be kept confidential. Let protesters wear masks up to the point where they break the law.
Hmm, the Kill Puppies Movement received $500,000,000 from an anonymous donor.
And the ACLU famously defended the right of Nazis to parade through Skokie, Illinois.
Re: Pseudpocalypse
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hmm, the Kill Puppies Movement received $500,000,000 from an anonymous donor.
And the ACLU famously defended the right of Nazis to parade through Skokie, Illinois.
It's not inconsistent to
* support noxious Nazi's speaking out loud and proud in the light of public day so that they may be judged and weighed on their "speech"
* despise cockroaches crawling in the dark influencing publicly elected representatives with non public "hidden speech" .. a euphemism for bags of life changing amounts of case.
One is speech, out and proud, the other .. just a bribe, hidden from light.
Re: Pseudpocalypse
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
And the ACLU famously defended the right of Nazis to parade through Skokie, Illinois.
It's not inconsistent to * support noxious Nazi's speaking out loud and proud in the light of public day so that they may be judged and weighed on their "speech" * despise cockroaches crawling in the dark influencing publicly elected representatives with non public "hidden speech" .. a euphemism for bags of life changing amounts of case. One is speech, out and proud, the other .. just a bribe, hidden from light.
Good point
Re: Pseudpocalypse
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
I was thinking this. Why not just lie? Come up with personas, stack them on other personas, and eventually you're pretending to be a 23 year old Asian man from California who is pretending to be a 50 year old New Zealand carpenter and half the bits are muddled.
What are you writing about? The real person is going to write about what they know, so when the topic of housing comes up, and they pick New York City to discuss zoning restrictions, sure it's possible they're in New Zealand or California, but it makes more sense to assume the user behind the keyboard is in NYC. The question is, for what purposes is the user trying to be unmasked? In the world we live in, the entirel…
> The question is, for what purposes is the user trying to be unmasked?
I disagree that ads are the only reason to dox someone. I assume that few pieces of writing would be controversial enough to warrant a fake identity, but those few would be important.
If I wanted to pseudonymously accuse a mayor of corruption, I think it would be safer to generate true stats and interview real people, but do so in an area I don't live, with some anecdotes where the facts don't quite match my life, using language that has been edited by a friend with a different writing style.