Can mods see anonymous ID? July 16, 2011 3:39 PM Subscribe
Two related privacy questions: (a) Can the mods see who has posted an anonymous AskMe? The submission page suggests "no" but the anonymous submission page suggests "yes". (b) can mods see if multiple accounts are created by an specific IP address?
1. We have an email record external to the database of who has submitted an anony question when, but with no info about what question it was. The database does not know who asked what, so the question in the actual approval queue is anonymous to us; if we need to track down who wrote it for some rare reason, we can do so by putting two and two together based on approximate submission time vs. the email record, but it's a manual process.
In the event of a db hack, who asked what would still not be trivially determinable, is one of the outcomes of the way this works. But as far as true complete anonymity from the mods? No. 99.9% of the time we won't know and won't care, but functionally we can if necessary establish the identity of an anonymous asker, so the truly paranoid need to not use Anonymous Ask Metafilter as an identity gate against unlikely worst case scenarios.
2. We can see activity on an IP address across different accounts if we go looking; we can correlate by a couple other things as well (most trivial among these being paypal info used to pay for multiple signups). Using two separate accounts to keep your activity on one account anonymous to us is non-trivial, though again most of the time we're not even interested in looking.
posted by cortex (staff) at 3:48 PM on July 16, 2011 [7 favorites]
In the event of a db hack, who asked what would still not be trivially determinable, is one of the outcomes of the way this works. But as far as true complete anonymity from the mods? No. 99.9% of the time we won't know and won't care, but functionally we can if necessary establish the identity of an anonymous asker, so the truly paranoid need to not use Anonymous Ask Metafilter as an identity gate against unlikely worst case scenarios.
2. We can see activity on an IP address across different accounts if we go looking; we can correlate by a couple other things as well (most trivial among these being paypal info used to pay for multiple signups). Using two separate accounts to keep your activity on one account anonymous to us is non-trivial, though again most of the time we're not even interested in looking.
posted by cortex (staff) at 3:48 PM on July 16, 2011 [7 favorites]
Oh, good, that was much better than the heavily-qualified version I was typing up.
posted by restless_nomad (staff) at 3:51 PM on July 16, 2011 [2 favorites]
posted by restless_nomad (staff) at 3:51 PM on July 16, 2011 [2 favorites]
Thanks, cortex, that's exactly what I wanted to know.
posted by Foci for Analysis at 3:55 PM on July 16, 2011
posted by Foci for Analysis at 3:55 PM on July 16, 2011
Question (b) actually brings up something I've been wondering about. I've seen a few AskMe posts deleted because the asker violated the 7-day rule. How do mods figure out when this happens? It seems like it would be a pesky thing to check.
posted by Pericardium at 3:55 PM on July 16, 2011
posted by Pericardium at 3:55 PM on July 16, 2011
I don't think they check that manually. Imagine a script that runs every couple hours that a) finds a list of all linked accounts (i.e. same ip and/or same paypal), then b) looks at all askmes posted since the last run, checks if there are two posts within 7 days by two linked accounts, and flags it for manual inspection.
posted by Rhomboid at 3:57 PM on July 16, 2011
posted by Rhomboid at 3:57 PM on July 16, 2011
How do mods figure out when this happens?
We've got a little heuristic that uses a few of the possibly-related-accounts tricks we have to check to see if a new question just posted is a probable multi-account limit dodge and sends us mods an email with links to the questions and accounts involved.
We then take a look, try and establish whether it looks like actual limit-dodging or something innocent, and if it looks sketchy we'll send an email to the account holder to say "hey, this looks like this thing that's not okay, can you either tell us what's up or stop doing that, thanks".
The same system will also toss up a warning on the front end to the user as a "hey, if you're doing that, don't do that" that they can ignore if they know they're in the clear, or which (hopefully) dissuades most folks not in the clear from doing it if they didn't otherwise realize it's a problem.
As a result we see pretty minimal multi-account dodging, and the occasional "hey, what gives?" email from someone who the heuristic was misinterpreting; in those latter cases we can manually tell the system not to think those accounts are related in the future. Handy for spouses, that sort of thing.
posted by cortex (staff) at 4:00 PM on July 16, 2011 [1 favorite]
We've got a little heuristic that uses a few of the possibly-related-accounts tricks we have to check to see if a new question just posted is a probable multi-account limit dodge and sends us mods an email with links to the questions and accounts involved.
