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For people who want to have a professional social presence (FB/linkedin) as well as an anonymous one (Reddit etc), it’ll be super useful to see if the accounts

by tonmoy 2y ago

For people who want to have a professional social presence (FB/linkedin) as well as an anonymous one (Reddit etc), it’ll be super useful to see if the accounts are truly unlinkable. Moreover if you are opening a new anonymous account, maybe a good idea to search the new username using this tool to make sure it’s not “taken”

dylan604 2y ago
Until some ML process is learned to give a probability that accounts are the same based on writing styles Staying anonymous is very difficult
- cootsnuck 2y ago
  Then people will start using browser extensions that automatically "fuzz" your writing style randomly. That is, if chasing anonymity is someone's true goal.
- mikeodds 2y ago
  Using stats this is called stylometry and I agree this will probably be easier at scale now. You can also match posting windows, pull additional features from database dumps/hacks. Fun post applying it to HN, not sure if the site is still live: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33755016 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33755016
- philipkglass 2y ago
  Stylometry tools may be useful if you already have a small candidate pool of suspected aliases. They produce too many false positives to be useful for blind cross-linking of accounts. Once or twice somebody has done stylometric analysis of HN accounts and I've looked at the results for my accounts. Even though I don't try to obscure style across accounts, stylometry didn't match my actual accounts with each other. My top matches were for accounts controlled by other people.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- BoxedEmpathy 2y ago
  I specifically write with different perspectives, tones, and opinions on different sites in a probably vain attempt to mitigate this. For example, on YouTube I use twitch slang, and on Reddit I use TikTok slang, and on TikTok I use reddit slang. On hackernews a use a slightly whimsical pedantically-infused undergrad tone.
  - t0bia_s 2y ago
    You really care about this and use most privacy invasive platforms at same time? Sounds like interesting acrobatics to me.

by tonmoy 2y ago

dylan604 2y ago

Until some ML process is learned to give a probability that accounts are the same based on writing styles Staying anonymous is very difficult

cootsnuck 2y ago
Then people will start using browser extensions that automatically "fuzz" your writing style randomly. That is, if chasing anonymity is someone's true goal.
mikeodds 2y ago
Using stats this is called stylometry and I agree this will probably be easier at scale now. You can also match posting windows, pull additional features from database dumps/hacks. Fun post applying it to HN, not sure if the site is still live: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33755016 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33755016
philipkglass 2y ago
Stylometry tools may be useful if you already have a small candidate pool of suspected aliases. They produce too many false positives to be useful for blind cross-linking of accounts. Once or twice somebody has done stylometric analysis of HN accounts and I've looked at the results for my accounts. Even though I don't try to obscure style across accounts, stylometry didn't match my actual accounts with each other. My top matches were for accounts controlled by other people.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
BoxedEmpathy 2y ago
I specifically write with different perspectives, tones, and opinions on different sites in a probably vain attempt to mitigate this. For example, on YouTube I use twitch slang, and on Reddit I use TikTok slang, and on TikTok I use reddit slang. On hackernews a use a slightly whimsical pedantically-infused undergrad tone.
- t0bia_s 2y ago
  You really care about this and use most privacy invasive platforms at same time? Sounds like interesting acrobatics to me.