Is it bad practice to use your real name online?
security.stackexchange.com
security.stackexchange.com
I'll say this about the new ways: I'm extremely glad that I didn't have my teenage years documented and archived. Dodged that bullet!
Internet .2 - Finger is no longer used, malicious users and hackers exist, social networks become very personal (Usenet, IRC) pseudonyms make sense, not just for privacy but to usher in a new sentiment of power and respect through anonymity. Computer security is very low.
Internet .3 - WWW becomes a thing, people still use pseudonyms and generally don't trust anything for good measure, computer security is very low.
Internet .4 - WWW evolves for the masses/commerce and social networks re-emerge on the web (Myspace, Facebook), people start to use real names everywhere. - A new generation exists that was never on the internet before .4. Computer security is much better.
Internet .5 - Pseudonyms don't become popular again thanks to the general ignorance of the tube watchers.
..not entirely accurate..just my 2C
Enough for your friends (and early on everyone knew everyone) to know who you were. But comprehensive archives weren't generally available (there's a reason kibo was so notable).
Also, I find your story of rules interesting. When I was first introduced to the internet (when I was about 7 years old, in school), the one "rule" I remember being told to us over and over again, by parents, by teachers, by anyone in authority was:
Everything you do online *can* be traced back to you. Communicating online
requires the same etiquette as communicating face to face. Don't do or say
anything you wouldn't do or say in real life.
edit: ah, WSU I see.
It's a great mix of professors who have tremendous experience in academia and industry, as well as a small enough campus to allow random undergrads to spend tons of time working with and learning from them. I feel like it's a serious hidden gem for those looking to learn CS.
Even today, I treat everything I post to the Internet as public. Even on MyGoogleFaceSpacePlusBook, I don't bother with privacy settings, because of 1) the above, where I treat everything I put on the Internet as public, and 2) the people who run MyGoogleFaceSpacePlusBook really love mucking with the default privacy setttings.
It also depends where I am posting, and whether I want to "own" what I say on that particular site. It's nice when my real-life compatriots don't necessarily know every darn thing I say or do online. They could find out if they really wanted to, of course.
This made me much less reluctant to use my real name later on.
However, just as my real name, my pseudonym also stuck and I try to get it whenever I sign up for a service. That way I'm twitter.com/pilif, github.com/pilif, even facebook.com/pilif, though I don't use that.
Unfortunately, on G+, I can't be /pilif. I have to be pilif123459 or whatever. Too bad.
In the late nineties and early 00s there ware huge wars between those who campaigned for pseudonyms (usually labelled "net terrorists", although honestly most of them really were trolls) and those who insisted on real names (labelled as "Blockwart": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockleiter).
Of course it's immaterial now. Most of the "net terrorists" left, many of the "blockwarts" mellowed, and in the end Usenet is dead and both sides tolerate much more than they used to, just happy to see a few more postings.
I settled on this after going through lots of different nicknames in the 90s, when the internet was a very different place.
1. It reminds me to be civil and think before I post.
2. It makes it easier for other people reach out to me based on things I've posted (I have a fairly unique name).
Pseudonyms are relatively easy to 'decode'. If I wrote something particularly dumb, offensive, or stupid, and someone wanted to pin that on me, I'm sure they could given enough time and effort.
Our great folly as humans is in assuming statements connected to names actually mean anything.
…oh, I see what you did there ;)
If Gawker writes a hit piece on me because I held down an unpopular opinion in a discussion on feminism in tech I know I'm out of a job. I would likely be out of most jobs in Silicon Valley.
As long as your viewpoints are completely aligned with the mainstream opinions held in your extended peer group, you have nothing to loose using your real name.
But in all other cases you never know when some HR minion thinks he became a data mining genius because he dug up some comment you made 10 years ago on a random message board,
Of course I do, everyone does. I'm just very thoughtful about never posting it online ;)
Also, pet peeve: it's "lose", not "loose".
Moreover, with profiling tactics, implicit signals can be leaked of your preferences and habits (isn't that precisely what all the heavy marketing support of all these "social" sites is about?). Subject of a current HN item:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6871033
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/08/opinion/sunday/shameful-pr...
That sounds very much like "I don't kill people because I'd get caught". Why can't you be civil (whatever that means) and think just because?
in fact causation could be the other way around. those who behave well are more likely to sign with their real name.
