Ask HN: How to avoid getting a privacy-aware LinkedIn profile restricted?

After my own attempts, I concluded that LinkedIn doesn't meet my expectations for privacy, so I don't use LinkedIn. Per your standards, you also don't think LinkedIn sufficiently values your privacy (or your time), so why keep using it?

> It MUST somehow be possible to balance the need for a reasonable level of privacy with the need of having a LinkedIn account

1. You do not "need" a LinkedIn account. Lots of people use it, some even like it, but you don't have to. I don't.

2. Why "must" that balance be possible? Many privacy-conscious people don't use social media sites like LinkedIn. LinkedIn doesn't have to accommodate us, and we don't have to bend to them either.

I have colleagues from PhD who get a ton of recruiter messages and land awesome jobs, whilst I'm still stuck with my small network. Also, getting all these recruiter spam is actually a nice, heartwarming thing, of making you feel needed and wanting - compared to cold-hearted academia, where nothing is ever good enough.

I have resisted LinkedIn for years and only had the mentioned, half-hearted attempt to create an account. But I feel I have reached some kind of tipping point now. I wonder, if they request my ID, and I just upload a fake one, what would happen, could they sue me worst case, supposing they go through the hassle to connect my real name that I have my profile with to my identity?...

“that I didn't have a VPN connection running”

Likely not telling you something you don’t already know, but many sites persist access logs and can answer “Which IPs accessed this account?” for a very long time indeed.

If you’re using VPN providers rather than a DIY approach, or even if you DIY through a cloud or other hosting provider, it’s extremely easy to answer questions like, “Which IPs that accessed this account came from known eyeball networks like Comcast?” (or cellular networks).

If your goal is masking your true location then all it takes is one slip-up and it’s somewhat irreversible. In security roles, I’ve seen more than one threat actor busted through one slip-up (“Whoops we forgot to VPN when accessing one time, 14 months ago”).

If you’re aiming to have a site not know Profile A and Profile B are the same, ditto, except now you also need to not access the site using the same methods, and also consider to what degree your browser / client can be fingerprinted.

> many sites persist access logs and can answer “Which IPs accessed this account?” for a very long time indeed.

What would a very long time actually? I don't have any sysadmin experience, so I'm not sure. One year? Five years? I guess at some point there will be just too much data to keep everyone's logs...

> If your goal is masking your true location

My goal using VPNs was actually an entirely different; you might be surprised by this: One of my Facebook profiles got blocked when I travelled a lot because (I imagine) geography based on my IP addresses changed too quickly and I think they thought I got hacked. My reasoning thus was now to just use one single place

Another goal of using a VPN was to decrease the fingerprinting that you also mentioned, since I give LinkedIn one datapoint less.

> “Which IPs that accessed this account came from known eyeball networks like Comcast?” (or cellular networks).

What exactly do you mean by this, do you mean that because they fingerprint me, when I use the browser without a VPN, they can use the other fingerprinting information to figure out who is behind the VPN?

LinkedIn can happily know my geographic location, because that reveals very little about me as a person; what I don't want LinkedIn to know is all the other websites that I visit and I also don't want other entities like Google to be able to connect my real-name LinkedIn and (frugal) CV with my website activity, because I consider that a clear trespassing of my privacy.

I guess my only approach is a DIY where I reserve one computer only for LinkedIn and nothing else and when travelling SSH into that. I guess that is what you had in mind with a DIY approach?...

This might not answer your question or needs, but if I were in your position I would create a minimal LinkedIn profile for discovery purposes and then link to a password protected static website that has more details for businesses that you are actually interested in engaging with. Use a canary email address email alias on LinkedIn so that it is easy to filter their emails into a folder. In my opinion it is also important to use a burner phone specific to LinkedIn if that is an affordable option.

All of that said I would not expect too many legitimate communications to this anonymous account. Recruiters, debt collectors and investigators pay to see more data on LinkedIn than others and will avoid unverified accounts. They can bypass most privacy settings. The automated bots would still reach out giving the appearance this setup works. Their system can also detect VoIP numbers.

Minimal LinkedIn profile for discovery purposes is what I always had in mind - yet it got restricted several times without me doing anything offensive to LinkedIn, just using general privacy-enhancing measures.

The static link is a good idea!

But my question remains how I can prevent getting restricted. I have already had two profiles, with somewhat similar CVs, in one where I'm called John Doe and in the other Doe John (my name makes permuting these less obvious). So I guess I can't keep going like this, because at some point my entire name and CV will be tainted after too many restricted attempts. I need to get it right the next time, to not be restricted.

Regarding the legitimate communications: I am actually positive about this, because a big part of LinkedIn are connections. If I (somehow) manage to have an account that doesn't get restricted within weeks so that I can actually add my peers, I will have a number of high visible and important people endorsing me (well known professors and researchers). That should give my profile a lot of value, I think?

At the same time it would not compromise my privacy, other than that a part of my professional network is public - but that is public anyhow since it can be derived (with some work) my articles, so not much is actually lost.

But my question remains how I can prevent getting restricted.

The only thing I could suggest is use a browser with very little or no browser addons running in a sandbox or VM and connect from a coffee shop wifi. Set up your profile then nuke that sandbox/VM. If the time comes you need to edit your profile repeat the process.

Just delete the LinkedIn. Despite what everyone under 30 will tell you, you don't need it to get or maintain a job.

Perhaps LinkedIn is not for you.

I deleted LinkedIn years ago when it stopped allowing me to use the site normally without first supplying which city I reside in.

When you asked to unlock your account, did they provide any explanation on what had triggered it?