On 20 Jan 2014, at 19:40 , rysiek <[email protected]> wrote: > Dnia niedziela, 19 stycznia 2014 22:43:28 Troy Benjegerdes pisze: >> >> The experience (experiment?) did, however, confirm my personal conviction >> that privacy and anonymity are expensive, and we as a society generally >> have to pay that cost for others, and the cost continues to spiral out of >> control as surveillance capabilities spiral out of control. > > Indeed. However, *pseudonymity* offers the benefits of identifiability > without > many of the drawbacks of total anonymity.
In many ways psuedonymity is easier, but it does increase the importance of being very careful to avoid giving out revealing information. Over time, small details which are easily leaked (either explicitly, or through unintentional references to local facts, events, and jargon, areas of interest, personal details hinting at age, gender, etc., and so on), can build up into enough detail to identify a person down to a very few people, at least for those with the resources and inclination to make such an attempt. One strategy I have heard of to mitigate that risk is creating a deliberately false persona, one which lives in the same city but in totally different circumstances (changing their family relationships, type of house, etc.), and adjusting tehri comments to fit that, which reduces the risk of accidental disclosure but requires more effort than ordinary psuedonymity.
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