Anonymity and safety on the chans

Hi. Every now and then some user on 4chan makes an "unexplained" personal reference to me in his post as if I they know me and my family and they know what I've been doing IRL recently. Though always vague, on the verge between proof and deniability. They also never follow up when I ask for clarification. Corrupt 4chan mods exchanging user data with doxxers? NSA/police / Google/Microsoft power-tripping on ordinary users? Or just incredible coincidences?

Are such experiences common on the Internet? Do others have them?

I consider myself a relatively security-aware user and I don't do very stupid things that make other people typically catch viruses. The rare anti-virus scan I perform once in a while hasn't detected any infection on my computers since the PC 486 era.

Picture unrelated. I don't have Windows 10.

Other urls found in this thread:

news.sky.com/story/x-10545969
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideas_of_reference_and_delusions_of_reference
twitter.com/SFWRedditVideos

if i cry uncle will you come clean? :^)

Meh. I don't need new conundrums right now. I don't understand your post.

you need to remember to take your medication regularly, op.
these minor hallucinations can develop into serious psychosis. you could end up thinking someone cares.

You don't care about not being doxxed?

Enthusiasts of NSA, please, leave. Or I will call /killcen/.

requesting ban(USER WAS BANNED FOR THIS POST)

By whom?
If Dysnomia or a random user did an opiatefag on me I'd be pissed, but I know it can't happen.
The alphabet agencies have already doxxed me, you and every other internet connected human, so it's too late to worry about that.

report submitted

don't forget to mention the rapes.

Give us some examples, John.

It's hard to give real examples without causing what one is trying to avoid. But thanks for calling my real name.

I know they have doxxed everyone. The question is whether they abuse this info to harass ordinary people and what's the extent of such practice. And, if so, for what purpose.

REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

Good point. I'm not sure when exactly I became a normie… but you've caught me. I just called myself an "ordinary man".

Well, I'm not criminal, so in this sense "ordinary". Pepe isn't criminal. In fact, normies are criminals.

Okay, I made up my mind. Let's just erase the word "ordinary" from my post.

Fixed.

The "funny" thing is that NSA/police abuse might be a lesser evil, compared to some criminal guys using similar abilities.

I replied to wrong post.

Fixed.

...

Wow, hold your horses. I didn't go back to 4chan until Holla Forums turned into 4chan (some three months ago). Even Hotwheels isn't active here anymore. What alternatives are we left with? Masterchan and Librechan are too hardcore to risk my arse, although they have my full sympathy. Meanwhile other chans are low traffic, although I do monitor them.

Wizardchan is the only other 'chan I use nowadays. I only come here to check up on Holla Forums and Holla Forums, as well as some smaller boards.

I shitpost on Holla Forums whenever I want to manually synchronize my system clock with Holla Forums's.

Same shit is happening to others too. One time a guy on /x/ kept posting my current steam avatar…
Was pissing me off because he couldn't see anything I was doing, but knew what user I was. (was probably a mod)

Thanks for sharing.


I'll consider.

>manually synchronize my system clock
Kek.

You know, the odd thing is (if these incidents aren't coincidences, and that's a big IF) how they would know things about us that we never mention on chans.

Bump for people reporting similar experiences (or lack of such).

one time I made a Windows 10 thread on Holla Forums and an user saged my thread and told me to "go suck on a dragon dildo" which is a very strange coincidence beecause I had just purchased my first dragon dildo only 5 days earlier but I had never posted about it on Holla Forums. there is definately some weird stuff going on with this website OP. I'd steer clear of Holla Forums especially, there are actual blackhat hackers there.

my advice: take a break from the net. maybee for a year or more.

Don't you have trash to take out?

Thanks.


And here's another example, going on right under our noses: I do have exactly that problem right now involving neighbours. I've talked to the police about that 5 minutes beefore seeing this post.

Meanwhile yesterday a person left me a handwritten note at my home door, signed by one very rare name (very rare in the English speaking world). Just 3 days earlier, someone replied to me on 4chan, mentioning exactly that name for completely no sensible reason, making me think. He didn't respond when I asked for clarification. And now, I got that note at the door. Weird. I haven't heard from that person for years until that 4chan post and that handwritten note.

Sometimes I think this might bee friendly surveillance staff letting someone discreetly know he's under observation. Except the purpose of such innuendos doesn't seem rather friendly. My person may warrant some police interest due to not beeing normal but I'm not criminal. beeing abnormal is not a crime in the West yet.

