Fair warning to my fellow goats - Account anonymity in anon subs is a fallacy and what you write can and will get used against you. (whatever)

submitted ago by NeedleStack

This post is an advisory to users that your username is connected to whatever you write in anon subs.

What you write can be seen by one or more devs who’ve been given that special access. But what you may not know is that they can and do use it against you as they’ve done with me in the past and as recently as yesterday. And one or more of those users who have this ability are part of SBBH.

Some history: One of the SBBH members had a hissy fit with me over a year ago and is probably the same user who would “miraculously” happen to know it was me when I would write certain things in anon subs in the past. I’d write something and they’d make a snarky remark revealing that they knew were talking to my account. It wasn’t a huge deal but it made me aware that my username could be seen by one or more users with this special access.

Back to present day: I’d never bothered to get caught up in SBBH drama until about a week ago when I started needling them in anon subs with a comment here or there regarding their questionable activities on voat.

It didn’t take long for one of them to take the bait and clearly refer to me when making this remark about my recent comments:

http://archive.is/eBPYZ

My account is exactly 2.7 years old. Whoever wrote that comment was a fool; for so obviously ‘giving away’ that they could see it was me writing those comments (showing their hand), and to give such a sensitive shit over what I wrote (notice it took anti-SBBH comments for them to get fresh and reveal themselves).

Let this story be a warning to any of you that this ‘special access’ to see which user is writing “anon” comments creates an unfair advantage and in the wrong hands can be used against you. At the same time, these privileged few are able to enjoy the ability to hide in anon subs themselves.

@PuttItOut, users will never be free to “have their say” in anon subs until everyone but you is stripped of the ability to see who’s posting what in so-called anon subs.

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Edit: Hey, cool! My post got a "Speculation" flair. Perhaps the first in voat's history in v/Whatever.

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PuttItOut ago

Your post is misleading and filled with incorrect statements.

No one has access to any area of voat but me, there is no such thing as special access.

NeedleStack ago

Well shit, like I said in this earlier comment, if I was mistaken so be it - and that it would take only word from you for me to believe I was mistaken.

But your comment is coming off as accusing me of making something up intentionally. You know, A LIE. Which is not what I did or would do.

Everything I said I experienced was what I perceived it to be. I didn't post from a place of misleading or implying. And I'm not going to correct my wording because it was what I thought to be true.

I'm seriously put off by the way you responded. I'm not just some shithead. I actually care a lot about this place and have done a lot of work in subs and with other members across voat for nearly 3 years but whatever, I guess my bringing up a valid concern boils me down to being an asshole huh.

If it's happening as a bug and it will get fixed, great!

This post blew up larger than I thought it would but good came out of it; commenters bringing up a lot of important stuff we need to square away as a community anyway (brigading, witch-hunts, vote manipulation, site security, etc.). Those issues are way more important than any bug I brought up so kudos to you if you can get this house in order.

PuttItOut ago

What you write can be seen by one or more devs who’ve been given that special access. But what you may not know is that they can and do use it against you as they’ve done with me in the past and as recently as yesterday. And one or more of those users who have this ability are part of SBBH.

This statement is purposely inflammatory, incorrect, lacks tact, and is intended to create a false narrative, regardless of what you think is true. I'm actually surprised you could say such at thing, being that you are such an important part of Voat. It's something I'd expect from sane or grifter, but not you.

The proper way to report a potential security issue is to report it to v/voatdev or PM.

If we have a bug in anon subs then we need to reproduce it so it can be fixed. We've had a bug before that we patched but there may be another one. So if anyone wants to PM me with the technique that is being used, we will patch it ASAP.

This is assuming there is even a bug in the first place, as this post has no concrete evidence that an anon account has been compromised.

kneo24 ago

lacks tact,

Pot calling the kettle!

Your post can be summed up as, "SBBH dindu nuffin' wrong!". Stop pretending they aren't at the very least border line abusive or manipulative, even if it is sometimes funny.

Laurentius_the_pyro ago

It doesn't matter how much you hate SBBH, if what they're accused of is objectively not happening then it's not happening.

reeeing about SBBH with zero evidence is like CNN's "Russian collusion" narrative.

