The peer review process isn't actually blind in practice. The number of experts working in a given problem space is small enough that they know most of their pe

The peer review process isn't actually blind in practice. The number of experts working in a given problem space is small enough that they know most of their peers, and usually can identify at a glance who the author of a paper is, from the topic, writing style, and experimental design, which they can recognize from previous publications and correspondence.