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Ask HN: Identifying The Anonymous User
Hello Hacker News, it's been a long time since I've asked you guys something and I figured this place was the best place to ask this question:
What are the best or most efficient method to identifying a user without the use of accounts, destroying privacy, or demolishing anonymity?
If the question is too hard, how about if you're just limited to no accounts?
EDIT: I should have specified "Anonymous in the way that 4chan users are anonymous to each other."
EDIT2: The thing that got me thinking about it was this https://panopticlick.eff.org/
- mooism2 16y agoWhat's the context? When they use your website? What do you mean by "identifying a user"? Simply knowing that they're the same person who performed a specific action earlier?
- krainboltgreene 16y agoI edited to clarify: I should have specified "Anonymous in the way that 4chan users are anonymous to each other." And yes, as in "same person who performed a specific action earlier".
- rth5yh 16y agoI tinkered once with hash of a user's passphrase, salted, and then using 4 digits from the middle of the resulting hash as a username. I then used a different 4 digits as a cookie token so they only had to enter it once per sesssion. It's not terribly secure, it's not collision-proof, etc, but you may find some use from the basic principle - it's quick and easy and was useful on the scale I needed it for :) Edit: Point of note: The same people who wouldn't type 16 characters of username and password would happily type 30 or 40 character passphrases... There's some novelty to it, apparently :)
- pbhjpbhj 16y agoI gather that UA info is surprisingly close to unique - mix in installed fonts and I think you're there.