5 ms·

The trouble with that is that once you post something to it you can never associate it with yourself (even accidentally!) or deanonymization of everything else

by Reelin 6y ago

The trouble with that is that once you post something to it you can never associate it with yourself (even accidentally!) or deanonymization of everything else posted by that identity will also occur. Half baked idea: A decentralized and properly anonymized (at the protocol level) service intended for long-form articles. Employ cryptographic primitives to allow association of a single article with one or more identities at any time after publication. (I suspect such a system would just end up getting abused, but who knows?)

derrick_jensen 6y ago
I'm about to release something very similar to this. You might see it here in a week or two
- jborichevskiy 6y ago
  This sounds cool - I'll be keeping an eye out!
hk__2 6y ago
> Half baked idea: A decentralized and properly anonymized (at the protocol level) service intended for long-form articles. Employ cryptographic primitives to allow association of a single article with one or more identities at any time after publication. (I suspect such a system would just end up getting abused, but who knows?) The downside is that as a reader you wouldn’t be able to follow your favorite authors anymore.
adrianN 6y ago
That won't be safe for very long. De-anonymization based on writing style is pretty good already.
- langitbiru 6y ago
  Maybe AI that changes the writing style to monotonous style would help. Say, you always write like Yoda speaks, "Great you are." Then the AI would change it to, "You are great." I know, I know, it's a tall order.
  - pferde 6y ago
    I suspect that resulting articles would be, while probably reasonably safe from style analysis, awfully boring and difficult to read. Good and interesting writing style is a skill.
  - stagas 6y ago
    You could pass it through a Google Translate, or maybe a couple, then back - correct for minor errors and style has changed (maybe not that much, but enough to scare AI).
  - WalterSear 6y ago
    Not necessarily that tall: you just need copies of a long enough text, written in different writing styles.
- Reelin 6y ago
  That's definitely true, but depending on the usecase it might not matter all that much. Also, that problem already applies to an anonymous blog anyway! Consider the usage of semi-anonymous accounts on HN or Reddit or wherever. There's some risk of deanonymization depending on usage style and how determined the attacker is, but it's still quite different from openly publishing things in a manner that links back to you directly. The issue for me is that (for an anonymous blog) once I decide to publish something to it the article becomes permanently and publicly linked to all the others as well. This means that I can never change my mind in the future without simultaneously changing my mind about all the other content published there. It also means that if I ever slip up (say on a non-anonymous HN account) and reveal that I'm the author then I've inadvertently and publicly tied the entire blog to myself (not just that one article).
  - abanayev 6y ago
    An anonymous blog platform that offers a permanent and trusted Delete button could both let you change your mind about a former opinion and offer a fix in case of accidental slip-up
    - Reelin 6y ago
      > a permanent and trusted Delete button Any time bits leave your computer it would be wise to assume that they're out in the world for good. Especially for anything with a distributed architecture, presumably all you have control over is whether your personal box continues distributing it. I suppose you could set a "don't distribute" flag and hope that other hosts choose to honor it ...
jstanley 6y ago
How would such a system be "abused"? What does abuse of a blogging platform even look like? People might write text that others don't want to read?
- Reelin 6y ago
  I hadn't really thought it through honestly. I'm just assuming that if an anonymized publishing service with a low barrier to entry exists that people will find creative ways to misuse it. Semi-related Google Drive usage: (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19907271 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19907271) Consider all the issues that Reddit and HN have with spam and other sorts of abuse. Then again, BitTorrent and IPFS seem to work well enough. At a minimum, I suspect that issues will tend to crop up anywhere a search or other curation mechanism exists that can potentially be gamed in order to gain an audience.
larsrc 6y ago
"Hi! It looks like you're trying to solve complex social problems with technology. Would you like some help in your futile endeavour?"
- Reelin 6y ago
  What complex social problem? All I see are a few technical problems regarding security, anonymity, and interrelations between nodes on a graph. There's also a closely related ease of use (ie UX) problem regarding the convenience (or rather lack thereof) of publishing things in a reasonably anonymous manner. All the social problems, such as the underlying reasons for wanting or needing anonymity in the first place, remain.
  - pferde 6y ago
    It is a social problem because even the strongest, most bullet-proof cryptography solution can't prevent people slipping up and making mistakes, which a motivated attacker can then use to de-anonymize and connect their various identities together. And people will slip up and make mistakes. A lot.
    - Reelin 6y ago
      I agree that the potential for making mistakes could contribute to a social problem, but it's one that already exists. I also wasn't proposing to solve it - hence my earlier response.
  - tonyarkles 6y ago
    “Authorship Attribution” is an active field of research. Even if you manage to solve the problem of anonymously publishing a bunch of content under distinct anonymous pseudonyms (or completely anonymously), there’s a non-negligible probability that, as soon as the author of one work is identified, the entire body of work can be attributed to that person.
Rerarom 6y ago
You can invent a separate identity with the goal of being deanonymized one day. And post what you want to keep anonymous using other identities.

