The Real Name policy is unsafe

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Wayne Steven

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Re: The Real Name policy is unsafe

PostSun Jan 26, 2020 6:17 am

I think Chris has some point here. There are more strict definitions. Linux was meant to be Unix like.

Chris. I spent decades designing a virtual computer come deterministic real time operating system, and redesigned everything around/connected to it, that and reading decades of new scientist and other publications to a certain extent, is why I appear to know so much (you either know it or can figure it out). But then MS says they spent 100 man years developing the latest version of windows with all the addons, and I said I was only one man and my plans to implement the operating system over the next 2-3 years wasn't going to cut it compared to all the extra functionality in the latest windows, and as I was getting sick at that stage, gave up. Still the fastest most efficient and accurate real time design I have ever come across. The problem with Linux people (this is from many years back) if you object to using Linux personally in real time use, they get offended like Linux can do anything, and with reference to meager knowledge that it can do something. I am so appalled at the state of operating systems in the consumer market, big clunky unreliable half baked things so often. I want to replace them with a cutting edge solution. As much as I try to help android with suggestions, and they implement some form of them, they don't seem up to doing it. MS has done certain things nicely, but my hopes they would get there have been dissapointed. Linux is, I don't know, I dint even bother following them, but from what you say, they are not up to it either. The standards committee are better to get funding to get real time people to rewrite Linux sections to get it up to the standards and lock that in with the Unix code, to stop things drifting and maintain the same result time code base, even if they have to fork it away from the main kernel effort. They also then could add this code to the Linux code of android and as an edition to Java/Java script open sources (I know it breaks some of those standards efforts, but compatable cross functionality is more important). That would help alleviate a lot of issues.

If I were to do my own stuff again (feeling a bit better) I would be planning to add all sorts of my own stuff to hardware, like alternative IO to USB. As much as I like the whole pci-e to Thunder Bolt and USB idea for uniformity, they have many physical problems and restrictions. Even the latest Thuderbolt is not really an improvement, but tied to the lame USB, and not keeping up with pci-e (at some stage PCI-e is going to have to stick with shorter line lengths to increase speed, that won't stretch accross longer external cabling. Hopefully optical tech will rescue that, but I could do a more uniform universal optical technology right now and sell adapter's and devices. The other technology I'm looking at developing, could transfer well beyond terrabits per second over a home cable. The recommendations I put out at the time of USB 3/TB was for a much more flexible system with simple modes suitable for external sensing interface, that could be used in any low functional capacity, even direct software sampling, and channeling etc so, it would be a miminal fuss programming wise to sample through in embedded electronics. With my own interface that is possible without approval process. I also had an idea for dynamic interface configuration that would allow bare pins to function as a lot of different interfaces including chip and external interfaces, and be reconfigurable. You could hook up a flash, memory chip, USB to the same pins. The whole idea was to make various things, including a table top full of processing circuites with these pins along the edges where things could be attached too. Of courses we are not talking about top end x86 chips, but much lower power. Good for magnetic processing technologies, but this you could literally form rectangular boxes with, they are do low energy. Still, for the time an array of tens of thousands of low energy processors was possible.
aIf you are not truthfully progressive, maybe you shouldn't say anything
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Byron Dickens

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Re: The Real Name policy is unsafe

PostSat Feb 08, 2020 6:27 pm

Approximately 15 years ago, a former would-be suitor found my wife and contacted her on her work email. This was some 15 years and six moves amongst three different cities later.

Without the benefit of her real name being used on a niche market internet forum.

Also, back in the mid-'90s, I was stationed at Ft. Bragg. One detail I got tasked with one time was in support of a course at the JFK Special Warfare Center. My partner and I were given a list of license plate numbers, a camera and a letter signed by the JFK SWC and the Post commanders that was our "get out of jail free" card. We were to spend two weeks finding out everything we could and then give a presentation to the class.

We found out where people were born, where they went to school, where they lived, the same about brothers and sisters, children's names, took pictures of children, got information out of their personnel files, medical information, social security numbers, etc. You get the idea.

All when there was hardly any internet at all.

