61 ms·

Yeah, it's too cute by half to pretend you're working to respect his pseudonymity and then link a tweet you sent out with his real name attached. That's also c

Yeah, it's too cute by half to pretend you're working to respect his pseudonymity and then link a tweet you sent out with his real name attached. That's also clearly not a clean incognito search, as it has your previous search with his name included.

tptacek 6y ago
How much of a conversation about the Google-fu required to produce his name do you want to have here? I agree, though: the screenshot didn't help; if it was me, I'd edit it out.
- scarmig 6y ago
  I think everyone would agree that it's easy to link the two names if you have foreknowledge that they're linked, and that furthermore you need at most middling Google-fu to find his real name from his pseudonym if you're motivated. It was mostly just annoying that they were presenting theirself as being a civil, good-faith rule abider, while also being clearly thrilled at "cleverly" outing Scott Alexander.
  - KirinDave 6y ago
    I'm not outing him. He outed himself. I even felt a bit of sympathy for him before I realized his fan reddit has invoked his name many times. I even suggested in public I'm a fan of some of his writing. But this is just ridiculous.
  - tptacek 6y ago
    No. That is not what I'm saying. I wouldn't be saying, over and over again, that this identity was effectively already public if all I had was "if you know his real name you can confirm the link". I'm saying that the Googling required to uncover his name is trivial armed only with the name "Scott Alexander". Please acknowledge that, thank you.
    - scarmig 6y ago
      > that furthermore you need at most middling Google-fu to find his real name from his pseudonym if you're motivated. As far as I can tell, we're in violent agreement?
      - tptacek 6y ago
        You just said "I think everyone would agree that it's easy to link the two names if you have foreknowledge that they're linked" and that is not what I'm saying. To be in violent agreement with me, you'd more or less have to say his real name is immediately available to anyone who knows the name "Scott Alexander".
        scarmig 6y ago
        So, I made two claims in the original (and unedited) comment that spawned this thread: 1) The weaker one, about link finding 2) and furthermore a stronger one, which I quote in my response. The stronger one being, "you need at most middling Google-fu to find his real name from his pseudonym if you're motivated." That stronger claim is still weaker than your "his real name is immediately available to anyone who knows the name Scott Alexander." That said, perhaps we have different thresholds for immediate: mine was spending ~60 seconds searching for his pseudonym and trying to find his real name from it, and I failed to find it. I think it's likely I could within 10 minutes, but I'd put that clearly in the territory of my intermediate claim.
        tptacek 6y ago
        I'm lost. Anyways: the Google searches have nothing to do with already knowing Scott Alexander's real name.
        KirinDave 6y ago
        Go do a firstname lastname search for Scott and then look what shows up on page 1. I regret to inform you he cannot escape his reactionary blog just by wishing it so. If anything, this escapade will draw more attention to him. The NYT is not required
lazyasciiart 6y ago
It's not, but it's very easy to try your own incognito search - for me, at least, it was the same results in a different order.
KirinDave 6y ago
My central thesis is that I don't respect his pseudonymity, because he does not have it. I'm within the letter of the site rules, even if it pisses me off a bit.
KirinDave 6y ago
Uh, I regret to inform you that I found the name from the autocomplete and then hit tab. It was not on the tip of my tongue and you can easily reproduce the experiment if you don't believe me.
- scarmig 6y ago
  My reproduced experiment: https://imgur.com/a/Ppj57cP https://imgur.com/a/Ppj57cP Note that there's no reference to his real name. The only reference to his real name in your screenshot is the first entry, which is purple and removable because it is coming from your browser's session identity history. If this was in fact in an incognito tab, it's likely you had one or more incognito windows simultaneously open somewhere else where you had searched for him, which carried over into your new tab.
  - danharaj 6y ago
    https://imgur.com/a/NwwBiIo https://imgur.com/a/NwwBiIo I did this on a computer I don't usually use in an incognito tab.
    - scarmig 6y ago
      Interesting. I suspect that the different results Google gives different people (even in incognito mode) are driving a lot of the divergence and even rancor between the two points of view.
      - KirinDave 6y ago
        I have no privileged information except one: my father dropped by and I could reproduce the last name appearing on his non-incognito account. He is not "the target audience" for this sort of thing.

