alt Hacker NewsLLMs can unmask pseudonymous users at scale with surprising accuracy
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There was a tool shared here that could show which accounts belong to the same person based on the writing patterns. Can't remember the name, but it found my old accounts on HN pretty accurately.
To state the obvious, we all need person, local tools to warn us when we’re making opsec errors.
[dupe] Discussion on source: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47139716
One solution is to flood the network with LLM slop and hide among the noise.
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Probably not GDPR-compliant then if comments can be deanonymised by LLMs.
Only if said users happen to commit OPSEC failures themselves. LLMs aren't magic...
If someone can figure out who I am or what city I live in just by this username or my comments (with proof), I'll personally send you 500,000 JPY. I'm quite confident that's not going to happen though.
The paper referenced in the article does not even explain their exact testing methodology (such as the tools or exact prompts used) because they claim it would be misused for evil. In other words, "trust me bro."
Also see the previous discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47139716
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Anonymous account unmasking represents a new threat to anonymity. not just this technique with llms, but the earlier text similarity one.
But I think it would be generally easier to counter in the same way.
Use an llm or heuristics to pose as someone else.
not only do you erase your traces, you add false positives in to the system which reduces the overall effectiveness of these techniques in the future. A bit of poisoning the well.
I hope eventually an easy to use tool, with maybe a small local llm, can make it easy enough to do this, so that any future deanonymization attacks would be too untrustworthy to rely on