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Comment by ryanwaggoner | Hacker News Reader

I'm going to completely ignore the ethical and moral questions this services raises, and instead focus on this:

Don, a 52-year-old IT specialist living in Southern California who, not surprisingly, preferred not to give his real last name, is one of the site's hundreds of users.

I'm hoping this guy didn't give his real first name, either. Southern CA has millions of people, but I bet there are less than 10 who fit that description exactly. Hell, there might only be one.

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I am reminded of that "33 bits" blog that pops up here periodically. Every living person is uniquely addressable with 33 bits of the right information. "California" is worth 8 bits by itself. Male gets you another 1. Age within one year is probably 6 or so...

Ah, here's that blog: http://33bits.org/

Its fundamentally changed the way I think about anonymity. (I used to think it might be possible.)

I can't upvote you enough. What an elegantly simple way to think about anonymous data. Thanks for the link.

"Southern" gives you another 1.5, and "IT specialist" maybe gives you another 6, given the geographic area and gender. Total bits: 22.5. So there might be on the order of 1000 52-year-old male IT specialists in Southern California. The ones named "Don" are in trouble now.

I hope he DID give his real last name...

"Don Deshizzle", that's a sweet name

Hundreds of users to millions of dollars? Incredible monetization ratio.

I like this site, not because it is at all ethical or because I have any interest in partaking in its over-priced services but because it makes this society as a whole more upfront about its hypocrisy.

Human beings has often been polyamourous with cheating. If ostensible monogamy becomes more obviously just ostensible, then open polyamory becomes more appealing.

Down with cheating, sure but things that let us ease out hypocritical monogamy with less emotional blow-back are good.

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