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> Starting with their name from their badge, we'd see how many of the top 10 security questions we could answer A fun thing I do is to just not use my legal na
by Swizec 6y ago
> Starting with their name from their badge, we'd see how many of the top 10 security questions we could answer
A fun thing I do is to just not use my legal name. Online or in person (unless talking to a doctor and such). Many of my friends don’t even realize.
Of course the problem is that at this point I’ve used this name enough that you can probably do all the same tricks with it. That’s why I use yet a 3rd name as a throwaway at coffee shops or with transient strangers.
Getting death threats from dad’s business dealings once was enough.
- mxstbr 6y ago> Getting death threats from dad’s business dealings once was enough. I would love to hear that story if you're up for telling it Swizec!
- imoverclocked 6y agoIf I were him, I wouldn't post it here because it's a link between his previous (attacked) identity and his current online identity.
- Kye 6y agoThis happens a lot among furries. Way more people know me as Kye than by my legal name.
- kibwen 6y agoThis is a great idea that I've been coming around to for a while now. 1. Have a legal/professional name. This is what shows up on your birth certificate, your IDs, what the people at your work know you by, etc. 2. Have a personal name. This is what your friends and family know you by, and can be completely disjoint from your legal name. A low-effort way of approximating this is just to go by your middle name among friends, since you're usually not required to divulge your full middle name on formal documents, so you can still maintain some degree of separation. 3. Have a public name, or a variety of public names, that are disjoint from the prior two. These are your social media account names, email address, Twitter handle, etc. Let these be as disposable as possible and, if feasible, rotate them out every few years.
- caseysoftware 6y agoThat's an okay idea but it still dependent on secrets. The first time some books a flight or hotel on your behalf or your company pays an expense report, it's no longer a secret. But your third point of having a variety of public names is good. Ideally, don't connect or link them in any way either.
- BitwiseFool 6y agoInterestingly enough, having multiple names for different situations was commonplace before bureaucracy wanted standardized personal and surnames for better record keeping and taxation. Names used to be a lot more flexible and contextual before statecraft.
- mariojv 6y agoHuh, I wasn't aware of this. Do you have any good articles or books you could recommend about that phenomenon?
- BitwiseFool 6y agoI learned about this from a section in James C. Scott's Seeing Like a State. Sadly I don't have a specific page number or citation to provide you with. But the section talked about how families were given names based on profession (Smith, Baker, Carpenter, .etc), description (Short, Young, etc.), or general location (Glenn, Brook, etc.) and all of this was done to simplify taxation and get a better command of resource extraction. This phenomenon is not unique to the West and was done in China as well.