If your post was an opportunistic joke, bee helpful and explain.

And how would that work? Wouldn't it bee equivalent of burying head in the sand?
I do need a break from the Internet though, for other reasons.

Also I had already beeen on a break from the Internet for a couple of years in the past. Didn't help this issue in any way. It was beeneficial in other ways.

OP here. Latest development: someone nicked all letters from my physical postbox. If this doesn't justify paranoia to "cool" anons such as , what does?

Since you've posted this advice persistently in two threads, I must assume some degree of seriousness and I will ask you for clarification for the second time.

Is your advice proven to work for anyone? Has following it answered anyone's questions regarding the affiliation of those posters, actual existence of the problem (its randomness) and the purpose of such actions (in case they're not random)? Are you talking from experience or are you just uncleing? Is your advice valid for everyone or just for me personally? And, lastly, what prevents people from clarifying posts like yours?

You realize that a sane person is not supposed to leave the Internet on recommendation of every random user, do you? Make your advice actually helpful or GTFO.


I'm still waiting for clarification. I'm not supposed to understand them without beeing mentally ill, right? Okay, so I don't.


Is your post a hallucination too? At which point is one "allowed" to judge that something is real (not random), according to you, without stepping into psychosis? Is not seeing real things more sane than seeing not real things? Have you ever done any investigation and play hide & seek with anyone? Wouldn't it bee a reason to worry if events mentioned in OP were not coincidences? Do you have anything actually helpful to say?

Oh, I get it now. I wonder how many other words were substituted in your post.

as for windows 10, Get spybot antibeeacon. great tool in addition to changing ALL of the settings put at default.

friend of mine (who is very concerned about anonymity) went to all kinds of shenanigans to get rid of cookies and stuff that could identify him
when he started his google maps equivalent application it always started at his house (without gps tracer available and with tor enabled and shit).. there was no way how this google maps equivalent application could know where he lived..

it turned out that his house was the starting point of the map application when someone entered the his cities name.

It's not 4chan though here, sure some boards don't have perfect moderation but try even having this meta discusion over there. Say anything too disruptive or wrong think there? Say hello to your ban.

But I digress, this entire thing, your entire thread…. it reeks of paranoia. Like I honestly think you may bee going through some sort of minor or major episode with it. Cause this just dosen't add up on any logical end. Unless you can acutally document and give examples, it all just sounds like paranoid ramblings.

Also notice, I picked you out of your people in your thread not by doxing you, but by your typing style. This isn't exactly hard to do, and then, I could just start drawing conclusions about you. And if I do that, its very possible I may bee right.

Tl:dr: You're a faggot for going to 4chan and its easy to pick up a bunch without exactly tracking you.

At this point, Microsoft has shown enough determination to grab user data and plant backdoors that it is impossible to assume that any such solutions patch every hole. In addition, turning off obvious backdoors redflags users as attractive targets for unknown backdoors. You can't patch ALL holes in Windows 10 and if you can't patch every single hole, a boat is not going to float.
Still, good to know. Thanks.


I realize that such amazing coincidences happen. I have solved similar ones myself. Most people just pretend they don't exist and hope for the beest instead of taking control over their lives and finding an explanation like your friend did. IMO that's a sorry excuse for sanity. The habit of denying uncomfortable reality may save people's mental health in the short run but it WILL backfire when real trouble happens. Thanks for sharing the story.

That's why I made this thread here :).

So having all letters stolen is not a reason to worry? Does your concept of sanity involve ignoring whole reality or just warning signs?

You see, habitual dismissing of legitimate concerns by people has the opposite effect to the intended: it makes psychosis actually look reasonable.

It's not like there are not enough people who have died as a result of experts (doctors, police) simply not listening and not beelieving them for no reason. And that's only the most extreme consequence of habitual disbeelief, only by those who are paid to know beetter. The worst thing is that 99% of people don't learn from those stories: they repeat the fucking horror movie script every single time like enchanted.

Things are not bad enough at this stage to warrant dropping anonymity and going public with my life. But I did give an example or two in this thread which you didn't bother to notice beefore you made your mind. Let me recapitulate them:
1. Someone ITT calling me by my real name not by mistake (intentionally).
2. Someone ITT mentioning trash problem in the exact time I have talk with police about trash of my neighbours.
3. user on 4chan mentioning a very rare name, then a notice signed by that name getting left at my door next day.
4. All of the above: timed with theft of physical letters from my mailbox.
5. Lastly, suspect anons ignoring requests to explain their posts.
That's only SOME examples.

