It's interesting to read about your experience, because I had no idea that keeping pseudonymity could be that stressful. Myself, I maintain projects under a pseudonym mainly to prevent interference with real life, and to prevent stupid kids / activists harassing me due to who I am / where I live (I don't have issues with harassment per se, just prefer not to deal with it when possible due to lack of time). I never had an issue with telling my real name when necessary, or telling people I know in real life about my projects, but could have easily done without either. Below I will try to address some of the points that you raise:
1. Keeping true pseudonymity (under some reasonable threat model) is very hard, because people make mistakes. It's always easy to look at something in hindsight, and say: “This guy shouldn't have done this”. I have seen that, e.g., while investigating hacking incidents. Still, I believe that I could pull off true pseudonymity, but it would require too much resources (both technical and time). In my case, it's not worth it. 2. Not being able to tell anyone is an issue of having to keep a secret, not of pseudonymity. I had to keep secrets in the past (the kind where you break the law by divulging them), and the first time it is indeed psychologically straining if it's something interesting. After that, I couldn't care less. 3. Paranoia is a similar subject. First time I was under surveillance (when hacking, by another guy remotely watching everything I do, if that matters), it indeed induced strong feelings of paranoia. Afterwards, I stopped caring. If I suspect being under surveillance, I first think about using it to my advantage. That's why, e.g., I can't take Nadim's (in the past) or Jacob's whines seriously. If you claim that you are under constant surveillance, and then see things in your apartment moved in your absence, then you have only yourself to blame for not installing video cameras. Think of the possibilities (on the other hand, you might discover that nothing happened, so the drama potential is lower, heh). 4. Not being able to express yourself under a real name. This is an issue of culture — you should have tried imageboards. :) 5. I think you overestimate how much people care, in general. You could have kept reasonable pseudonymity even if you did everything outlined in the last paragraph of your post. On the other hand, you would need *a lot* of resources and expertise to hide from NSA, I doubt you invested that much. -- Liberationtech is public & archives are searchable on Google. Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech. Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at [email protected].
