
For Hackers, Anonymity Was Once Critical. That’s Changing - extarial
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/22/technology/defcon-hackers-privacy-anonymity.html
======
Tharkun
If anything, now that the internet has effectively become mankind's long-term
memory, anonymity feels more important than ever. If you got into a
regrettable flame war on some mailing list back in 2001, it's still out there,
waiting to be used against you, out of context and in a different era.

People need to be able to make mistakes - or voice uncomfortable truths, blow
whistles etc - without having to worry about repurcussions in some unknown
future.

~~~
Benjamin_Dobell
In the circumstances you've described, I feel as though anonymity is just a
work-around for a larger flaw of mankind. The underlying issue is that humans
tend to lack empathy, are too judgemental and just generally overly critical
of others.

It's 2018, but we're still quick to grab the pitchforks and torch the place -
metaphorically speaking.

~~~
NeedMoreTea
People are unlikely to fix that any time soon so we'd better keep that
workaround as long as possible. Just look how fast racist attacks come after a
news or political event. Or the succession of attacks on the innocent because
some thug mistook paediatrician for paedophile.

In older days if you escaped the actual pitchforks you could move 20 miles
away and start over. Now every moment of teen foolishness, those naive
political beliefs at university, and that joint you smoked but "did not
inhale" are either photographed or documented in perpetuity against your real
name.

That seems a massively foolish gift to everyone with a pitchfork, or looking
to spend an amusing hour assembling a lynch mob, or even a short sighted
potential employer. God help you if you want to run for office 30 years after
your foolish teen excesses.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Random thought: alternatively, could we fast-forward to a day and age where
everyone can find "teen foolishness" photos on everyone else, and thus nobody
is blackmailable? Sanity through MADness, not unlike the current geopolitical
situation.

~~~
NeedMoreTea
One can hope. I'm put immediately in mind of Dave Eggers book The Circle.

Everyone else unless you are rich enough, or powerful enough. Thus in 2045,
humanity's second great period of serfdom commenced.

Also don't be a future person that embarrasses easily.

~~~
tomc1985
The second great period of serfdom has already begun. Look at the current crop
of startups and what the average millenial (and older) is doing to make
money... Uber, contract employment, renting, leasing.... nobody owns anything
anymore unless you're doing well, which is increasingly rare

~~~
smsm42
Given you can't buy a house under $1M in pretty much all Silicon Valley by
now, how rare it is? There are tons of houses and somebody buys them. So
unless that's a dozen people who are buying all the houses - which I don't see
the evidence of, e.g. lots of empty houses or massive rent/own ratio shift -
somebody is doing well enough to buy those $1M houses.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Investors using them as store of value / for rent income, instead of a place
to live?

~~~
smsm42
There should then be people that a) can afford $1M investment and b) can
afford rent prices that justify $1M investment.

------
clubm8
Maybe _psudoanonymity_ \- using a single handle for years and years and
building up an identity is dying off... but anonymity certainly isn't.

I registered this handle via Tor. I don't use it on any other sites. I'll
probably ditch it after a year or two, since on a long enough timeline little
bits of info slip out when making substantive comments. An astute observer can
suss out what times I post, what topics I comment on, and make educated
guesses about my identity.

I have a "real" identity - a public persona. It has a cutesy nickname, a
twitter handle, and all the other online presence. But it's all incredibly
carefully curated, since as the article points out, one slip up and you're
done. The feeling when posting with it is so suffocating I rarely do.

~~~
deytempo
If you use one anonymous handle long enough, a neural net will eventually be
able to connect your subconscious mannerisms to posts made by your true
identity.

~~~
repolfx
Maybe. But that's supposition today.

~~~
yifanl
Data from today will be logged for tomorrow.

------
mindslight
This larger narrative is disingenuous, as it's still rooted in this tired
mischaracterization of using an "alternate name" as "anonymity". Presumably
because anonymity == scary and non-birth-given non-state-registered name also
== scary.

From a technical perspective, using an additional long-standing nym isn't much
different from just using a single one! The people they're _profiling_ (!) are
essentially microcelebrities - notable in their circles, presenting in
meatspace, being photographed, etc. I'm sure their [stated] nyms are still
serving many purposes, but preserving privacy they aren't!

Meanwhile (and this is why I take issue) there most certainly is a type of
"working" anonymity that _all kinds of people_ rely on, which is in the
process of being involuntarily destroyed. It's almost inherently impossible to
report on without resorting to indirect narratives, primarily based on some
kind of disempowerment. But I think what they all really boil down to is our
individual self-determination over the scope of our own relationships.

It's a parallel _je ne sais quoi_ to dragnet surveillance. _I_ personally
don't have anything to hide, and if a government agent wanted to get up in
every aspect my life I would be powerless to prevent it. BUT we all benefit
from keeping the unnotable generally unnoted, rather than cataloged,
characterized, and used to presume to _know us_ removed from our personal
context.

(I know I haven't done a great job describing this - it's awfully tough to
describe the indescribable/unenumerable. But someone is going to have to, in
some very persuasive universally-appealing words, if we're to retain any of
it).