Like I said before, having your real name on an internet forum is the least of your privacy and security concerns.
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Wayne Steven

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Re: The Real Name policy is unsafe

PostSun Feb 09, 2020 4:43 am

I've been thinking, what is really needed is internet personalities. Where one personality follows you around the internet. That is the closest to real life. Sort of Tony (Tony1000)@google or @internet. Of course you can have multiple personalities, but a personality requires common behaviour and is trackable across the internet, and what organisation it is attached to (i.e. @videoverb). A site can require unique or common personality. But just a thought, not perfect. We already have some of this with some services.
aIf you are not truthfully progressive, maybe you shouldn't say anything
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cOften people deceive themselves so much they do not understand, even when the truth is explained to them
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jamedia

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Re: The Real Name policy is unsafe

PostSun Feb 09, 2020 3:15 pm

Byron Dickens wrote:Approximately 15 years ago, a former would-be suitor found my wife and contacted her on her work email. This was some 15 years and six moves amongst three different cities later.

Without the benefit of her real name being used on a niche market internet forum.

Also, back in the mid-'90s, I was stationed at Ft. Bragg. One detail I got tasked with one time was in support of a course at the JFK Special Warfare Center. My partner and I were given a list of license plate numbers, a camera and a letter signed by the JFK SWC and the Post commanders that was our "get out of jail free" card. We were to spend two weeks finding out everything we could and then give a presentation to the class.

We found out where people were born, where they went to school, where they lived, the same about brothers and sisters, children's names, took pictures of children, got information out of their personnel files, medical information, social security numbers, etc. You get the idea.

All when there was hardly any internet at all.

Like I said before, having your real name on an internet forum is the least of your privacy and security concerns.


You know that, I know that, however a lot of people on here are insecure, paranoid etc. (you should see the number of flat earth and other conspiracy videos on youtube )

If some one wants to find you they will whether or not you have your real name on an internet forum. I assume that mdegans doesn't work under his real name, have property under his real name, club memberships under his real name . Assume all his on screen credits are under a name that is not his real name. etc etc. (must be a real bitch trying to prove a resume to get work.

Otherwise he appears to only be hiding from members of this forum.... Which is a bit suspect. Should he really be permitted to be in this forum in that case? :-) (playing Devils Advocate. Besides I know mdegans real name anyway. Didn't take long to find....
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mdegans

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Re: The Real Name policy is unsafe

PostSun Feb 09, 2020 10:42 pm

Besides I know mdegans real name anyway. Didn't take long to find....

That's singularly impressive, considering it's listed right to the left of this post. I am shocked and intimidated, sir. You have quite the l337 hax0r skills. Well done!
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mdegans

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Re: The Real Name policy is unsafe

PostSun Feb 09, 2020 11:22 pm

Byron Dickens wrote:We found out where people were born, where they went to school, where they lived, the same about brothers and sisters, children's names, took pictures of children, got information out of their personnel files, medical information, social security numbers, etc. You get the idea.

All when there was hardly any internet at all.

Yeah, but the internet makes it a lot easier, and real names even more so. What may have taken you weeks can be done at scale in seconds or minutes, remotely. The more information you put out there, the riskier it is, and the sort of technical information regularly posted here is very useful if somebody flags you as a target and wants to gain access to your computer.

Most people don't think about the risks associated because it's so commonplace now just to give out everything about yourself to everybody. I don't think as a society we've fully considered the unintended consequences to all this openness. It's certainly had a negative effect in the political sphere. I hope i am wrong, but I don't see good things in our collective futures coming from all this.
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Wayne Steven

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Re: The Real Name policy is unsafe

PostMon Feb 10, 2020 2:26 am

jamedia wrote:You know that, I know that, however a lot of people on here are insecure, paranoid etc. (you should see the number of flat earth and other conspiracy videos on youtube )


Chris, I fully believe there are flat earth videos on YouTube :)

They are so complete in their argument they can point to large buildings over the horizon which they can not see the bottoms of, and apparently the what happens when you put a sea of water on a flat plate argument is resolved by a ring of mountains, presumably Antarctica But nobody asks what happens when geological activity in mountains leak, or when snow blows over the side. One of my favorites is that Australia doesn't exist, it is a huge simulation or something. Which means what I say doesn't really matter as I dont really exist, or maybe the northern hemisphere is really the simulation, and most of you dint really exist. :)


jamedia wrote:Otherwise he appears to only be hiding from members of this forum.... Which is a bit suspect. Should he really be permitted to be in this forum in that case? :-) (playing Devils Advocate. Besides I know mdegans real name anyway. Didn't take long to find....


