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Comment by Dylan16807 | Hacker News Reader

> Ask a woman in a liquor store whether her anonymity is maintained by this scenario...?

Is she not going to say "pretty well compared to a surveillance database, one or two people that are probably going to forget immediately"?

> The current liquor store approach for buying liquor is hazardous for a good chunk of people

What chunk of people?

Are you trying to imply that this chunk includes women in general? It's really easy to find random women without looking at an ID. If this is about addresses, anyone taking actions based on "a woman probably lives here" has about the same effect as picking houses at random.

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> Is she not going to say "pretty well compared to a surveillance database"

No, instead she is likely to avoid talking in abstractions and instead talk about personal experiences of getting stalked online by multiple people she has had to show her details to in the past, who may include storekeeps, police, university staff, etc, etc. Eva Galperin is an excellent source on the way many of our procedures are designed in ways that do not at all account for the potential of stalking and harassment, though her focus is on how this continues to unfold in the technology space.

I can't really follow how a woman showing an ID to a lecherous cashier allows said cashier to stalk her online. Where she is, presumably, speaking about personal experiences anonymously.

Generally you can't get through life with no one knowing your name; even women at risk of stalking. As you already pointed out they may have to show ID to police, university staff, employers, landlords, medical staff, banks, social workers or other government employees. Buying a single-use token annually to get on social media doesn't meaningfully increase that risk profile. And as I already said, if they're that worried, they can ask a friend to buy it for them.

Very big citation needed for saying it's "likely" she has been stalked by multiple people because they got a glance at her name. Especially because someone that just wants info on an attractive woman can find a hundred times as many candidates by scrolling facebook.

I'll believe it if you have proof, but you need proof.

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