~~~
endominus
If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will
find something in them which will hang him. - Cardinal De Richelieu.

Regarding your latter point, re. self-determination, I'll try a stab at making
it more relatable. Let me know if this approaches that ineffable problem.

Our presentation of ourselves is essentially plastic; with few exceptions,
changing social or temporal variables change our self-expression. We do not
act around our family as we would around our colleagues or around our close
friends. We did not act as a child as we did as a teenager, or young adult, or
elder. It is socially acceptable and even expected to modify "who you are" to
fit the situation you are in.

The internet and mass surveillance has crystallized that plastic nature. You
are not just the person you are now, but also the person you were ten years
ago. You are not just the person in front of your employer or parent, but also
whoever you are to your friends or romantic partners. You are no longer
allowed to pick and choose how to represent yourself to another person; your
entire history is available for their perusal. The best representatives for
the downside of this, I think, are teens. Everyone can remember stupid things
they said or did as a teenager, and for the first time, none of that history
will ever be erased. The words you spoke at one of the most irresponsible and
impulsive parts of your life will forever be a Sword of Damocles hanging above
your head.

(Oddly enough, I think this is not, fundamentally, an awful thing, but for the
fact that social understanding has not advanced past the monkey-brain thinking
that the perusing in front of you will act according to the sum of information
you have about them. In the old days, you would see that they were a decent
enough worker and that would be it. But now you know they like to, I don't
know, drink a lot or smoke weed in their own time and that colors everything
else about them in your eyes. I can't help but feel that within a few
generations the old way of thinking will die out, by necessity if nothing
else, but agree that for the present it represents a significant problem)

~~~
smsm42
> Cardinal De Richelieu.

They key here is that the Cardinal can hang virtually anybody just by willing
to do so. The justification is secondary, just for appearances' sake - if the
Cardinal wants somebody hanged, they'll hang (unless they find a more powerful
ally, of course), and "finding something" is just a formality, like signing
the documents in proper places with proper name. Wielding this power is the
key, and that key would decide whether your past words would be your doom or a
justifiable youthful digression. If you look at how it happens, you can see
the power currents of the society the same way you can see the magnetic field
lines by watching metal dust affected by it.

------
RickJWagner
I've always adapted a policy of using my real name as a moniker on social
sites.

It prevents me from writing harsh things. I figure that anonymity is
temporary, that real identities can always be determined if someone digs hard
enough. I don't want something I say in the heat of the moment to come back to
haunt me years later.

It's not for everybody. I've probably made some secret enemies that know my
name. But for me, it seems to be the best way.

~~~
tenpies
My biggest worry would not be about today or even next year, but rather ten
years from now.

In 2010, I could have said "women do not have a penis" and faced zero
criticism. But if I say the same thing today in the ultra SJW woke society of
2018, it's grounds for instant allegations of transphobia, sexism, and a whole
bunch of accusations that result in social and professional ostracizing
without any sort of verification or context. All it takes for this is one
person who dislikes me enough to dig through $age years of online history and
finds that one statement that does not hold to this instant's ultra
progressive intersectional social justice standards.

Put simply: I do not trust society at large to remain rational enough to want
to attach my real name to anything but the most mundane of statements.

~~~
expected_line
But 'to be able to talk (and write) about everything - is just the
beginning'... Some years ago, before the polarization-outrolling started
countrywide (in Real Life -and of cos in my personal view of what happen ^^)
this seems to be the 'Motto'. Jet one takeaway seems that censoring added the
need for even censoring more, and for the country's digital-agenda (away from
industry-production for environment protection to the production of more
virtual 'goods') there seem to be shiny low-hanging-money in, while the
disturbed people seem to reject regulation with much impulsive behavior as a
result. And so the saga of action reaction effect continues...

Plugins please, maybe tor-browser run out of the text-based-web-speeder
'request policy'-plugin -and no, 'ublock' is not an option (-;

------
opaque
Pretty strong selection bias here. Hackers that have showed up at an IRL
conference are probably not on the more paranoid end of the spectrum.

Meanwhile pseudonym hacking continues (e.g. Phineas Fisher) and interesting
data dumps make their way to journalists (
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradise_Papers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradise_Papers))

~~~
drasticmeasures
Just commenting on this thread is enough.

The NSA / MI# / [Military Intel of Country X] know me. I know them. I don't do
shit. They don't do shit beyond some pranks and exchanging banter. What are
people so paranoid about?

When you get to meet the boogeymen, they have amazing tech developed by
someone else, but the people who use it are stupid, incompetent, paranoid
military average joes who more often than not shoot themselves on the foot or
cause the problem they were trying to prevent because they never de-escalate.

Secrecy, violence and a carefully-built media reputation just hides how
ineffective they are despite mass surveillance and infiltration of all public
online communities.

------
stareatgoats
We'll surely have the option to stay anonymous for a many decades to come,
while a real name policy becomes more established as well. The two serve
different purposes and only in edge cases is it really unavoidable to create a
link between them.