Have you met some of the people on this forum Chris?
aIf you are not truthfully progressive, maybe you shouldn't say anything
bTruthful side topics in-line with or related to, the discussion accepted
cOften people deceive themselves so much they do not understand, even when the truth is explained to them
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Wayne Steven

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Re: The Real Name policy is unsafe

PostMon Feb 10, 2020 2:55 am

mdegans wrote:Most people don't think about the risks associated because it's so commonplace now just to give out everything about yourself to everybody. I don't think as a society we've fully considered the unintended consequences to all this openness. It's certainly had a negative effect in the political sphere. I hope i am wrong, but I don't see good things in our collective futures coming from all this.


Yes, we are fortunate they don't allow nudity on YouTube, otherwise people would literally let it all hang out.
aIf you are not truthfully progressive, maybe you shouldn't say anything
bTruthful side topics in-line with or related to, the discussion accepted
cOften people deceive themselves so much they do not understand, even when the truth is explained to them
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Howard Roll

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Re: The Real Name policy is unsafe

PostMon Feb 10, 2020 5:35 pm

It is unsafe, too much of our information is being harvested, this site is another point of aggregation.

The problem with harvesting data is that once it's collected and collated it becomes commoditized and traded. It's impossible to protect yourself.

Am I paranoid in believing that Google has every credit card number, bank, passport, DL, address, phone number, etc., Every year some big company gets hacked, whoops, another 1.2 million user accounts out and about, freely traded.

Ironically it IS your anonymity that offers the best protection in today's environment, your herd mentality is valid. You'll find that people of "popuar interest" will have a completely different view of how freely personal information is shared.

The lack of a pervert outside your window doesn't mean you're "safe". Physical violence alone represents a myopic view of the concept of safety.

Good Luck
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Byron Dickens

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Re: The Real Name policy is unsafe

PostMon Feb 10, 2020 6:45 pm

mdegans wrote:
Byron Dickens wrote:We found out where people were born, where they went to school, where they lived, the same about brothers and sisters, children's names, took pictures of children, got information out of their personnel files, medical information, social security numbers, etc. You get the idea.

All when there was hardly any internet at all.

Yeah, but the internet makes it a lot easier, and real names even more so. What may have taken you weeks can be done at scale in seconds or minutes, remotely. The more information you put out there, the riskier it is, and the sort of technical information regularly posted here is very useful if somebody flags you as a target and wants to gain access to your computer.

Most people don't think about the risks associated because it's so commonplace now just to give out everything about yourself to everybody. I don't think as a society we've fully considered the unintended consequences to all this openness. It's certainly had a negative effect in the political sphere. I hope i am wrong, but I don't see good things in our collective futures coming from all this.



You are quite missing the point and at this point, I believe, being deliberately obtuse.
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mdegans

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Re: The Real Name policy is unsafe

PostMon Feb 10, 2020 8:00 pm

Byron Dickens wrote:deliberately obtuse.

My undestanding of your point was that you were tying to say it was possible to investigate somebody without a social media presence. It is. My point is that it's a lot easier to do with one, and that you can do it more quickly and at scale. While security by obscurity is not actually security, obscurity does make it less likely that an attacker will target you, and does make the job harder.
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mdegans

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Re: The Real Name policy is unsafe

PostMon Feb 10, 2020 8:07 pm

Howard Roll wrote: Every year some big company gets hacked, whoops, another 1.2 million user accounts out and about, freely traded.

You can download all these dumps on public trackers and make your own mega-database, not that those don't already exist as .torrents. Go to https://haveibeenpwned.com/ to see what breaches you've been in, if you're curious.
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Byron Dickens

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Re: The Real Name policy is unsafe

PostMon Feb 10, 2020 8:50 pm

mdegans wrote:
Byron Dickens wrote:deliberately obtuse.

