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The article touches on a good point: one mistake and you're out. It doesn't even have to be your mistake - you didn't choose to put your SSN out there after all

The article touches on a good point: one mistake and you're out. It doesn't even have to be your mistake - you didn't choose to put your SSN out there after all, yet here we are. This gave me a radical company idea, on the other end of the spectrum: spam as a service. Something that'll take your name, email, and other things and put it all over the internet in questionable and plausibly denial ways. That way, even when someone is trying to find things out about you, it'll be hard to find, and easy to deny. (I'm kidding of course).

propesh 5y ago
Kidding aside, this is exactly how it will go down. Politician in a scrape of financial corruption or etc.? Deepfake s*x video or other viral blatant misinformation & obfuscation; what's the risk? Upside, no one knows what to believe. Exactly what various "countries" are doing. It will be extreme; to the point where, don't believe half of what you actually see.
- bee_rider 5y ago
  It should be noted that this is a pretty bad end state. Reporting is already an extremely weak force for preventing corruption on the part of the powerful. Journalists entering a state of total uselessness is only going to make the problem bigger. In a realm of total bullshit the winners are the one who are best at lying. "I don't know what to believe and everyone involved is probably corrupt" is usually just an excuse to disengage and follow base instincts.
  - jimkleiber 5y ago
    > It should be noted that this is a pretty bad end state I agree. The parent poster didn't ask what's the downside, and I think it's this: when no one knows what to believe and starts to distrust most things, society may start to fall apart, as society relies on us trusting each other. So while I think disinformation is one of the best privacy strategies (not so different from differential privacy efforts by Google and others, suggested by the OP but without the term name), I think the more we lie to hide, the more we spin others and ourselves in circles. I really like Sam Lessin's essay on this at The Information, where he talks about how, with the nature of the internet being so easy to share info, we have to start spreading disinfo to even close colleagues, so far as even lying to ourselves. I think this paradox is one of the most challenging paradoxes of our time: the internet makes it so easy for us to open up and share and yet it makes it so hard for us to not open up and share. [0]: https://www.theinformation.com/articles/the-future-of-privacy-disinformation https://www.theinformation.com/articles/the-future-of-privac...
    - CRConrad 5y ago
      > when no one knows what to believe and starts to distrust most things, society may start to fall apart, as society relies on us trusting each other. A similar take from YouTube (about modern-day Greece) that I happened to come across just this morning: https://youtu.be/404IeUzGNZ4 https://youtu.be/404IeUzGNZ4
  - toss1 5y ago
    >> "I don't know what to believe and everyone involved is probably corrupt" is usually just an excuse to disengage and follow base instincts. It is ALSO the primary goal of dezinformatsia and "flood the zone with bullshit" (promoted by e.g., Steve Bannon) techniques. While some will believe even the most stupid conspiracy theories put out there, many more will just conclude that finding the real truth is impossible/impractical and just disengage. This is a deadly threat to democracy and a key tool to anyone who wants to destroy a society or own it as an autocrat.
  - CRConrad 5y ago
    > In a realm of total bullshit the winners are the one who are best at lying. "I don't know what to believe and everyone involved is probably corrupt" is usually just an excuse to disengage and follow base instincts. Yeah, that's how you win referenda and presidential elections nowadays.
bugBunny 5y ago
I guess none of these suggestions really work without the last one "Move to Brazil and live in the rainforest" :)
- hammock 5y ago
  Even that didn't work for John McAfee
  - LinuxBender 5y ago
    To be fair he never lived in a rain forest. He was always around people and often managed to upset many of them.
  - octoberfranklin 5y ago
    yeah but bath salts did.
  - toss1 5y ago
    McAfee would likely still be around if he hadn't made such a blatant point of publicly thumbing his nose at the US Tax authorities. While it's possible that he was already under investigation and just decided to make a spectacle of it, one thing you do NOT want to do is piss off the bureaucrats. They'll then have literally nothing better to do than track you down, and the largest network in the world to do it, and that network has insane inertia - once they're hunting for you, it just keeps going, they don't get bored.
Damogran6 5y ago
Name it something catchy…like equiphax
- HPsquared 5y ago
  "equip hax"
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
hammock 5y ago
This idea exists but doesn't always work. Example A: Apparent Nazi sympathizers planted inside the Canadian protests- some people thought they were provocateurs, others assumed they were legit and cast a negative light on the protests overall Example B: Hunter Biden's laptop (before it was acknowledged to be real). Saying he was a target for disinformation campaigns mostly worked
Liiiii 5y ago
"Something that'll take your name, email, and other things and put it all over the internet in questionable and plausibly denial ways." What if instead of spamming the correct information out, spam slightly incorrect information out. Correct address, incorrect middle initial, wrong birth month, and a machine generated SSN would be from the right time period, area number, but with an incorrect group and serial number.
adelie 5y ago
This is essentially the premise of Neal Stephenson's Fall or Dodge in Hell.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- sundvor 5y ago
  Reading this now, am 3/4rds into it - bit of a slow burn, but highly fascinating.
  - CRConrad 5y ago
    IMO by ¾ it had gone south; the best bit was around (or just before?) the middle, the youngsters driving through rural Facebook Country. The end was too much silly in-game mechanics for my tastes. Bit of a surprise, really; the rest of his works have held up all the way through for me.
_moof 5y ago
> It doesn't even have to be your mistake This is the crucial piece. It doesn't matter how careful you are; everyone who knows you has to be careful too. I have a... well, I hesitate to use the word stalker, because that makes them sound more motivated than they really are. But someone on that spectrum, anyway. After a few years of being harassed I managed to elude them. Then they found me again. You know how? They pieced together two pieces of information posted publicly by other people. That's all it took.
bimboler38 5y ago
sounds similar to https://redact.dev/ https://redact.dev/
BeFlatXIII 5y ago
More importantly, spam out incorrect data so that no one knows which values to trust unless they already had offline verification of the data.

