Welcome to the Asylum!

[rysiek]

Dnia poniedziałek, 20 stycznia 2014 20:35:48 Philip Shaw pisze:
> On 20 Jan 2014, at 19:40 , rysiek <rysiek at hackerspace.pl> wrote:
> > Dnia niedziela, 19 stycznia 2014 22:43:28 Troy Benjegerdes pisze:
> >> The experience (experiment?) did, however, confirm my personal conviction
> >> that privacy and anonymity are expensive, and we as a society generally
> >> have to pay that cost for others, and the cost continues to spiral out of
> >> control as surveillance capabilities spiral out of control.
> > 
> > Indeed. However, *pseudonymity* offers the benefits of identifiability
> > without many of the drawbacks of total anonymity.
> 
> In many ways psuedonymity is easier, but it does increase the importance of
> being very careful to avoid giving out revealing information.

Ah, apologies. I was unclear. I was refering to the perspective of a 
community, not the individual (as has Troy, I believe). As in: anonymity poses 
significant problems for any community that tries to honour it.

For example anonymous remailer trolls and flames on this list are a concrete 
"cost" of the fact that the list accepts anonymous remailers.

Pseudonymity (along with some reputation-based mechanisms) helps to alleviate 
that, to some extent, while retaining some of the most important advantages of 
personal anonymity.

By the way, I'm perfectly okay with the cost-benefit trade-off we're making on 
this list with anonymous remailers, please do not treat the above as a 
suggestion (pardon! idea ;) ) to remove that option.

> Over time, small details which are easily leaked (either explicitly, or
> through unintentional references to local facts, events, and jargon, areas
> of interest, personal details hinting at age, gender, etc., and so on), can
> build up into enough detail to identify a person down to a very few people,
> at least for those with the resources and inclination to make such an
> attempt.

Indeed.

> One strategy I have heard of to mitigate that risk is creating a
> deliberately false persona, one which lives in the same city but in totally
> different circumstances (changing their family relationships, type of
> house, etc.), and adjusting tehri comments to fit that, which reduces the
> risk of accidental disclosure but requires more effort than ordinary
> psuedonymity.

Seems legit, thanks.

-- 
Pozdr
rysiek
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