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DanielVarga comments on Isn't this sitemeter logging a bit too excessive? - Less Wrong Discussion

20 Post author: DanielVarga 02 February 2011 08:55PM

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Comment author: DanielVarga 04 February 2011 01:53:57AM 0 points [-]

I don't describe it as "not completely trivial" because I think it's some sort of laudable standard, but because you are implying that it is a completely trivial task.

It seem like our difference is about whether to give a worst-case security analysis or a best-case security analysis. :) It is a completely trivial task for a high percentage of potential targets. Some people aren't geolocated or are incorrectly geolocated. Some live in large cities. But a long tail of lesswrong users is almost completely identified by their geolocation.

Using information which in all likelihood is known to no-one else on this site but you, you've found a reliable method of uniquely identifying yourself.

No. The only information I used was that I am from Hungary. Nothing else. This fact about me is public here. (Obviously, nobody cares about it, but that does not make it a secret. Again, I am talking about worst-case analysis.)

I am really not monomaniac about privacy. I agree with you that it is not a big deal that somebody can be followed like that. But at least let's realize that lesswrong is unusual in this regard, and unusual in a bad way.