[liberationtech] giving up pseudonymity after collecting experiences with pseudonymous project development

[Maxim Kammerer]

It's interesting to read about your experience, because I had no idea
that keeping pseudonymity could be that stressful. Myself, I maintain
projects under a pseudonym mainly to prevent interference with real
life, and to prevent stupid kids / activists harassing me due to who I
am / where I live (I don't have issues with harassment per se, just
prefer not to deal with it when possible due to lack of time). I never
had an issue with telling my real name when necessary, or telling
people I know in real life about my projects, but could have easily
done without either. Below I will try to address some of the points
that you raise:

1. Keeping true pseudonymity (under some reasonable threat model) is
very hard, because people make mistakes. It's always easy to look at
something in hindsight, and say: “This guy shouldn't have done this”.
I have seen that, e.g., while investigating hacking incidents. Still,
I believe that I could pull off true pseudonymity, but it would
require too much resources (both technical and time). In my case, it's
not worth it.

2. Not being able to tell anyone is an issue of having to keep a
secret, not of pseudonymity. I had to keep secrets in the past (the
kind where you break the law by divulging them), and the first time it
is indeed psychologically straining if it's something interesting.
After that, I couldn't care less.

3. Paranoia is a similar subject. First time I was under surveillance
(when hacking, by another guy remotely watching everything I do, if
that matters), it indeed induced strong feelings of paranoia.
Afterwards, I stopped caring. If I suspect being under surveillance, I
first think about using it to my advantage. That's why, e.g., I can't
take Nadim's (in the past) or Jacob's whines seriously. If you claim
that you are under constant surveillance, and then see things in your
apartment moved in your absence, then you have only yourself to blame
for not installing video cameras. Think of the possibilities (on the
other hand, you might discover that nothing happened, so the drama
potential is lower, heh).

4. Not being able to express yourself under a real name. This is an
issue of culture — you should have tried imageboards. :)

5. I think you overestimate how much people care, in general. You
could have kept reasonable pseudonymity even if you did everything
outlined in the last paragraph of your post. On the other hand, you
would need *a lot* of resources and expertise to hide from NSA, I
doubt you invested that much.