We then take a look, try and establish whether it looks like actual limit-dodging or something innocent, and if it looks sketchy we'll send an email to the account holder to say "hey, this looks like this thing that's not okay, can you either tell us what's up or stop doing that, thanks".
The same system will also toss up a warning on the front end to the user as a "hey, if you're doing that, don't do that" that they can ignore if they know they're in the clear, or which (hopefully) dissuades most folks not in the clear from doing it if they didn't otherwise realize it's a problem.
As a result we see pretty minimal multi-account dodging, and the occasional "hey, what gives?" email from someone who the heuristic was misinterpreting; in those latter cases we can manually tell the system not to think those accounts are related in the future. Handy for spouses, that sort of thing.
posted by cortex (staff) at 4:00 PM on July 16, 2011 [1 favorite]
Handy for spouses, that sort of thing
Sweet, I'm all set for the next 4.2 years.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 4:29 PM on July 16, 2011 [6 favorites]
Sweet, I'm all set for the next 4.2 years.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 4:29 PM on July 16, 2011 [6 favorites]
anonymous ID
Love the cognitive dissonance there.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 4:39 PM on July 16, 2011
Love the cognitive dissonance there.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 4:39 PM on July 16, 2011
Hmm, whatever happened to limiting the number of anonymous questions that cortex linked to?
posted by TheBones at 4:44 PM on July 16, 2011
posted by TheBones at 4:44 PM on July 16, 2011
infini, cripes- going out for a walk now, thankyouhaveagreatday.
posted by TheBones at 4:47 PM on July 16, 2011
posted by TheBones at 4:47 PM on July 16, 2011
Fortunately, this is no longer going to be an issue since the mods passed the recent resolution that requires full name, gender, blood type, fingerprint scan, and a fecal sample before an "anonymous" question can be posted.
In the interest of public safety, natch.
posted by Ufez Jones at 5:05 PM on July 16, 2011 [1 favorite]
In the interest of public safety, natch.
posted by Ufez Jones at 5:05 PM on July 16, 2011 [1 favorite]
We're calling it "Anony+".
posted by cortex (staff) at 5:15 PM on July 16, 2011 [19 favorites]
posted by cortex (staff) at 5:15 PM on July 16, 2011 [19 favorites]
If you don't know who asked an anonymous question, how do you know when someone emails you a follow up to post in the anonymous thread that it's the same person who asked the question?
posted by Maisie at 5:15 PM on July 16, 2011
posted by Maisie at 5:15 PM on July 16, 2011
We just trust them. Unless there's something sketch, we assume people are on the up and up.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 5:24 PM on July 16, 2011 [1 favorite]
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 5:24 PM on July 16, 2011 [1 favorite]
Yeah, I mean, needless to say if someone did pull that they'd be burning their membership card if we found out, but as far as I know it's never happened. The fact that the actual asker would be pretty goddam likely to fire off a "wait, WHAT?" email to us has hopefully occurred to anyone who got far enough into that shitty line of reasoning to really consider it and cut any unlikely venture of that particular lulz patrol short.
posted by cortex (staff) at 5:29 PM on July 16, 2011
posted by cortex (staff) at 5:29 PM on July 16, 2011
We're calling it "Anony+".
Indeed. Implied joke was implied.
posted by Ufez Jones at 5:49 PM on July 16, 2011
Indeed. Implied joke was implied.
posted by Ufez Jones at 5:49 PM on July 16, 2011
I left my fecal sample on cortex's porch, in a paper sack.
It may or may not have been on fire.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 6:06 PM on July 16, 2011 [3 favorites]
It may or may not have been on fire.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 6:06 PM on July 16, 2011 [3 favorites]
Indeed. Implied joke was implied.
