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So choose an identifier that does not... identify you. Or choose not to have a username. I assume that that will be an option, since Telegram has it as well.

by iqanq 5y ago

thaumasiotes 5y ago
No, the problem your parent is referring to is that you have the same username in every chat. Discord really suffers from this.
- godelski 5y ago
  Actually there are two main problems I'm referring to. You identified one of them. If I want to stay anonymous, I'm really asking how to compartmentalize chats and groups of people. We have different identities with different groups and use different names with them. The other problem is actually the act of sharing a username. If my username is "godelski" then yeah, I can share it on HN and Reddit where I use that username. But now I've deanonymized myself to friends and family who can see that username through Signal. Alternatively, if I have a username "not_godelski" then how do I get in contact with someone on HN while maintaining anonymity? If I use share it under this account then those two names are linked forever and that deanonymizes me. I can't create a new account just to share that name because those groups know me by that name. If I can have an infinite number of usernames, that solves the problem, but this isn't practical (even 5 usernames would be problematic and requires a lot of cognitive load, which is antithetical to Signal's philosophy). There's also a third problem I don't care as much about but I'd assume Signal does. And that's naming collisions. NYT has a Signal number that allows whistleblowers to contact them. What's stopping me from creating the username NYT_Whistleblower and becoming a honeypot? Edit: Lots of people are saying you can't share contact without revealing your identity. Does a 1-click link not solve this issue? If I post a signal.me/#one-time-code/jdjkerfe2r3rfwseffre5ge5g then I don't see how that would reveal my identity. (I'm also not a fan of "you can't". I can understand this being unsolved, but it feels like there are solutions to this problem)
  - thaumasiotes 5y ago
    > There's also a third problem I don't care as much about but I'd assume Signal does. And that's naming collisions. NYT has a Signal number that allows whistleblowers to contact them. What's stopping me from creating the username NYT_Whistleblower and becoming a honeypot? That's easy; you want an internal identifier for Signal accounts that is unrelated to display name. This is already routine in most places including Discord.[1] Nothing stops you from creating the username NYT_Whistleblower, but that won't be what the NYT advertises to potential whistleblowers. > Alternatively, if I have a username "not_godelski" then how do I get in contact with someone on HN while maintaining anonymity? Well, you can't. Revealing your identity necessarily involves losing your anonymity, and I don't understand how you think those two actions could be theoretically separated. If you want to share your Signal identity with someone who only knows you as "godelski from HN", then once the sharing is accomplished they will know that "godelski from HN" and "godelski from HN's Signal username" are the same person. So will anyone who was allowed to watch the sharing. Perhaps what you want is a single buffer account, where you tell people on HN to contact your buffer account (openly identifying it with yourself), and then you use the buffer account to reveal the identity of your actual account? [1] Note that there is a tension between having a unique identifier by which Signal knows who you are, and the need for participants in two group chats not to be able to notice that your two usernames in those two chats belong to the same person. Discord is failing at this. To be part of a group chat at all, someone is going to have to have an identifier for you; if you want to maintain cross-chat anonymity, you'll need to be able to generate disposable identifiers that you can give to chat admins.
    - godelski 5y ago
      > I don't understand how you think those two actions could be theoretically separated. Suppose Signal generates a one-click (or even temporary) link. I can share that link that'll connect. That can accomplish the same thing as a signal.me address. Onetime links are definitely a thing. I'm sure people that know more can share even more creative ways to accomplish this. Someone has to have some fancy ZKP method for initiating contact. > Perhaps what you want is a single buffer account I think I covered this in my "infinite accounts" above. > [1] Seems to be more easily solved by letting me specify a handle at the per-chat level. > Nothing stops you from creating the username NYT_Whistleblower, but that won't be what the NYT advertises to potential whistleblowers. Seems you're passing the buck. Making it a "not my problem" issue and I think this is a big enough problem that it would make platforms like NYT wary of using such a system.
- yazaddaruvala 5y ago
  It seems like you don't want user id as much as you want searchable user aliases (or persona ids). Basically, a private id (linking your clients), where there are multiple public persona ids for "searching" and adding people to conversations. Users in conversations are linked by (private id and the persona id at creation), where messages get sent between the clients. Meanwhile, people (or rather private ids) get added to conversations by using the publicly searchable personas (i.e. any globally unique string). Then for the life of that conversation, the persona is sticky. You could even add multiple personas from the same user to the same conversation if that is necessary. For some the persona id could be phone numbers, full names, online aliases, emails, etc. People can then hand out different personas depending on the context.