Yeah, I'm aware of this and your post didn't feel abnormal to me. It's normal to recognize people by various cues in a single thread. Likewise I assume you are from >>>/killcen/ . But I think it's not normal to identify an user across all threads and boards and always bee present where he posts and have an apparent knowledge of his real life, is it?

I partially accept the blame. To my defence, I refuse to post anything of top quality there, mostly shitposting and taking advantage of big user numbeers. I hold my beest content for a worthy community (which may never come).

Fixed

>Does your concept of sanity involve ignoring whole reality or just warning signs?
>It's not like there are not enough people who have died as a result of experts (doctors, police) simply not listening and not beelieving them for no reason.

News:

news.sky.com/story/x-10545969
>A toddler had to have both his legs and seven of his fingers amputated after doctors failed to spot the warning signs of toxic shock syndrome. (21 August 2016)

Okay, this is not really related to the topic but it strikes a chord with my words.

Don't think that staying with Windows 7 is any better. Microsoft is sneaking KB's into Windows 7 that give the same type of telemetry seen in Windows 10.

You are in the early stages of schizophenia .Its called "delusions of reference"the state where everything seems eerie and weirdly magical.The world is actually full of odd coincidence and the first sign of psychosis is believing that these odd but normal events actually are referring to you.The only way to survive your upcoming full schizophenic break is to just tell yourself that the universe has a sense of humor and laugh it off.Because you are already on the paths of madness…And by the wayYour neighbor can read your mind,Hillary is wise and just …I am your real father and have been watching you for years.Espescially when you do that one thing….You know what I mean son.

OP, have you heard of Baader-Meinhof Syndrome? It may explain some of your experiences. As well as that of the user with the dragon dildo.
It's more likely this is a string of unrelated occurrences which may seem related to someone who is on high alert. Our brains try to connect the dots for unusual occurrences. It's a good idea to second guess your instincts. Disorders are caused by natural responses going unchecked.

He gets it, only way to correct for it is to acknowledge the thought process you are doing.
Similar experiences here and identifying that I had never talked about it allowed me to seek help.

It's probably someone you know.

No one is interested in your private life, you schizo. Some guy you sort of know IRL installed a keylogger on your computer and recognized some of your posts on the chans.

Well, you'd better have more than that, because right now you're basically just freaking out about something as unspectacular as a word being spoken on TV at the same time as you read the same word on the internet.

Are you seriously so psychotic that you think someone is posting on a chan with keywords such as "trash problem" because… I didn't really get to the because part before concluding that you are mentally unstable.

…when I masturbate ;).

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideas_of_reference_and_delusions_of_reference
This is relevant, thanks. Though I feel it's unfair to call my observations "delusions" because I only report objective facts. I leave the judgement whether they appear related… to you. Are you suffering from delusions? ;)


I haven't heard this term before and but that's the possibility I've been considering from the beginning. I'm naturally vigilant but I compensate for that by keeping distance to own observations without denying their reality. This approach has never mislead me before and it has often enabled me to discover things that nobody else has.


This would be the easiest explanation. I have a manipulative family and they have done shit in the past. They had keys to my flat before I moved in and I have never changed the locks since, because, you know, "not trusting your own family would be a paranoia", right? Well, I don't trust them. But I try not to be overly conuncleing.


Yes, that's a possibility. That's what this thread is for: to hand over the most fragile part of the cognitive process (judgement whether things are coincidental or not) to OTHER people. Thanks for your judgement!

Have I said even one thing ITT that contradicts reality? I think that people calling others mentally ill without a solid basis discredit themselves.

Obviously I am being targetted by someone IRL right now. Mail theft and a few other IRL incidents aren't schizophrenia, are they? So advising me to tone down my vigilance is unconvincing, to say the least. The only thing under question is the extent of my harrassment and whether it extends into the chans. I've been taught that cultivating a questioning mind is a sane thing to do and that denial of reality is the insane thing.

ah dang nabbit, couldn't you have put that on the start of your post?
I was already looking for the "tyrone laughing for 1 000 000 eons" picture.
By the way, does anybody have it on hand?

Sorry about that :). My advice: always start reading any text from the top, then jump to the bottom, and then read everything else. Everyone does it and it is efficient.

