in reply to to distinguish between [Anonymous Monk]s in a thread, brand 'em

If the proposal is, as it seems to me, intended to disambiguate AnonyMonks when multiple AMs are posting in a single thread, I actually like the idea because it's often very hard (or impossible) for this reader to distinguish between 1 AM contradicting him/herself and 2 AM disagreeing with one another.

OTOH, if this compromises personal anonymity -- lets us tie a particular AM post to a specific individual -- then I have to agree with CountZero. It's unfortunate the some may use AM status to utter libel, insults or just-plain-falsehoods, but that's a price of allowing free speech... and none of those rise to the level of "shouting fire in a crowded theater."

  • Comment on Re: to distinguish between [Anonymous Monk]s in a thread, brand 'em

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Re^2: to distinguish between [Anonymous Monk]s in a thread, brand 'em
by Jenda (Abbot) on Sep 29, 2011 at 15:57 UTC

    As we really only care about the different AnonyMonks within a thread, the hash should be generated by something more like crypt( $sessionid.$ip.$nodeid , '42' );

    And I do think it would be nice to have this.

    Jenda
    Enoch was right!
    Enjoy the last years of Rome.

[reply]
[d/l]
      I'd take IP out of it. Having the node ID, the session ID could only be a certain number of things that would hash properly from a valid IP. This would give a motivated person a fair chance at getting a network and possibly a geographic fix on a person. That's not very anonymous. The session and the node ID should be enough, as the session ID should be unique.
[reply]

        This would give a motivated person a fair chance at getting a network and possibly a geographic fix on a person.

        I'm not a cryptographer, but I think that is practically impossible

        Four pieces of information are used to calculate hash : salt, sessionid, ip, nodeid

        The salt doesn't have to be shared

        A fifth piece of secret information could also be used

        Only the hash and nodeid are publically accessible information

        The salt and the 5th piece can be rotated either randomly or periodically (every other week) --- good luck using crypt breaker on a moving target

        And for the biggest shocker :) the hash doesn't even have to be shared! There doesn't even have to be a hash

        The whole scheme could , instead of a dynamically computed hash, simply use a randomly assigned number, or color

        For the sake of argument, even if it were possible to break crypt and get an IP address -- so what?

        Where is the motivation? Perlmonks isn't used for commerce or political or criminal publishing, so where is the attraction to try and reverse engineer an IP out of this hash?

        ? Some random nefarious perlmonk wants to prove that X post by Anonymous Monk was really posted by mr_mischief, because the IP is the same? in same block? same IPS? So he can say AHA , GOTCHA!?

        :D

        As BrowserUk says, Gods here can and do use their privilege to see through anonymity sham -- and goverments don't even need to be Gods

        So, ip , no ip, I don't think it makes a difference :)

[reply]
Re^2: to distinguish between [Anonymous Monk]s in a thread, brand 'em
by Anonymous Monk on Sep 09, 2011 at 06:24 UTC

    OTOH, if this compromises personal anonymity -- lets us tie a particular AM post to a specific individual

    How could it compromise personal anonymity?

[reply]
      Damned if I know, but that seems to be the chief objection thus far (as of writing this node, 20110909 05:41 EDT (US)).
[reply]

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