Date: Sun, 09 Jan 2000 18:43:16 -0600 (CST) From: Jay Nelson <noslenj@swbell.net> To: Eivind Eklund <eivind@FreeBSD.ORG> Cc: jle@gtonet.net, freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Identity theft (was: Re: load spike strangeness) Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.4.05.10001091803560.7855-100000@acp.swbell.net> In-Reply-To: <20000110000826.Q51101@bitbox.follo.net>
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Thanks for your response. I've decided to snip much of this for brevity. On Mon, 10 Jan 2000, Eivind Eklund wrote: >I'll start with answering 'What is a nym?', in order to have the >terminology in place: A nym is an anonymous persona, one that somebody >use without direct connection to the physical person. Sort of a >'digital person'. Ahh... now I understand what you meant, though I'm not sure why people would want to do that in public. It seems like covering your face but running around with your pants down. [snip] >However, I have since learned to my satisfaction that the trace I did >was wrong, and a red herring pointing at one of his non-volunteering >business partners (Jeff Lesley, AKA holeyman/Hole-yMan). Jeff has >since closed down his account and removed his access (and OK'ed that I >post this.) So, our anonymous friend has done what claimed he was trying to prevent. That strikes me as a dishonorable abuse. >What I did was the following: [snip] >8. Verify the pecularities of Jeff's writing style with the ones from > "FreeBSD". I'm not a pro at this, but I went through carefully, > and found a large number of similarities that are distinct from > normal use, and no large dissimilarities. Very few outside intelligence would do that. I didn't think of going that far. I doubt most of us would be able to disguise our style effectively. The techniques used to analyze those patterns are the same as used, in the reverse direction, for propaganda. An interesting topic by itself. [snip] >However, I'd neglected one obvious possibility: Identity theft. >"FreeBSD" wasn't the same as Jeff Lesley - he'd been attempting to >hide behind Jeff's identity, making sure that any attempts at tracing >back would end up with Jeff. He *did* get me, at least. I could forgive his attempt at anonymity, but it's difficult to respect someone who would do to someone else what he claims to preserve for himself. I suspect that if you came as close as you did, he's dead meat if someone _really_ wants his identity. [snip] >> It seems that nothing stops the NSA -- not even the law, so I'm not >> sure that's worth worrying about. > >That depends on what you are doing - if what you are doing is related >to making it easier to detect and/or hinder NSA's spying on you, it >can be a worthwhile goal. And I tried, mostly as an intellectual >exercise, to keep that level of security around the nym that I used. This is an interesting topic, but one best left to another venue. Were you succesful in maintaining that security? You mentioned in you earlier post that it was broken. How? >Doing anonymity in the FreeBSD community in without giving the credit >you are building to a clearly identifiable and re-usable nym is IMO a >waste - and doing so in order to protect against random identity theft >is pointless waste. (If you are into fighting, you might want to do I agree. Our anonymous friend hasn't yet learned to know how much he doesn't know. This list is the least of his concerns. In fact, posting here is clearly counterproductive to anonymity. Ah, well... Thanks -- Jay To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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