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He expressed negative sentiments about South Korea and showed he accessed a particular website at a given time. Don’t post anything on the internet if you wish

He expressed negative sentiments about South Korea and showed he accessed a particular website at a given time. Don’t post anything on the internet if you wish to remain anonymous. Don’t express opinions about anything. We’ve had a few different posts on HN demonstrating that it is trivial to link aliases based on writing style. To avoid this you’d have to pipe everything you write through an LLM. And then you have another potential data point.

staunton 2y ago
> We’ve had a few different posts on HN demonstrating that it is trivial to link aliases based on writing style. Do you have a link? I wasn't able to find it...
- ailef 2y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33755016 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33755016
- randunel 2y ago
  In spite of every programmer at work following the same styling guidelines and programming patterns, I can quite easily identify the author of a pull request by reading their code alone. The commenter's claim seems plausible to me.
  - Marsymars 2y ago
    I might actually have an easier time identifying authors by commit messages/patterns rather than their content since the styling guidelines are mostly handled by linters.
- ilamont 2y ago
  Someone created a tool two years ago that does this, https://stylometry.net https://stylometry.net but it appears to be offline. The creator at the time said: This site lets you put in a username and get the users with the most similar writing style to that user. It confirmed several users who I suspected were alts and after informally asking around has identified abandoned accounts of people I know from many years ago. I made this site mostly to show how easy this is and how it can erode online privacy. If some guy with a little bit of Python, and $8 to rent a decent dedicated server for a day can make this, imagine what a company with millions of dollars and a couple dozen PhD linguists could do. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33755016 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33755016 It's also possible to eyeball similar writing styles, although not at scale. That's how "Fake Steve Jobs" was uncovered in 2007: Last year, his agent showed the manuscript to several book publishers and told them the anonymous author was a published novelist and writer for a major business magazine. The New York Times found Mr. Lyons by looking for writers who fit those two criteria, and then by comparing the writing of “Fake Steve” to a blog Mr. Lyons writes in his own name, called Floating Point https://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/06/technology/06steve.html#:~:text=The%20New%20York%20Times%20found,Mr https://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/06/technology/06steve.html#:....
cynicalsecurity 2y ago
This sounds like an advice for living in a crazy authoritarian country, not in the West. It's astonishing how people are supposed to have freedom of speech and freedom from being spied on, since they live in the West and not in a Stasi controlled state, but they are given an advice not to talk too much, or the Big Brother is going to get them.
- amanaplanacanal 2y ago
  That was advice for a criminal who wants to avoid getting caught, not what you are talking about.
- echoangle 2y ago
  Well Big Brother is going to get you if you're a criminal. This advice was for cybercriminals who don't want to get caught, not some random person disagreeing with the government on the internet.
  - grumple 2y ago
    I do think there is some danger in writing anything publicly. Our next government could decide to jail you based on something you said. Society could decide that some widely held opinion you once had is now forbidden. Anything you write could be used by nuts to dox you and expose you to harm.
    - krapp 2y ago
      You might as well say there is some danger to going outside because any random person could just stab you in the street. There is some danger to eating because anything you eat may have been poisoned. Yes, theoretically, everything but the laws of physics are arbitrary, anything is possible, and everything is dangerous. But this isn't an insightful or interesting observation to make.
      - angoragoats 2y ago
        In a vacuum you might be right, but come next month the serial stabbers and food-poisoners will be in charge of the executive branch of the US government. So it’s correct to be concerned about it, if you live there.
jcpham2 2y ago
I will consciously alter the way in which I write wordz on le intranetz to make it more difficult to single me out as a Vietnamese female. I’m guessing not everyone puts this much thought into making words for posterity :-)
- Y_Y 2y ago
  I already have this filter applied to HN. See e.g. https://idiomreplacex.de/ https://idiomreplacex.de/ (German language) It used to be a fun lab prank to set text filters on browsers of unattended laptops, like swapping all gendered words. A colleague spent a week in an alternate universe before he realized something was amiss when he read a movie review for "The Lady of the Rings".
sureglymop 2y ago
I will say that, because this is so trivial, I wish there was at least a way to delete ones profile here. It wouldn't imply deleting the content too, the username could just be `[deleted]` or `ghost` or something.
- mkl 2y ago
  From the FAQ link at the bottom of the page: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html#:~:text=Can%20I%20delete%20my%20account%3F https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html#:~:text=Can%20I%20...
- AnimalMuppet 2y ago
  Yeah, deleting comments doesn't work because of the threaded nature of conversations here. Deleting the user, though... you might suggest this to dang (hn@ycombinator.com).
  - normie3000 2y ago
    Reddit has threads and allows deleting comments. It's quite annoying when reading historical [deleted]
    - duxup 2y ago
      Yeah spammers and non serious trolls use that method a lot, it's a bummer.
  - kelnos 2y ago
    If you click through the FAQ link, there's a link to a comment from dang that says they'll reassign comments to throwaway accounts on request, or even change your distance to something random, which will in effect delete your account, but keep all your comments attributable to a single "anonymous" entity. I think allowing for account deletion line reddit does (with all comments attributed to "[deleted]") is bad for following a conversation after the fact. I'm fine with HN's policy here and think they've struck a decent balance. I think this should be a case of "if you're not ok with this, don't post on HN".

