Wouldn’t surprise me if some throwaways could be linked to real afcounts, and if real accounts could be linked to other real accounts, Both ones on HN and elsewhere on the intenet, from Reddit to usenet.

I suspect doxing with AI would be quite easy too, judging the way accounts talk in the same way things like gait recognition can work, link the accounts, narrow down the person, build a profile. Suddenly it becomes user abc123 is linked to (list of 30 accounts from discord to flyertalk), based on these posts about flying on us airways a lot in 2015 and these posts about Las Vegas and these about a morning flight and this picture from linked Twitter account the person worked in this industry and lived in this location from this time to that time and is likely this person on linked in.

Anonymity is dead. Historically as well as in the future. But HN still think governemt is the problem and the gdpr is bad because it disincentivises holding onto data.