I just liked the resulting implied "anonyplous" rhyme enough to risking boorishness, basically.
posted by cortex (staff) at 6:07 PM on July 16, 2011
I just liked the resulting implied "anonyplous" rhyme enough to risking boorishness, basically.
posted by cortex (staff) at 6:07 PM on July 16, 2011
Or, going for Spanish, "anonymás".
posted by JiBB at 6:17 PM on July 16, 2011 [8 favorites]
posted by JiBB at 6:17 PM on July 16, 2011 [8 favorites]
Does anybody know what to do with a bucket full of holes? I'm asking for a friend.
posted by Sailormom at 6:19 PM on July 16, 2011 [8 favorites]
posted by Sailormom at 6:19 PM on July 16, 2011 [8 favorites]
I left my fecal sample on cortex's porch, in a paper sack.
Yeah. We ran the float. I hate to say it, but you tested positive for whipworms. Don't worry, we can knock 'em right out.
posted by Ufez Jones at 6:27 PM on July 16, 2011 [1 favorite]
Yeah. We ran the float. I hate to say it, but you tested positive for whipworms. Don't worry, we can knock 'em right out.
posted by Ufez Jones at 6:27 PM on July 16, 2011 [1 favorite]
Don't believe a word of it. Cortex, Matt and Jessamyn are in the Metafilter Bunker rolling out of their office chairs laughing at a big thick ring binder of usernames with notes jotted in sideways- "Painful scrotum injury", "Jeremy Clarkson fetish", that sort of thing.
posted by dunkadunc at 6:30 PM on July 16, 2011 [3 favorites]
posted by dunkadunc at 6:30 PM on July 16, 2011 [3 favorites]
"Jeremy Clarkson painful scrotum injury fetish."
posted by box at 8:22 PM on July 16, 2011 [6 favorites]
posted by box at 8:22 PM on July 16, 2011 [6 favorites]
Is there room in the bunker for execuslides? I'd like to think so. Mods deserve some fun.
posted by Splunge at 8:24 PM on July 16, 2011
posted by Splunge at 8:24 PM on July 16, 2011
I left my fecal sample on cortex's porch, in a paper sack.
Oh fuck me, now I have The Who's "A Legal Matter" headstuck, only with "fecal sample" instead, and right before bedtime. Great. Thanks.
posted by FelliniBlank at 8:27 PM on July 16, 2011 [1 favorite]
Oh fuck me, now I have The Who's "A Legal Matter" headstuck, only with "fecal sample" instead, and right before bedtime. Great. Thanks.
posted by FelliniBlank at 8:27 PM on July 16, 2011 [1 favorite]
This thread is the only Google result for "execuslides". Please explicate.
posted by Bruce H. at 10:22 PM on July 16, 2011
posted by Bruce H. at 10:22 PM on July 16, 2011
"Jeremy Clarkson got his painful scrotum injury with this one weird trick! Click here!"
posted by Uppity Pigeon #2 at 10:29 PM on July 16, 2011 [2 favorites]
posted by Uppity Pigeon #2 at 10:29 PM on July 16, 2011 [2 favorites]
Or riffing of JiBB's suggestion: "anonynomás".
posted by madamjujujive at 12:22 PM on July 17, 2011
posted by madamjujujive at 12:22 PM on July 17, 2011
This thread is the only Google result for "execuslides". Please explicate.
Also the only result for "Jeremy Clarkson painful scrotum injury fetish", thank God.
posted by Johnny Assay at 8:28 PM on July 17, 2011 [1 favorite]
Also the only result for "Jeremy Clarkson painful scrotum injury fetish", thank God.
posted by Johnny Assay at 8:28 PM on July 17, 2011 [1 favorite]
"Jeremy Clarkson has a painful scrotum injury fetish. Now, I want that painful scrotum injury fetish."
Wait. Didn't someone just ask--?
posted by lapsangsouchong at 9:22 AM on July 18, 2011
Wait. Didn't someone just ask--?
posted by lapsangsouchong at 9:22 AM on July 18, 2011
Yeah. We ran the float. I hate to say it, but you tested positive for whipworms.
You are taking this vet school thing seriously. I'm sending you my clubbed tail for your birthday.
posted by yerfatma at 5:21 PM on July 18, 2011
You are taking this vet school thing seriously. I'm sending you my clubbed tail for your birthday.
posted by yerfatma at 5:21 PM on July 18, 2011
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posted by Foci for Analysis at 3:46 PM on July 16, 2011