by Reelin 6y ago

derrick_jensen 6y ago

I'm about to release something very similar to this. You might see it here in a week or two

jborichevskiy 6y ago
This sounds cool - I'll be keeping an eye out!

hk__2 6y ago

> Half baked idea: A decentralized and properly anonymized (at the protocol level) service intended for long-form articles. Employ cryptographic primitives to allow association of a single article with one or more identities at any time after publication. (I suspect such a system would just end up getting abused, but who knows?) The downside is that as a reader you wouldn’t be able to follow your favorite authors anymore.

adrianN 6y ago

That won't be safe for very long. De-anonymization based on writing style is pretty good already.

langitbiru 6y ago
Maybe AI that changes the writing style to monotonous style would help. Say, you always write like Yoda speaks, "Great you are." Then the AI would change it to, "You are great." I know, I know, it's a tall order.
- pferde 6y ago
  I suspect that resulting articles would be, while probably reasonably safe from style analysis, awfully boring and difficult to read. Good and interesting writing style is a skill.
- stagas 6y ago
  You could pass it through a Google Translate, or maybe a couple, then back - correct for minor errors and style has changed (maybe not that much, but enough to scare AI).
- WalterSear 6y ago
  Not necessarily that tall: you just need copies of a long enough text, written in different writing styles.
Reelin 6y ago
That's definitely true, but depending on the usecase it might not matter all that much. Also, that problem already applies to an anonymous blog anyway! Consider the usage of semi-anonymous accounts on HN or Reddit or wherever. There's some risk of deanonymization depending on usage style and how determined the attacker is, but it's still quite different from openly publishing things in a manner that links back to you directly. The issue for me is that (for an anonymous blog) once I decide to publish something to it the article becomes permanently and publicly linked to all the others as well. This means that I can never change my mind in the future without simultaneously changing my mind about all the other content published there. It also means that if I ever slip up (say on a non-anonymous HN account) and reveal that I'm the author then I've inadvertently and publicly tied the entire blog to myself (not just that one article).
- abanayev 6y ago
  An anonymous blog platform that offers a permanent and trusted Delete button could both let you change your mind about a former opinion and offer a fix in case of accidental slip-up
  - Reelin 6y ago
    > a permanent and trusted Delete button Any time bits leave your computer it would be wise to assume that they're out in the world for good. Especially for anything with a distributed architecture, presumably all you have control over is whether your personal box continues distributing it. I suppose you could set a "don't distribute" flag and hope that other hosts choose to honor it ...

jstanley 6y ago

How would such a system be "abused"? What does abuse of a blogging platform even look like? People might write text that others don't want to read?

Reelin 6y ago
I hadn't really thought it through honestly. I'm just assuming that if an anonymized publishing service with a low barrier to entry exists that people will find creative ways to misuse it. Semi-related Google Drive usage: (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19907271 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19907271) Consider all the issues that Reddit and HN have with spam and other sorts of abuse. Then again, BitTorrent and IPFS seem to work well enough. At a minimum, I suspect that issues will tend to crop up anywhere a search or other curation mechanism exists that can potentially be gamed in order to gain an audience.

larsrc 6y ago

"Hi! It looks like you're trying to solve complex social problems with technology. Would you like some help in your futile endeavour?"

Reelin 6y ago
What complex social problem? All I see are a few technical problems regarding security, anonymity, and interrelations between nodes on a graph. There's also a closely related ease of use (ie UX) problem regarding the convenience (or rather lack thereof) of publishing things in a reasonably anonymous manner. All the social problems, such as the underlying reasons for wanting or needing anonymity in the first place, remain.
- pferde 6y ago
  It is a social problem because even the strongest, most bullet-proof cryptography solution can't prevent people slipping up and making mistakes, which a motivated attacker can then use to de-anonymize and connect their various identities together. And people will slip up and make mistakes. A lot.
  - Reelin 6y ago
    I agree that the potential for making mistakes could contribute to a social problem, but it's one that already exists. I also wasn't proposing to solve it - hence my earlier response.
- tonyarkles 6y ago
  “Authorship Attribution” is an active field of research. Even if you manage to solve the problem of anonymously publishing a bunch of content under distinct anonymous pseudonyms (or completely anonymously), there’s a non-negligible probability that, as soon as the author of one work is identified, the entire body of work can be attributed to that person.

Rerarom 6y ago

You can invent a separate identity with the goal of being deanonymized one day. And post what you want to keep anonymous using other identities.