4 ms·
Pseudonymous. Just like anyone who is willing to do the work can identify my real identity from my HN writing, a pseudonymous chess handle gives a lot of inform
by alkonaut 4y ago
Pseudonymous. Just like anyone who is willing to do the work can identify my real identity from my HN writing, a pseudonymous chess handle gives a lot of information. A chess player who wants to be anonymous should not re-use a handle for two games. There is no anonymity anywhere if you provide enough entropy which you do if you use a persistent pseudonym.
- sureglymop 4y agoWhat if the playing style of one game is already enough to hint at who might be playing?
- alkonaut 4y agoThen you are never entirely anonymous. I doubt that’s the case though.
- YetAnotherNick 4y agoThey aren’t comparing two sets of games. They are comparing a single game with all player's known set of game. Any FIDE rated player will have a set of games that is known to everyone.
- alkonaut 4y agoYes. If you played enough as a human then you can't play a completely anonymous/pseudonymous game. Just like if you have written 10 bestsellers you probably can't write even a short pseudonymous newspaper column without someone recognizing your style. They can't be sure from that little information, so you aren't completely exposed - but if you keep writing a series of columns they'll be more and more sure. The same thing with chess. Play chess under your real name (or write texts or draw illustrations whatever) and you'll never do so anonymously again. I'm not sure what's so upsetting or revolutionary here.
- lmm 4y agoThe fact that entire games have been repeated, even in top-level play, proves that there's not enough information to determine a player's identity from a single game.
- nextlevelwizard 4y agoIf you want to play against good players you need some games to gain rating
- alkonaut 4y agoYes. That’s fine so long as you never play in person as well, thereby tying a real identity to your pseudonym. Otherwise you can remain pseudonymous (not anonymous) for as long as you want. But there is no way to do a mix of in-person and pseudonymous writing/chess/art/anything with a personal “style”.
- random_kris 4y agoMmmm this could be solved using Zero-Knowledge proofs. When registering pick an elo. Provide a proof that you own the account in that Elo range and then you can create another account that will start in that Elo range.
- alkonaut 4y agoAn account that you never play with doesn't have much value. And as soon as you play one game, thereby revealing your unique playstyle, you have pretty much signed the account with all your previous account names, which also potentially tie into your real identity. So you get ONE pseudonym and then any other account you create are known aliases of that pseudonym. And if you play in person, then any account/pseudonym you ever create are linked to your human identity as well.
- cute_boi 4y agoSo, to solve such issue we can add noise? So, lets say I play 1 game, i let another people/bot to play another game using same account?