Provide one shred of proof or fuck off nigger.

kneo24 ago

Uh, hello you cock gobbling loser. Did you not read the OP's post? The conclusion here wasn't unreasonable. People on Voat run off with ideas based on as much evidence all the time and they're hardly ever called out for it. But now, this one time someone calls out SBBH for something that seems like a reasonable conclusion and you reeeeee like a fucking faggot. Please go asphyxiate yourself on some Zyklon.

Laurentius_the_pyro ago

But now, this one time someone calls out SBBH for something that seems like a reasonable conclusion and you reeeeee like a fucking faggot.

It very much does not seem like a reasonable conclusion to me, in fact there wasn't much reasoning at all in the OP, just making wild accusations and then running with them like they were already proven facts.

Please go asphyxiate yourself on some Zyklon.

Looks like (((someone))) is a little obsessed with gas.

kneo24 ago

It very much does not seem like a reasonable conclusion to me, in fact there wasn't much reasoning at all in the OP, just making wild accusations and then running with them like they were already proven facts.

That's because you're a god damn retard. It's not hard to follow.

  • Someone calls out SBBH anonymously.
  • A user responds with anonymous OP's account age.

While it's plausible it's a lucky guess, SBBH generally fucks with everyone and on top of that people are constantly deleting their accounts and starting new ones, making it that much less likely they would correctly guess an account age.

But, as you've clearly demonstrated, following basic logic isn't your strong suit.

Looks like (((someone))) is a little obsessed with gas.

Yes, I must be a jew because I told you to gas yourself. If that's the case, then everyone on Voat is a fucking jew. How's it going, Rabbi Herpes Mouth?

Laurentius_the_pyro ago

That's because you're a god damn retard. It's not hard to follow.

Calling me a retard is not a substitute for evidence, nor for sound logic

While it's plausible it's a lucky guess, SBBH generally fucks with everyone and on top of that people are constantly deleting their accounts and starting new ones, making it that much less likely they would correctly guess an account age.

It seems you have things backwards, you are acting like it's some slim possibility of this being a "lucky guess" when it's far more likely than some secret conspiracy by Putt to get SBBH to target the knittinglady @NeedleStack It's certainly a pretty huge logical leap to assume someone guessing an account age (that matches up with one of the largest voat migrations) means someone A. has access to secret dev info and B. that someone is SBBH, neither of these statements have any evidence to back them up in the OP, they are assumptions, yet needle presents them as facts and suggests actions based on these assumptions, especially when said said age also matches up with many other users who are prominently attacked on anon subs such as @Kevdude, @Crensch, or many others.

But, as you've clearly demonstrated, following basic logic isn't your strong suit.

you're really working hard on being the dunning-kruger effect personified?

Crensch ago

I like how the comment with actual logic gets downvoted twice in 11 minutes, and the completely retarded comment above it gets upvoted twice. Somebody's biased, and doesn't care about truth, facts, or logic.

Laurentius_the_pyro ago

Meh I don't care about downvoats, CCP is easy enough to get just by posting good content that there is no way for RPV/Sane/MYG to downvoat me hard enough to stop me from posting ever since protections against bot mass comment history downvoating were put in place (I ended up gaining something like 800 CCP when all of the bot downvoats were removed the day that fix went live), 6-10 bots/alts simply can't compete with thousands of everyday users on anything important.

They think mass spamming and voat manipulation with alts will defeat objective facts, they'll be proven wrong.

MadWorld ago

I have seen about 10 downvotes between the cache update. Sometimes a harmless comment on bug report, such as @PeaceSeeker's, gets downvoted to oblivion. It's good to see that you are not intimidated by their shitty tactics.

Edit: and you will also notice some users with very large upvotes in those threads too.

Laurentius_the_pyro ago

Once the initial barrage of downvoats form alts (usually lasting 3-20 minutes) is over things naturally correct as regular users correct the manipulated voats.

Things only stay negative on obscure comments far down in some deep corner of a thread or on a bug report, things that aren't seen by enough normal users to counteract a butthurt fag with 10 alts.

MadWorld ago

Sometimes they are very persistent! A submission that is two days old can still get -5 downvoats per comment on some users! That's a lot of votes in total.