The idea that you can reasonable protect your anonymity by using a nickname is naive.
I think not so naive as all that. The effectiveness of a security measure depends on the threat. If your worry is “employers searching for my name or email address” then a pseudonym works fine. If your worry is “law enforcement checking whether a particular forum post was written by a particular suspect,” then it’s not so good. And if your worry is “they are wiretapping me or will search my computer”, then the pseudonym is totally unhelpful.
I think in most LW contexts—including drug discussions—the former model is a better match. My impression is that security clearance investigations in the United States involve a lot of interviews with friends and family, but, at the present time, don’t involve highly sophisticated computer analysis.
I think in most LW contexts—including drug discussions—the former model is a better match. My impression is that security clearance investigations in the United States involve a lot of interviews with friends and family, but, at the present time, don’t involve highly sophisticated computer analysis.
Given the way the NSA works I would highly doubt that they don’t check information in their databases when handing out a security clearance and run highly sophisticated computer analysis. The actual capabilities of those programs are going to be classified. The NSA doesn’t want people to know about the capabilities they have.
In addition the internet doesn’t forget. NSA computer programs might not be good enough at the present to catch it but they might be in five years. Especially the whole Snowden episode encouraged the NSA to invest a lot more effort into gathering data about possible leakers and have computer programs that analyse the behavior of people with a security clearance.
I think not so naive as all that. The effectiveness of a security measure depends on the threat. If your worry is “employers searching for my name or email address” then a pseudonym works fine. If your worry is “law enforcement checking whether a particular forum post was written by a particular suspect,” then it’s not so good. And if your worry is “they are wiretapping me or will search my computer”, then the pseudonym is totally unhelpful.
I think in most LW contexts—including drug discussions—the former model is a better match. My impression is that security clearance investigations in the United States involve a lot of interviews with friends and family, but, at the present time, don’t involve highly sophisticated computer analysis.
Given the way the NSA works I would highly doubt that they don’t check information in their databases when handing out a security clearance and run highly sophisticated computer analysis. The actual capabilities of those programs are going to be classified. The NSA doesn’t want people to know about the capabilities they have.
In addition the internet doesn’t forget. NSA computer programs might not be good enough at the present to catch it but they might be in five years. Especially the whole Snowden episode encouraged the NSA to invest a lot more effort into gathering data about possible leakers and have computer programs that analyse the behavior of people with a security clearance.