[0] https://scholarsbank.uoregon.edu/xmlui/handle/1794/12420
If you lived in a society where killing didn't tend to be punished, you'd probably kill. Because if you didn't you'd be dead. Don't underestimate people's tendency to adapt to their environments.
I get what you are saying, but I think if you look at it in the big picture, sites which require real names (and sites that otherwise reward you for gaining a positive reputation over the long term) tend not to degenerate into cesspools of ugliness. It may be partly because the non-civil go elsewhere, but I think it also is because it encourages civility from those who are there.
This may be true but it inevitably makes you dishonest. There are things that you believe or feel about certain things that you will never post. These omissions equate to a lack of honesty (you are not voicing your full opinions)
The internet is one of the last places where people can say what they feel. Sure some are jerks about things but these people are just being honest. They really are jerks. They might hold it all inside when offline but this is because of sensitivity conditioning and political correctness. These things only hide the true problems of our society. Do you think that because racism is repressed by PC and an agenda of a few in places of power to impose swift public embarrassment and isolation those honest enough to express their opinion that it does not exist?
If anything, this exacerbates the problem. It is funny that many want to legalize drugs so that those with drug problems can come forward and receive help without being demonized, yet those same people just want people dealing with hatred and bigotry problems just to keep it inside until it eats them (and their lineage) alive.
>2. It makes it easier for other people reach out to me based on things I've posted (I have a fairly unique name).
This simply is not true. What forum or internet based messaging means today does not have email, twitter, Facebook ETC. where anyone who just read your info can contact you?
Disagree. I wouldn't post them anyway given that I assume a sufficiently dedicated person could link them back to me one way or another...And we're always dishonest somehow or another. Only a person dishonest to themselves would ever claim they're entirely honest online.
> This simply is not true. What forum or internet based messaging means today does not have email, twitter, Facebook ETC. where anyone who just read your info can contact you?
Hacker News.
One of the great things about the Internet, though, is that you are free to express a minority point of view without having to wait for some editor to approve of it. This is true regardless of whether or not you choose to post under your real name.
Here's a few arguments off the top of my head that someone might dox you for:
-Whether or not feminism is the cause of the recent emasculation of men
-Whether or not Israel is committing crimes against humanity in Gaza and against the Palestinians
-Whether or not transexual persons should be medically referred to as their original gender or new gender.
-Whether or not affirmative action should exist.
Pretty much any debate that is emotionally charged has the potential for people to try to screw with your real life over it, circumcision is not one of them.
So you are the one that will wisely choose which opinions are "vile", and blacklist them?
On Reddit(I don't know about anywhere else because I've never seen it discussed anywhere else), there seems to be alot of assumptions made about people who argue against it, specifically that they are MRA extremists who are misogynistic.
I maintain two identities on most social sites/chatrooms/hn; one that uses my online alias, and one that uses an abbreviation of my name (bsamuels). Whenever I feel like voicing an uncomfortable or controversial opinion, I use the online alias.
Edit: Actually it depends on the community. I would not use my real name on 4chan, but here and Reddit I am happy to. I don't get involved with any communities where there is a risk of really pissing someone or law enforcement off however.
If you doubt this just descend into the comment section of any news article to see the vile stuff people post online because they are anonymous.
Simon Hibbs
But on HN, I've actually seen the exact opposite - people with handles derived from their real names seem to make more serious, well thought-out comments. I don't know about "most controversial", but certainly the most useful, which to me is more important. (I have a made-up handle, so I'm not one of these people :)
You'll see this reflected on the HN leader board as well; I assume that - like any online discussion board - made-up handles are the majority on HN, but real-name based handles figure quite prominently there. Not sure why.
My ( controversial) idea is that people often upvote persons, not their opinions. Many of HN top have curated well known internet personas with separate blogs (either by their real names or nicknames). A familiar handle (either real or famous nick) is downvoted less frequently than an anonymous handle.
I know I'm not anonymous, and I'm sure the NSA can figure out exactly what all my posts are, but at least it makes it hard for regular companies to track me.
[Accessing anaphor's HN user profile, which is basically blank]
Your real name is anaphor? I have disclosed on my HN user profile what my birth-certificate name is, and I have put up links to a bare-bones explanation of where my screen name (which did not originate on this forum) came from. Eventually, I think, all roads from my various screen names, some of which were mandatory, and others customary, in the online forums where they originated will lead to my real name. I have always used my real name on every page of my personal website, since 1995.
