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Large-Scale Online Deanonymization with LLMs

simonlermen.substack.com

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Re: Large-Scale Online Deanonymization with LLMs

#91

Post by GorbachevyChase »

palmotea wrote: post #60
DalasNoin wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mitigations are pretty difficult, I understand it is kind of cool that some websites have really open APIs where you can just read everything. There are some cool apps that used HN data in the past. But I think there should at least be consideration that LLMs are then going to read everything and potentially discover things. Users might have thought this is protected by obscurity, who would read their 5 year old comm…

How helpful would injecting noise and red herring into pseudonymous posts help? It seems like it would make sense to get in the habit of distort your posts a bit, and do things like make random gender swaps (e.g. s/my husband/my wife), dropping hints that indicate the wrong city (s/I met my friend at Blue Bottle coffee/I met my friend at Coffee Bean), maybe even using an LLM fire off posts indicating false interests…

This is probably a good use case for something like OpenClaw. Have it take over your accounts and inject a bunch of non-offensive noise using a variety of personas to pollute their analysis. Meanwhile, you take your real thoughts and opinions underground.

Re: Large-Scale Online Deanonymization with LLMs

#92

Post by pavel_lishin »

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…

That whole book seemed like a collection of interesting threads that ultimately go nowhere.

I honestly don't even think I understood the ending. Or the middle, if I'm being extra honest.

I think Anathem addressed the "flood the zone with shit" much better in something like three paragraphs.

Re: Large-Scale Online Deanonymization with LLMs

#94

Post by 5o1ecist »

gmuslera wrote: post #51
ceejayoz wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most adversaries who would want to deanonymize people at scale (governments, corporations) already have access to far more direct methods. Easier methods probably means more adversaries.

And different agendas. Governments and corporations doesn't try social engineering attacks, scams or do things that end in i.e. ransomware attacks.

[flagged]

Re: Large-Scale Online Deanonymization with LLMs

#95

Post by arctic-true »

JohnMakin wrote: post #68
warkdarrior wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the implication is this will become trivial and trivially automated, no human investigator needed. I bet there will be plugins in one year's time to right click on a post and get a full report on who the author is.

agreed and the new frontier here will probably be obfuscation by creating false positives with these same tools, but that kind of renders the web unusable in my mind.

I had this same thought. Seems fairly easy to just put off a strong false signal. If you don’t want anyone to know that you live in Finland, make a point to constantly mention how much you enjoy living in Peru.

Re: Large-Scale Online Deanonymization with LLMs

#96

Post by ectospheno »

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

Re: Large-Scale Online Deanonymization with LLMs

#97

Post by DrewADesign »

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 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 think you’re wrong, but the fact that people consider it inevitable we’ll all have an immutable social acceptance grade that includes everything from teenage shitposts to things you said after a loved one died, or getting diagnosed with cancer, makes me regret putting even a moment of my professional energies towards advancing tech in the US.

Re: Large-Scale Online Deanonymization with LLMs

#98

Post by Jerrrrrrrry »

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…

Throwaway accounts using "clever" turns of phrase can often be anonymized by double click, right-clicking -> googling their witty pun and seeing their the sole instance elsewhere, on Twitter, Facebook, etc

If I see a couple words I dont know in a row, I can infer a posters real name.

Id be more specific but any example is doxxing, literally so

Re: Large-Scale Online Deanonymization with LLMs

#99

Post by gwern »

kseniamorph wrote: post #30

I'm not sure the practical implications are as dramatic as the paper suggests. Most adversaries who would want to deanonymize people at scale (governments, corporations) already have access to far more direct methods. The people most at risk from this are probably activists and whistleblowers in jurisdictions where those direct methods aren't available, not average users.

Attacks can be chained, and this can all be automated. For example, imagine pigbutchering scams... except it's there, similar to some voice-cloning scams, just to get enough data to stylometrically fingerprint you for future reference. You make sure to never comment too much or spicily under your real name, but someone slides into your DMs with a thoughtful, informative, high-quality comment, and you politely strike up an interesting conversation which goes well and you think nothing of it and have forgotten it a week later - and 5 years later you're in jail or fired or have been doxed or been framed. 'Direct methods' can't deliver that kind of capability post hoc, even for actors who do have access to those methods (which is a vanishing percentage of all actors). No one has cheap enough intelligence and skilled labor to do this right now. But they will.

Re: Large-Scale Online Deanonymization with LLMs

#100

Post by qsera »

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…

> as clean of a footprint on the internet

The only winning move here is not to play.

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