Thread · 8 tweets · 26 Feb 2021

Hey, it's Friday and clearly everyone is still very confused about anonymous, pseudonymous, pseudo-anonymous, and more. So here's a thread with all the variants I can think of — please add your own!

anonymous You can’t be identified, except the data contains geolocation so it’s trivially traced back to you.

pseudonymous An elaborate set of technical controls is supposed to keep you anonymous except in clearly defined cases but no one bothered to build it so everyone knows who you are.

quasi-anonymous We encrypted a pseudonymous identifier and then gave everyone the key.

quasinymous I know your full name except it’s “John Smith” so I have no idea who the fuck you actually are.

faux-nonymous You gave me a fake name to protect your privacy but I have seventeen distinct unique identifiers for you with which I can buy your actual identity.

incognitonymous You use “incognito mode” to protect your privacy but your browser is syncing your full cleartext reading history to my server. LOL, users amirite?

probanonymous I have a probabilistic identifier for you and that’s okay because it’s totally pinky-promise not a fingerprint (cc @slayser8).