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Comment by systemtrigger | Hacker News Reader

"Concealing your identity behind a handle is a juvenile and silly behavior characteristic of crackers, warez d00dz, and other lower life forms. Hackers don't do this; they're proud of what they do and want it associated with their real names. So if you have a handle, drop it. In the hacker culture it will only mark you as a loser."

With that lesson, I drop this handle.

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Nah, the key word there is "hide". Note that eric uses esr a lot...... ;)

For example I always use errant or errantx (and sometimes tmorton166) as my handle. But it's not a hiding thing; it's mostly about ease. Finding my real name, for example, isn't particularly hard and I make little pains to hide it. That is, I think, the difference.

I have to disagree with esr on this.

Using a handle is different from being anonymous. Personally I don't really care if the person I'm communicating with is calling themselves john or w4r3zd00d. What I care about is the communication itself and the consistency of the other party.

I regularly converse with people who use an alias and if you participate in discussions around here, you do too.

Use a handle, don't use a handle, I don't care.

Be anonymous and troll, attack people or spew hatred and .. well, I won't care either - my mental filter will just drop you like martian packets.

I think this is inaccurate. _why conceals his identity behind a handle, and few people think of him as a loser. It's not about whether you use a handle or your real name -- it's about what you do with it.

Concealing your identity makes you a loser if you do it so nobody can make you responsible for your acts. That was not _why's case, he did it because of privacy reasons.

You could just put your name on your about page. That's what a lot of people do.

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