propesh 5y ago

Kidding aside, this is exactly how it will go down. Politician in a scrape of financial corruption or etc.? Deepfake s*x video or other viral blatant misinformation & obfuscation; what's the risk? Upside, no one knows what to believe. Exactly what various "countries" are doing. It will be extreme; to the point where, don't believe half of what you actually see.

bee_rider 5y ago
It should be noted that this is a pretty bad end state. Reporting is already an extremely weak force for preventing corruption on the part of the powerful. Journalists entering a state of total uselessness is only going to make the problem bigger. In a realm of total bullshit the winners are the one who are best at lying. "I don't know what to believe and everyone involved is probably corrupt" is usually just an excuse to disengage and follow base instincts.
- jimkleiber 5y ago
  > It should be noted that this is a pretty bad end state I agree. The parent poster didn't ask what's the downside, and I think it's this: when no one knows what to believe and starts to distrust most things, society may start to fall apart, as society relies on us trusting each other. So while I think disinformation is one of the best privacy strategies (not so different from differential privacy efforts by Google and others, suggested by the OP but without the term name), I think the more we lie to hide, the more we spin others and ourselves in circles. I really like Sam Lessin's essay on this at The Information, where he talks about how, with the nature of the internet being so easy to share info, we have to start spreading disinfo to even close colleagues, so far as even lying to ourselves. I think this paradox is one of the most challenging paradoxes of our time: the internet makes it so easy for us to open up and share and yet it makes it so hard for us to not open up and share. [0]: https://www.theinformation.com/articles/the-future-of-privacy-disinformation https://www.theinformation.com/articles/the-future-of-privac...
  - CRConrad 5y ago
    > when no one knows what to believe and starts to distrust most things, society may start to fall apart, as society relies on us trusting each other. A similar take from YouTube (about modern-day Greece) that I happened to come across just this morning: https://youtu.be/404IeUzGNZ4 https://youtu.be/404IeUzGNZ4
- toss1 5y ago
  >> "I don't know what to believe and everyone involved is probably corrupt" is usually just an excuse to disengage and follow base instincts. It is ALSO the primary goal of dezinformatsia and "flood the zone with bullshit" (promoted by e.g., Steve Bannon) techniques. While some will believe even the most stupid conspiracy theories put out there, many more will just conclude that finding the real truth is impossible/impractical and just disengage. This is a deadly threat to democracy and a key tool to anyone who wants to destroy a society or own it as an autocrat.
- CRConrad 5y ago
  > In a realm of total bullshit the winners are the one who are best at lying. "I don't know what to believe and everyone involved is probably corrupt" is usually just an excuse to disengage and follow base instincts. Yeah, that's how you win referenda and presidential elections nowadays.

bugBunny 5y ago

I guess none of these suggestions really work without the last one "Move to Brazil and live in the rainforest" :)

hammock 5y ago
Even that didn't work for John McAfee
- LinuxBender 5y ago
  To be fair he never lived in a rain forest. He was always around people and often managed to upset many of them.
- octoberfranklin 5y ago
  yeah but bath salts did.
- toss1 5y ago
  McAfee would likely still be around if he hadn't made such a blatant point of publicly thumbing his nose at the US Tax authorities. While it's possible that he was already under investigation and just decided to make a spectacle of it, one thing you do NOT want to do is piss off the bureaucrats. They'll then have literally nothing better to do than track you down, and the largest network in the world to do it, and that network has insane inertia - once they're hunting for you, it just keeps going, they don't get bored.

Damogran6 5y ago

Name it something catchy…like equiphax

HPsquared 5y ago
"equip hax"

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

hammock 5y ago

This idea exists but doesn't always work. Example A: Apparent Nazi sympathizers planted inside the Canadian protests- some people thought they were provocateurs, others assumed they were legit and cast a negative light on the protests overall Example B: Hunter Biden's laptop (before it was acknowledged to be real). Saying he was a target for disinformation campaigns mostly worked

Liiiii 5y ago

"Something that'll take your name, email, and other things and put it all over the internet in questionable and plausibly denial ways." What if instead of spamming the correct information out, spam slightly incorrect information out. Correct address, incorrect middle initial, wrong birth month, and a machine generated SSN would be from the right time period, area number, but with an incorrect group and serial number.

adelie 5y ago

This is essentially the premise of Neal Stephenson's Fall or Dodge in Hell.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
sundvor 5y ago
Reading this now, am 3/4rds into it - bit of a slow burn, but highly fascinating.
- CRConrad 5y ago
  IMO by ¾ it had gone south; the best bit was around (or just before?) the middle, the youngsters driving through rural Facebook Country. The end was too much silly in-game mechanics for my tastes. Bit of a surprise, really; the rest of his works have held up all the way through for me.

_moof 5y ago

> It doesn't even have to be your mistake This is the crucial piece. It doesn't matter how careful you are; everyone who knows you has to be careful too. I have a... well, I hesitate to use the word stalker, because that makes them sound more motivated than they really are. But someone on that spectrum, anyway. After a few years of being harassed I managed to elude them. Then they found me again. You know how? They pieced together two pieces of information posted publicly by other people. That's all it took.

bimboler38 5y ago

sounds similar to https://redact.dev/ https://redact.dev/

BeFlatXIII 5y ago

More importantly, spam out incorrect data so that no one knows which values to trust unless they already had offline verification of the data.