Also thanks for a helpful contribution.

kek

Ignore the muh website identity politics guy, he's an autistic faggot and is practically spamming by now. Although you are too for using "doxx".

He does some good job. I don't agree with him about everything but I like him.

kek
I've been on the other side of this. I used to have a bunch of dox on random imageboard users, and one of them was pic related from Holla Forums so like a week ago I bosted his image just for fun.


I think if he only posted 1, 3, and 4 he'd be fine. And if he focused less on words that triggered him and more on the obvious straight-from-halfchan "LOL RAIDZ GUISEEE XDDD" threads. Otherwise he's a necessary annoyance, I guess. To prevent us from becoming what we oppose.

faggot

Interesting. Though I can't quite imagine what kind of personal data could allow you track some user on a chan, other than having spyware on his computer, or being a mod and seeing his IP (or scrambled IP).

One security hole on 4chan is also Google Captcha which appears to harvest user posts for ad matching.

Doxing people is piss easy. What's even "better", if you're a sociopath at least, is that by the time someone's important enough for some people to want a dox on them it'll be much easier for anons to find out personal information on the target than it will be for the target to remove his digital trail of breadcrumbs.

Well, I'm mentally ill, diagnosed with ADHD, bipolar disorder and OCD, and so I feel like I know what I'm talking about when I say you're probably paranoid and convincing yourself that there are rolls governing which "coincidences" will happen, and that those rolls are tailored for you. You do realize that what you're proposing is extremely unrealistic, right? It might not be physically impossible, but compared to pure coincidence, the probability that some complex, sadistic, surveillence-based scheme has been arranged just for you is laughable. And I am laughing, at you, for even posting this.

rolls*

Jesus. Holla Forums is starting to suck harder than eating pre-historic feces.

how much of this advice applies to windows 7? because that's what i'm using

Not sure if I understand you there. I don't remember mentioning "rolls". My aim is to establish a "threshold of sanity": the best line to separate likely random coincidences from likely intentional activity.

Amongst possibilities that I consider is (of course) blind luck and pure randomness. Other than that, I'm examining the possibility that someone has compromised my Internet access. Maybe I'm under police observation. Why not? I'm not a normie, many people who know me fear me (for wrong reasons). I may attract criminal attention. Again, why not? Another possibility is mods trading user info across boards and chans. Ask yourself: why would they not do it? It doesn't take rocket science to do it when you have administrative access. Which assumption is more laughable: one that mods may trade user info or one that only saints become mods? Most people seem to firmly assume the latter and will attack any attempt to question this assumption. You are a prime example of it.

If the governments find it beneficial to penetrate social networks and do mass-doxxing of users (as confirmed by Snowden and by reports from the Chinese Internet), why wouldn't some criminal gang wish to gain comparable powers? At this point, it's just my imagination going wild – not even related to my personal adventures. But I would be surprised if no one had ever attempted something so easy and so lucrative. Hey, isn't that the whole purpose of /baphomet/? Doxxing and cyberstalking exists. Contrary to your belief, it doesn't take re-engineering of the whole Internet just to target you or me, backdoors are all over the place and are traded on markets and trade fairs actively supported by the governments.

I agree! That's why I made this thread: to give other people a chance to come out with similar stories… or not to come out. If there isn't a notable number of other such cases, I'll dismiss my correlations as likely coincidences.

You, on the other hand, dismiss possibilities without even examining them. How is that rational?

I think that your personal background has scared you from the healthy habit of freethinking – and I can understand your position (if that's the case). You are the right person in the right thread and I'm glad that you are here. Your perspective broadens my perspective. I can't say with 100% confidence that you are wrong. However I don't have a history of hallucinations or delusions, only perhaps of hypervigilance and overthinking of everything. Also my life choices tend to be quite good, even when I had chosen to go against the grain, under an overwhelming pressure from everyone to abandon my direction. That's why I permit myself the "luxury" of such cognitive indulgences (with some mental safety measures… such as making this thread).

BTW, which user are you? I responded to several anons in the post that you answered.

The biggest part of the puzzle: solved. It was neither the CIA nor 4chan mods 😉 who have visited my home address and stolen my mail… it was my overprotective family. They claimed credit for this "attack".

Therefore I choose to consider all other events mentioned by me as coincidences.

Wait, so I don't have schizophrenia??? My mail theft was not my delusion??? Where is your schizophrenia now?