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This part at the end -- particularly the last graf -- caught my eye: "With all of our identifying information getting sliced, diced, and sold, by everyone from

This part at the end -- particularly the last graf -- caught my eye: "With all of our identifying information getting sliced, diced, and sold, by everyone from credit card companies to Facebook, is there really such a thing as the anonymous Web anymore? Consider this demonstration from the late ’90s by Carnegie Mellon University computer science professor Latanya Sweeney. She took three commonly available data points: sex (male), ZIP code (02138), and date of birth (July 31, 1945). Those seemingly anonymous attributes could have described lots of people, right? Actually, no. She proved they could belong to just one person: former governor William Weld. She tells me that 87 percent of Americans can now be identified with just these three data points."

astrange 16y ago
I don't see what that has to do with an "anonymous Web" at all. Nobody on Facebook thinks they're an anonymous forum poster, and I doubt anyone goes around mentioning their zip code and date of birth on forums anyway. (Although many profile pages do have city and year of birth, which might be enough…) Besides, if it was an anonymous forum (http://wakaba.c3.cx/shii/ http://wakaba.c3.cx/shii/), nobody could tie your separate posts together even if you put some identifying information in them. On the other hand, people on Facebook are happy to put their real names on angry political statements. So maybe this article shouldn't have bothered confusing "anonymous" and "uses pseudonyms" to make its point.
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sesqu 16y ago
Your birthdate alone is something like 14 bits of information. I've never understood why some ask for it, and always tend to just make sure my age shows up as at least 18. And I would never put my zip code on anything purportedly anonymous. I bet if you collected statistics on internet users, you'd find out a lot of people were born on January 1. 1980.

astrange 16y ago

I don't see what that has to do with an "anonymous Web" at all. Nobody on Facebook thinks they're an anonymous forum poster, and I doubt anyone goes around mentioning their zip code and date of birth on forums anyway. (Although many profile pages do have city and year of birth, which might be enough…) Besides, if it was an anonymous forum (http://wakaba.c3.cx/shii/ http://wakaba.c3.cx/shii/), nobody could tie your separate posts together even if you put some identifying information in them. On the other hand, people on Facebook are happy to put their real names on angry political statements. So maybe this article shouldn't have bothered confusing "anonymous" and "uses pseudonyms" to make its point.

deleted 16y ago

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sesqu 16y ago

Your birthdate alone is something like 14 bits of information. I've never understood why some ask for it, and always tend to just make sure my age shows up as at least 18. And I would never put my zip code on anything purportedly anonymous. I bet if you collected statistics on internet users, you'd find out a lot of people were born on January 1. 1980.