So choose an identifier that does not... identify you. Or choose not to have a username. I assume that that will be an option, since Telegram has it as well.

by iqanq 5y ago

So choose an identifier that does not... identify you. Or choose not to have a username. I assume that that will be an option, since Telegram has it as well.

thaumasiotes 5y ago

No, the problem your parent is referring to is that you have the same username in every chat. Discord really suffers from this.

godelski 5y ago
Actually there are two main problems I'm referring to. You identified one of them. If I want to stay anonymous, I'm really asking how to compartmentalize chats and groups of people. We have different identities with different groups and use different names with them. The other problem is actually the act of sharing a username. If my username is "godelski" then yeah, I can share it on HN and Reddit where I use that username. But now I've deanonymized myself to friends and family who can see that username through Signal. Alternatively, if I have a username "not_godelski" then how do I get in contact with someone on HN while maintaining anonymity? If I use share it under this account then those two names are linked forever and that deanonymizes me. I can't create a new account just to share that name because those groups know me by that name. If I can have an infinite number of usernames, that solves the problem, but this isn't practical (even 5 usernames would be problematic and requires a lot of cognitive load, which is antithetical to Signal's philosophy). There's also a third problem I don't care as much about but I'd assume Signal does. And that's naming collisions. NYT has a Signal number that allows whistleblowers to contact them. What's stopping me from creating the username NYT_Whistleblower and becoming a honeypot? Edit: Lots of people are saying you can't share contact without revealing your identity. Does a 1-click link not solve this issue? If I post a signal.me/#one-time-code/jdjkerfe2r3rfwseffre5ge5g then I don't see how that would reveal my identity. (I'm also not a fan of "you can't". I can understand this being unsolved, but it feels like there are solutions to this problem)
- thaumasiotes 5y ago
  > There's also a third problem I don't care as much about but I'd assume Signal does. And that's naming collisions. NYT has a Signal number that allows whistleblowers to contact them. What's stopping me from creating the username NYT_Whistleblower and becoming a honeypot? That's easy; you want an internal identifier for Signal accounts that is unrelated to display name. This is already routine in most places including Discord.[1] Nothing stops you from creating the username NYT_Whistleblower, but that won't be what the NYT advertises to potential whistleblowers. > Alternatively, if I have a username "not_godelski" then how do I get in contact with someone on HN while maintaining anonymity? Well, you can't. Revealing your identity necessarily involves losing your anonymity, and I don't understand how you think those two actions could be theoretically separated. If you want to share your Signal identity with someone who only knows you as "godelski from HN", then once the sharing is accomplished they will know that "godelski from HN" and "godelski from HN's Signal username" are the same person. So will anyone who was allowed to watch the sharing. Perhaps what you want is a single buffer account, where you tell people on HN to contact your buffer account (openly identifying it with yourself), and then you use the buffer account to reveal the identity of your actual account? [1] Note that there is a tension between having a unique identifier by which Signal knows who you are, and the need for participants in two group chats not to be able to notice that your two usernames in those two chats belong to the same person. Discord is failing at this. To be part of a group chat at all, someone is going to have to have an identifier for you; if you want to maintain cross-chat anonymity, you'll need to be able to generate disposable identifiers that you can give to chat admins.
  - godelski 5y ago
    > I don't understand how you think those two actions could be theoretically separated. Suppose Signal generates a one-click (or even temporary) link. I can share that link that'll connect. That can accomplish the same thing as a signal.me address. Onetime links are definitely a thing. I'm sure people that know more can share even more creative ways to accomplish this. Someone has to have some fancy ZKP method for initiating contact. > Perhaps what you want is a single buffer account I think I covered this in my "infinite accounts" above. > [1] Seems to be more easily solved by letting me specify a handle at the per-chat level. > Nothing stops you from creating the username NYT_Whistleblower, but that won't be what the NYT advertises to potential whistleblowers. Seems you're passing the buck. Making it a "not my problem" issue and I think this is a big enough problem that it would make platforms like NYT wary of using such a system.
yazaddaruvala 5y ago
It seems like you don't want user id as much as you want searchable user aliases (or persona ids). Basically, a private id (linking your clients), where there are multiple public persona ids for "searching" and adding people to conversations. Users in conversations are linked by (private id and the persona id at creation), where messages get sent between the clients. Meanwhile, people (or rather private ids) get added to conversations by using the publicly searchable personas (i.e. any globally unique string). Then for the life of that conversation, the persona is sticky. You could even add multiple personas from the same user to the same conversation if that is necessary. For some the persona id could be phone numbers, full names, online aliases, emails, etc. People can then hand out different personas depending on the context.