But do you say things in real life that you wouldn't online?
That's because you can still find other jobs. That may not be true for ever.
You don't want to never use your real name. You want to be googleable, but you want it to be mostly positive.
I do try to keep my professional and personal relationships separate which part of the reason I have a pseudonym. In a bit of irony my company uses github and I use my epochwolf account at work. The seperation is less important than it used to be but I will always be epochwolf online.
I do not want to be Googleable.
HN has been my first major experiment with RealName™. It's gone fairly well so far. People who want to talk shop can get a hold of me. People who want to talk trash can get a hold of me, too, but fortunately those people seem few and far between. Prospective employers are free to search my corpus on HN, and in doing so, they'll probably find better content than they would on Facebook or elsewhere. In fact, I've had some opportunities come my way via HN that probably never would have elsewhere. (AngelList is the one possible challenger in that respect.)
Most important: using my real name forces me to think before I post. That's not to say everything I post here is a gem. Far from it, as the record shows. But I don't mind that the record shows something here.
I "lurk more" when using my real name since I try to use communities where other people are more insightful than me.
Also I noticed a common pattern of "20 questions" when I was using aliases about innocuous Questions Answered Frequently that over time eroded my confidence in my anonymity. e.g. vim versus emacs is one of the 20.
Those are the best kinds of communities! Maybe that's part of the reason why I use my real name here: this community keeps me honest (and on my toes). I'm not sure whom to attribute it to, but the old quote applies: "If you're the smartest person in the room, you're in the wrong room."
Let's just say that, on HN, I never feel as though I'm in the wrong room. :)
Reputation is a valuable thing. You don't gain a good reputation by hiding away. You build a good reputation by making a positive impression on lots of people over a long period of time. You can't do that if you are always anonymous.
If I was hiring someone, I'd google them. And if nothing turned up, that would give a somewhat negative impression. Better than seeing them being a jerk or idiot or criminal, of course, but still.
On the other hand, if I saw a long history of them behaving intelligently and diplomatically, going back a long time, that would make a very good impression.
I say use your real name, but don't be a dick, and don't be stupid.
Quiet isn't "bad" per se, but I'd rather hire someone who is confident enough in what they have to say, to say some stuff publicly.
My real fear isn't having my more rant-y posts associated with my IRL life, but more extreme possibilities like 4chan/Reddit doxxings and abuse.
I also no longer use the same handle as when I was a kid, so I've got that going for me.
If a child that looks like yours is abducted, it makes you more paranoid that your child will be abducted; even if that other child was halfway around the world; even if that child was abducted by a relative; etc., etc. Despite the fact that abductions are rare, and that they're even more rarely done by strangers, blah blah, the brain gloms onto the perceived danger and isn't very good at letting go of it.
I've actually had that happen to me. I was generally respected but had rather strong opinions on (relatively uncontroversial) subjects, so one day someone who didn't like me that much decided to go all internet detective on me and dug up various data about me, like my name, address, phone number, names of relatives, Facebook pictures... Up to that point I had been generally pseudonymous (though I had been a bit careless with my info - some domain whois data was my undoing, and while my Facebook account is shut up tight for strangers, this isn't the case for some of my less technical relatives).
Luckily enough it didn't turn into any abuse in real life, as most people thought the doxxing was a stupid move. Now I just get some idiots occasionally spamming my name and picture and insulting my family in front of me. It's easy enough to ignore, but it's also kind of sad that my pseudonymity is basically dead by this point. The genie is out of the bottle, and I can't really put it back unless I start completely over - which I just can't do. As a result, I tend to avoid talking about some controversial issues altogether, as I don't want to "taint" my name by saying something that could be perceived negatively in the future. There's also some things that I just feel rather uncomfortable to talk about with my name and info out there, like the doxxing itself, which is why I'm using a throwaway account for this post.
https://news.ycombinator.com/leaders
Notice that the entire top 10 are using their real name or a trivial abbreviation thereof (apart from 3 accounts that got there through story submission and have essentially no comment history).
Notice the top 30 or so, where real names clearly dominate, with a few well-known strong pseudonyms in there.
Smart, interesting people with nothing to hide, offering good advice and participating in good discussions. That's what this site is best at. And that's the sort of thing one doesn't generally need to hide behind a fake screen name to participate in.
At least, that's why I only have this one real-name account here.
I feel forced to have something on the net that screams "me".