My undestanding of your point was that you were tying to say it was possible to investigate somebody without a social media presence. It is. My point is that it's a lot easier to do with one, and that you can do it more quickly and at scale. While security by obscurity is not actually security, obscurity does make it less likely that an attacker will target you, and does make the job harder.


No.

My point is that it doesn't matter whether or not someone has your real name if you leave sensitive information laying around out in the open.

I forgot to mention that during my Ft. Bragg amateur PI adventure there were a couple of people we couldn't find much of anything on. Not because we couldn't find their names (we did) but because they had good personal security practices. I bet that today they use strong passwords and don't have their Ring cameras on the internet.


No offense, but you are kind of reminding me of those people who buy a gun for "home protection" but don't lock their doors.
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mdegans

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Re: The Real Name policy is unsafe

PostMon Feb 10, 2020 10:25 pm

Byron Dickens wrote:My point is that it doesn't matter whether or not someone has your real name if you leave sensitive information laying around out in the open.

A name provides a unique identifier to link an account here to one somewhere else. A username can do this as well, but not if you use a different username for every website you register for. When people search dumps for your you to find leaked credentials, or google you, it's by as many factors as possible. It's best to limit that, don't you think? Nowhere was I arguing you shouldn't also use unique strong passwords, a strong second factor where possible, etc.

It's often the case that in these dumps security question answers are found (or on social media), which can then be used to reset a password, or even bypass 2f. It's not so hard. You call support, say you locked youself out (it happens all the time), and at that point, having the sort of information that you suggest is innocous actually really helps. Those surveys you see on Facebook asking for your mother's maiden name and first pet to calculate your pr0n star name... who do you think writes those things?
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mdegans

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Re: The Real Name policy is unsafe

PostMon Feb 10, 2020 10:47 pm

Byron Dickens wrote:No offense, but you are kind of reminding me of those people who buy a gun for "home protection" but don't lock their doors.

I use a second factor everywhere I can that is not SMS, preferably one of several U2F keys. I limit IOT trash to it's own VLAN. I have separate wireless and wired guest networks at home. My security practices verge on the paranoid, and you're right it's often people like myself who don't "lock the front door", but I in fact do. I just like to block any possible side channels as well, most of which are the result of terrible industry-wide practices like "security" questions that are easily found on a Google of somebody's name.
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Byron Dickens

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Re: The Real Name policy is unsafe

PostTue Feb 11, 2020 12:23 am

That's why you lie when you answer your security questions.
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mdegans

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Re: The Real Name policy is unsafe

PostTue Feb 11, 2020 1:41 am

Byron Dickens wrote:That's why you lie when you answer your security questions.

Yes, that's why mine are all random strings, but most people don't do that, and I know enough that you can bypass that by saying "it's a bunch of random garbage and I lost the paper it was on". The person on the other end is not paid enough to care and even if they refuse you can escalate to someone who will comply. It's the first thing I try before reciting alphabet soup over the phone.

Also, some companies are annoying enough that they actually check to make sure what you're entering is a valid, say, car. And even if you do lie there, as you suggest, which I do, you then have to remember your lies and use ones that are both not the same everywhere and also not very comon. Unsurprisingly, pizza is most people's favorite food, so that's straight out.

My point is, supposing you're a normal person, not paranoid, and do what they companies actually tell you to do by putting the idiot answers in the box... then you absolutely do have to worry about this stuff ending up in a breach and being used to compromise your other accounts. While not entirely, that damage is somewhat mitigated by using different credentials per website, including a random username and email alias.

That's not possible here (while some sites will choose one for you by default), so if I'm an evil haxor who is targeting you or who you work for, thanks to BlackMagic I have more useful info like your OS and system configuration with which to spear phish you should I decide you're worth it, and if you work for a production company, infecting your systems with ransomware could be very profitable, especially if I wait until close to a deadline.

I am not a target. I was just raised by paranoids and have too much time in my hands. I don't care if my real name is here becuase I'm not worth anything, but those who are worth something should, in fact, worry about this and carefully control what information they put out there.
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Howard Roll

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Re: The Real Name policy is unsafe

PostSun Mar 01, 2020 2:01 pm

Sometimes you start to think, yeah maybe I am a paranoid nutjob. Then again, an internet alias isn't the same thing as being a Prepper.

Good Luck

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