What is still lacking AFAIK are services that can guarantee anonymity for the
average user without jumping through a ludicrous number of hoops that
ultimately looks suspicious.

------
qrbLPHiKpiux
It's just career progression. New blood needs to fill those shoes who move to
corporate.

~~~
praptak
Blood that fills shoes is a metaphor that carries some unintended meaning.

~~~
p1mrx
Are you saying that filling shoes with blood _sounds gross_ , or does that
metaphor refer to something more specific?

~~~
ForHackernews
It's not one metaphor. It's an unfortunate-sounding "mixed metaphor":
[https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/mixed-
me...](https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/mixed-metaphors)

------
smsm42
I think this is confusing anonymity with pseudonymity. Anonymous hackers don't
want anybody knowing about them, pseudonymous ones do want it very much, they
just don't want everybody to know their legal name and address and so on, but
very much want to know their handles and what they do. These are different
modes of operation.

I also think there's a bit of survivor bias here - yes, many old-times hackers
came out of the shadows of anonymity or pseudonymity, either voluntarily or
involuntarily, either because they grew up and got a family and a business and
a personal brand, or because they're not into shady stuff that requires hiding
anymore, or because whatever they have been doing became so successful one
can't be anonymous anymore, etc. That doesn't mean others still don't have
anonymity, just NYT did't got to talk to them - because they're anonymous and
don't want to talk to NYT either...

------
jymbo
This shit is propoganda. Ain't no hackers giving up anonymity.

------
Kagerjay
Haven't been to defcon personally, but I use to go to hackerspaces in LA all
the time.

I never knew what the meetup organizer's name was. Everyone always referred
him with his userhandle and they did not know either.

This reminds me of "malwaretech" from wannacry

[https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/6cmmdf/iama_the_accid...](https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/6cmmdf/iama_the_accidental_hero_who_helped_stop_the/)

------
bayesian_horse
Now it's critical for everyone.

------
amelius
More and more hackers are using Facebook, Chrome and Google.

If even hackers don't care about privacy anymore, how can we expect it from
the general population?

------
hannasanarion
I would be happy for anonymity to stay an option at least. It's not as
important as it was, sure, but it's still very useful.

Anonymity is great for side projects that amount to practice, that you don't
expect them to turn out well, or things you might be embarrassed of in the
future, like comments on Reddit and hackernews.

------
badrabbit
Story time: I've hanged around hacker/infosec circles for quite a few years. I
have a terrible personality where I can't get close to anyone or open up(not a
joiner),that meant I couldn't be part of any inner circles. Eventually, over
the course of many years I discovered all the ways my IRL identity could be
correlated with my online activity. I also discovered groups of hackers(not
the nice kind) make a hobby out of deanonymizing people,especially anyone that
has remotely anything to do with infosec. I also realized many (not all) of
these people had real jobs and that they could affect my life in very real
ways.

For example,I am using a VPN now and my browser has strong privacy protections
configured. I am very confident that my identity could still be revealed by
analyzing my writing style and correlating other behavorial metadata. Although
I am not certain,I assume anyone in infosec that is interested in my off-work
activity is monitoring my hn posts.

Ways I've screwes up over the years:

* Forgot to sanitize my whois

* Used my regular email when consulting about IT work with IT/infosec people I did not know

* Reused passwords for many years.

* Didn't change reused password after inadvertently posting it on a public forum/chat.

* Didn't use a VPN or Tor for many many years.

* Assumed for a long time that 0days were used by an elite few and that nobody would burn one on a boring person like myself.

* Assumed IT coworkers/bosses would never actively stalk me off-work because I assumed only a serious psycopath would do that to a human they see everyday.

* Assumed my home computers' security without considering how easy it is for anyone to literally break into my place (has happened).

* much more

All in all, acheiving a reasonable level of security and privacy is a very
difficult task for an individual.

One of the reasons I got into security is because I kept thinking "I do IT for
a living. What about all the normal unsuspecting people? What about my family
members,heck pretty much anyone." It feels too much like a one-sided war
against the 99% of people who are not tech-savvy. I want to help protect
people who don't know how to protect themselves. Interestingly,the most
diffult part is making people understand that they are under attack by
extremely hostile parties.

Fortunately there are many pros that share my view. @evacide on twitter for
example helps women who have had their devices hacked by a stalker/hacker.

For someone who does not work in IT, being monitored by a hacker practically
drives them into extreme paranoia. It causes real mental harm. IMO,it should
be treated as assault.

I realize most of what I said is about hackers deanonymizing people and not
the other way around like the article. I just thought it was important to note
how many hackers are part of the problem and that we should consider how much
more non-hackers need anonymity,pseudonymity and privacy in general.

Lastly, I'd like to say this to anyone who tracks or monitors people(analytics
count): consent is key. Imagine someone looking at you bare naked,this is fine
if and only if they have your consent.

------
kyboren
A better title might be, "For Some Hackers, Anonymity Was Once Critical. Now,
They're Corporate Sellouts."

------
mythrwy
For Hacker News, NYT having 2 articles on front page every day was not
critical. That's changing.