staunton 2y ago

> We’ve had a few different posts on HN demonstrating that it is trivial to link aliases based on writing style. Do you have a link? I wasn't able to find it...

ailef 2y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33755016 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33755016
randunel 2y ago
In spite of every programmer at work following the same styling guidelines and programming patterns, I can quite easily identify the author of a pull request by reading their code alone. The commenter's claim seems plausible to me.
- Marsymars 2y ago
  I might actually have an easier time identifying authors by commit messages/patterns rather than their content since the styling guidelines are mostly handled by linters.
ilamont 2y ago
Someone created a tool two years ago that does this, https://stylometry.net https://stylometry.net but it appears to be offline. The creator at the time said: This site lets you put in a username and get the users with the most similar writing style to that user. It confirmed several users who I suspected were alts and after informally asking around has identified abandoned accounts of people I know from many years ago. I made this site mostly to show how easy this is and how it can erode online privacy. If some guy with a little bit of Python, and $8 to rent a decent dedicated server for a day can make this, imagine what a company with millions of dollars and a couple dozen PhD linguists could do. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33755016 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33755016 It's also possible to eyeball similar writing styles, although not at scale. That's how "Fake Steve Jobs" was uncovered in 2007: Last year, his agent showed the manuscript to several book publishers and told them the anonymous author was a published novelist and writer for a major business magazine. The New York Times found Mr. Lyons by looking for writers who fit those two criteria, and then by comparing the writing of “Fake Steve” to a blog Mr. Lyons writes in his own name, called Floating Point https://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/06/technology/06steve.html#:~:text=The%20New%20York%20Times%20found,Mr https://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/06/technology/06steve.html#:....

cynicalsecurity 2y ago

This sounds like an advice for living in a crazy authoritarian country, not in the West. It's astonishing how people are supposed to have freedom of speech and freedom from being spied on, since they live in the West and not in a Stasi controlled state, but they are given an advice not to talk too much, or the Big Brother is going to get them.

amanaplanacanal 2y ago
That was advice for a criminal who wants to avoid getting caught, not what you are talking about.
echoangle 2y ago
Well Big Brother is going to get you if you're a criminal. This advice was for cybercriminals who don't want to get caught, not some random person disagreeing with the government on the internet.
- grumple 2y ago
  I do think there is some danger in writing anything publicly. Our next government could decide to jail you based on something you said. Society could decide that some widely held opinion you once had is now forbidden. Anything you write could be used by nuts to dox you and expose you to harm.
  - krapp 2y ago
    You might as well say there is some danger to going outside because any random person could just stab you in the street. There is some danger to eating because anything you eat may have been poisoned. Yes, theoretically, everything but the laws of physics are arbitrary, anything is possible, and everything is dangerous. But this isn't an insightful or interesting observation to make.
    - angoragoats 2y ago
      In a vacuum you might be right, but come next month the serial stabbers and food-poisoners will be in charge of the executive branch of the US government. So it’s correct to be concerned about it, if you live there.

jcpham2 2y ago

I will consciously alter the way in which I write wordz on le intranetz to make it more difficult to single me out as a Vietnamese female. I’m guessing not everyone puts this much thought into making words for posterity :-)

Y_Y 2y ago
I already have this filter applied to HN. See e.g. https://idiomreplacex.de/ https://idiomreplacex.de/ (German language) It used to be a fun lab prank to set text filters on browsers of unattended laptops, like swapping all gendered words. A colleague spent a week in an alternate universe before he realized something was amiss when he read a movie review for "The Lady of the Rings".

sureglymop 2y ago

I will say that, because this is so trivial, I wish there was at least a way to delete ones profile here. It wouldn't imply deleting the content too, the username could just be `[deleted]` or `ghost` or something.

mkl 2y ago
From the FAQ link at the bottom of the page: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html#:~:text=Can%20I%20delete%20my%20account%3F https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html#:~:text=Can%20I%20...
AnimalMuppet 2y ago
Yeah, deleting comments doesn't work because of the threaded nature of conversations here. Deleting the user, though... you might suggest this to dang (hn@ycombinator.com).
- normie3000 2y ago
  Reddit has threads and allows deleting comments. It's quite annoying when reading historical [deleted]
  - duxup 2y ago
    Yeah spammers and non serious trolls use that method a lot, it's a bummer.
- kelnos 2y ago
  If you click through the FAQ link, there's a link to a comment from dang that says they'll reassign comments to throwaway accounts on request, or even change your distance to something random, which will in effect delete your account, but keep all your comments attributable to a single "anonymous" entity. I think allowing for account deletion line reddit does (with all comments attributed to "[deleted]") is bad for following a conversation after the fact. I'm fine with HN's policy here and think they've struck a decent balance. I think this should be a case of "if you're not ok with this, don't post on HN".