I'm unimportant. But who knows what the future brings? I don't want to feel like _why. And to be honest, the whole archiving is beyond annoying. Barely anything we write is relevant in 10 years. Archive.org saves 99.999999% stuff that will not be looked at or even be of relevance, but might be enough to discredit you or even find you. Why does the internet even need to be this way? For me the internet was always about the present and the future.
So I gave up. Now I just try and make sure there is an accurate representation of my personality, views, and so on associated with my real name, online. Hopefully this gives a bit of balance to my profile in case I miscommunicate something in the future.
There is one or the other forum at which I post anonymously, and participate in the vitriol of anonymous political discussions. I make no effort to conceal my real identity, however. If I'm ever found out, I'll claim that I'm not the one who started the intemperate excess.
(Yes, that phrase is redundant -- it deserves to be.)
With a nickname, you always have the option of associating it with your real identity at a later date if you so choose.
You can usually follow a chain of pseudonyms back through time to get to the early embarrassing posts.
Meatball wiki changed my mind about real name posting. First I thought "always use an obvious nym", then "always use a realistic, but false, name". Now I just post using me real name on a few places, and a bunch of nyms (realistic and otherwise) in other places.
My writing (especially my appalling use of punctuation) is distinctive. I think it'd be easy enough to tell if a post is mine or not by counting the weird commas.
Perhaps privacy advocates need some method of making writing more anonymous? Lower-case everything, convert full-stops to new lines, strip out all out punctuation?
It's very much an NP problem.
It firmly roots in my mind that my words here will be seen as words from my person. That's a good thing.
I liken using my real name online to having all of my in-person conversations be recorded and broadcast on TV. If I go to a bar down the street and meet some strangers from my neighborhood, I'm fairly anonymous, and our conversation is decently private. I can express unpopular opinions and have no record of it. I'm not on the record, and I don't have to wonder what everyone I know and everyone I will ever know might think if they Googled me and found that conversation. If I go on a neighborhood blog and have the same conversation in the comments with my real name, I have the ear of, potentially, the entire world.
So I use my real name some places, and pseudonyms in others. Just how I might talk to coworkers, new friends, people at a party or business contacts without them instantly knowing everything I've ever said or done, having a pseudonym makes it possible to isolate your personal spaces online to some degree. It's usually possible to gauge the scope of how many people are privy to a real life conversation, so I try to achieve a similar setup online. I don't pretend that any of my user accounts online are at all truly anonymous, but they present a small barrier between online spaces. Much like meeting strangers in real life: they can probably find out who you are, but you are in control of how much information they have about you at any given momemt.
I only use my real name when I have to, buying on line and government services for example.
I personally avoid this problem by generating "answers" as passwords in 1Password. But the vast majority of people don't do this.
I have an unusual name combination, so there aren't many others with my name. However, about 5 years ago, one of the few others started playing college football, so the search results are mostly for him, though I'm guessing he's graduated by now.
Just now googled my name for the first time in a couple years probably. Still mostly about college football, with a few of my things scattered throughout, including my Twitter account and an archive of a mailing list where I used my real email address (which is my real name). Also at least a couple things still surfacing from the mid-90s, when I didn't know any better.
My first Internet lesson to my kids will be: never use your real name online. I am glad most of my teenage real-name-using happened on local BBSs or things like AOL, and so it has vanished into the ether; my kids won't be as lucky.
Posting everything under my username doesn't create sufficient value for me. Managing my real-name profile is of some interest, and I do this to an extent, though largely it involves keeping my real name (or well-established) userIDs limited, while conducting most of my online interactions under various pseudonyms. These give me freedom of movement and expression and some freedom from tracking (though I'm under no illusions a dedicated national actor would have trouble finding me should it choose to do so, nor, quite likely, others).
What I've observed having been online for several decades is that most people seem to go through a lifecycle of online activity: early exploration, a wide-open persona, and often, starting once "life gets real" (usually somewhere in their 30s or 40s), either a withdrawal or a far-more-managed persona. I can point to numerous "public figures" of the 1990s whose online profiles are vastly more constrained: Jenny of Jennycam, Eve "pi girl" Astrid Andersson, Philip Greenspun (actually fairly active), Xeni Jardin, and many others. Even those who are still active are much more ... controlled in their presence.
If you're in your 40s or older and have a significant online presence, odds good are you're in marketing.
