From: Adam Back <aba@dcs.ex.ac.uk>
Date: Mon, 21 Dec 1998 19:19:29 +0800
To: zooko@wildgoose.tandu.com
Subject: Re: repost(?): Why i am not truly pseudonymous yet (was: Re: keyword scanning and countering writing style analysis)
In-Reply-To: <m0zrzGq-00000cC@wildgoose.ml.org>
Message-ID: <199812211059.KAA07212@server.eternity.org>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain




Anna Rosenbaum^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H Zooko wrote:
> If any of you remember reading this, or have a copy of it in 
> your archives, please let me know.

A grep of my old cpunks traffic for 'Why i am not truly pseudonymous
yet' comes up empty, so apparenlty it did not get through.

> [In fact, i think i recall that about the time "Zooko" appeared
> on the scene one "Adam Back" sent me e-mail saying, "Hey--  you
> write a lot like Anna Rosenbaum did...  Are you her?".]

Yep, I recall doing this, except I did not say 'Anna Rosenbaum' but
rather your real first name, which I will of course not mention.  I
recall Tim doing the same (tho' using your initial, and on list),
also, perhaps to Zooko or perhaps to a anonymous post with writing
style and rant topic similarities.

Multiple personality nyms seem to provide some plausible deniability
and doubt, for example people like Monty Cantsin (who's web page
claimed Cantsin was any number of people) and Toto, TruthMonger
etc. whose messages signed by shared keys, or were unsigned.

I reckon there is some room for doubt as to which meat space personas
wrote some of the Toto missives for example.

Probably a good rule of thumb is never to sign anything and always
post via a mixmaster chain.  Some messages don't need a persistent nym
even.  Perhaps one could construct a zero knowledge proof of nym
reputation rating without identityfing the nym which might be useful
for filtering without linkability.

Adam