tptacek 6y ago

How much of a conversation about the Google-fu required to produce his name do you want to have here? I agree, though: the screenshot didn't help; if it was me, I'd edit it out.

scarmig 6y ago
I think everyone would agree that it's easy to link the two names if you have foreknowledge that they're linked, and that furthermore you need at most middling Google-fu to find his real name from his pseudonym if you're motivated. It was mostly just annoying that they were presenting theirself as being a civil, good-faith rule abider, while also being clearly thrilled at "cleverly" outing Scott Alexander.
- KirinDave 6y ago
  I'm not outing him. He outed himself. I even felt a bit of sympathy for him before I realized his fan reddit has invoked his name many times. I even suggested in public I'm a fan of some of his writing. But this is just ridiculous.
- tptacek 6y ago
  No. That is not what I'm saying. I wouldn't be saying, over and over again, that this identity was effectively already public if all I had was "if you know his real name you can confirm the link". I'm saying that the Googling required to uncover his name is trivial armed only with the name "Scott Alexander". Please acknowledge that, thank you.
  - scarmig 6y ago
    > that furthermore you need at most middling Google-fu to find his real name from his pseudonym if you're motivated. As far as I can tell, we're in violent agreement?
    - tptacek 6y ago
      You just said "I think everyone would agree that it's easy to link the two names if you have foreknowledge that they're linked" and that is not what I'm saying. To be in violent agreement with me, you'd more or less have to say his real name is immediately available to anyone who knows the name "Scott Alexander".
      - scarmig 6y ago
        So, I made two claims in the original (and unedited) comment that spawned this thread: 1) The weaker one, about link finding 2) and furthermore a stronger one, which I quote in my response. The stronger one being, "you need at most middling Google-fu to find his real name from his pseudonym if you're motivated." That stronger claim is still weaker than your "his real name is immediately available to anyone who knows the name Scott Alexander." That said, perhaps we have different thresholds for immediate: mine was spending ~60 seconds searching for his pseudonym and trying to find his real name from it, and I failed to find it. I think it's likely I could within 10 minutes, but I'd put that clearly in the territory of my intermediate claim.
        tptacek 6y ago
        I'm lost. Anyways: the Google searches have nothing to do with already knowing Scott Alexander's real name.
        KirinDave 6y ago
        Go do a firstname lastname search for Scott and then look what shows up on page 1. I regret to inform you he cannot escape his reactionary blog just by wishing it so. If anything, this escapade will draw more attention to him. The NYT is not required

lazyasciiart 6y ago

It's not, but it's very easy to try your own incognito search - for me, at least, it was the same results in a different order.

KirinDave 6y ago

My central thesis is that I don't respect his pseudonymity, because he does not have it. I'm within the letter of the site rules, even if it pisses me off a bit.

KirinDave 6y ago

Uh, I regret to inform you that I found the name from the autocomplete and then hit tab. It was not on the tip of my tongue and you can easily reproduce the experiment if you don't believe me.

scarmig 6y ago
My reproduced experiment: https://imgur.com/a/Ppj57cP https://imgur.com/a/Ppj57cP Note that there's no reference to his real name. The only reference to his real name in your screenshot is the first entry, which is purple and removable because it is coming from your browser's session identity history. If this was in fact in an incognito tab, it's likely you had one or more incognito windows simultaneously open somewhere else where you had searched for him, which carried over into your new tab.
- danharaj 6y ago
  https://imgur.com/a/NwwBiIo https://imgur.com/a/NwwBiIo I did this on a computer I don't usually use in an incognito tab.
  - scarmig 6y ago
    Interesting. I suspect that the different results Google gives different people (even in incognito mode) are driving a lot of the divergence and even rancor between the two points of view.
    - KirinDave 6y ago
      I have no privileged information except one: my father dropped by and I could reproduce the last name appearing on his non-incognito account. He is not "the target audience" for this sort of thing.