Even the principles in social networking have ... limited exposure. Sergey Brin's most recent public G+ post was February 20, 2013. Larry Page posts something banal and/or product-related once or twice a month. Page's wife and girlfriend (may they never meet) have been conspicuously absent of G+ since news of status changes (not posted to G+) broke in August. Curious in the case of the girlfriend who's in Google marketing ... but has been posting of late to Twitter.
Yeah, life has a way of getting real.
If someon is considering me for a job, it's reasonable to give my full name.
If someone just wants to chat with my on reddit, they don't need to know my full name.
If someone knows me outside of the internet, but we communicate through the internet, then I don't need to provide my real name.
I say head back to the 90s and obfuscate/omit your ID where possible.
1. Builds a brand of me. 2. Following from #1, it reminds me to post things I want to be read that I would want my family and myself to be proud of.
And sometimes people want to avoid being pre-judged, so Saheed may want to use a psuedonym when participating in an online discussion about 9/11 regardless of his views.
If your name because something of a brand or source of credibility, you'll probably want to use your real name. But if you're well known in one domain but want to participate in another domain without the baggage of the other domain, you may want to not use your real name. Same reason why some writers use different names when they write in different genres, even if it's not secret that they use multiple names.
I suppose there are several famous people participating in online activities that we are all unaware of because they don't use their real names. It's like avoiding being mobbed by fans on the street.
It you have an abusive spouse or stalker, you may not want to make your online activities so easily discoverable using your real name.
So it's not just because people want to be rude that they use a pseudonym. It's more complicated than that.
I do believe that access to anonymity is very important- it allows the oppressed, etc to speak up. But as a person in a generally privileged position, I find that leading a fully public life makes me more accountable, think harder, etc. I have all the upside with little to none of the downside. So it's a simple decision for me.
I've been very outspoken about local political affairs, and I have strong opinions on things. Sometimes I've said things that have gotten me into trouble, but I make it a point to constructively engage the criticism I receive. I've always placed a high premium on having the space to speak up for what I believe is right, and I am headstrong and naive enough to declare that I wouldn't want to work for or with anybody who thinks that's an outright problem. It's not in my nature to be secretive. It would end badly for both of us.
Do I have absolutely nothing to hide? Meh. I don't want to make such a bold claim. I'm sure I've said and written some embarrassing stuff.
I can think of a few things I'd like to say from the cover of anonymity, but these are usually fun little sideproject-y type ideas, far down my priority list. I'd prefer to work on things publicly that get me into interesting circumstances as a person.
So I can't really avoid it. I'm not black, or gay, or Muslim, and I don't have non-mainstream political views compared to people I live and work with, so I'm lucky enough to not experience the negative effects of being obviously identifiable online.
I can definitely see why many people would prefer to be pseudonymous, and why maintaining multiple online personas is useful. But I can barely keep up with my blog and product pages on multiple social media, and I'm still learning how to best use those to my advantage.
I have no real reason to curate an online identity or reputation and I don't want my online words to be only of a "professional" nature.
Also, I have no trouble being civil. Even if I was inspired to be a jerk, accountability need not be tethered to identity.
1: https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2008/11/the_future_of...
I may have just had an epiphany, political figures use their real names (well mostly), maybe this is why their lives seem a bit characiatured to us. Perhaps this helps insulate them to a degree.
Another classic in this genre is for decades I've watched the comedy of people advertising their ham radio callsign, then not realizing people can look them up, then realizing that almost no one knows how to look it up or cares, then figuring out it doesn't really matter at all. So ham radio callsigns are yet another pitiful wanna be one way hash function.
It's much better to control the content you create and manage the distribution of that content in the way you are most comfortable with.
I will admit there have been times I have been hesitant to say or post things, but more often than not it's fine. If there is something I don't want associated with me, I use an alternate account.
In the olden days using numbers in a username was considered bad now it's becoming as necessarily as using a mix of characters in a password.
Having it out there allows for a full audit of what I am doing on the back end. On the front end, it ensures I am thinking through what I am writing so that I can ensure it reflects what I intend it to even if it is not all positive.
This way we can reasonably claim our good reputation if the result of our actions turns out ok, but if not we can borrow from each other and all get second chances.
I'm pretty sure Pig Latin will fool the NSA too. :)
You are incredibly short-sighted if you believe that. Imagine if you have been or are being stalked or harassed or your children or spouse is. Victims of abuse.
Other people who are hurt by using their real names:
http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Who_is_harmed_by_a_%22Rea...