How exactly would that work? We don't use accounts here, there is no email verification either. At the most, they could link it to an IP address and that won't compromise anonymity by itself without the right tech.
IP Address can be matched to similar mini leaks done on a daily basis on other sites where you do feed emails. It can very easily be traced to an individual person.
At our end, we don't track IP addresses on LI either, we only record an obfuscated and encrypted IPs that looks like this in your case, for example, and which is also not a completely unique identifier:
Further, this pseudonymous IP encryption key gets reset and thrown away every 24-48 hours, so even if we were really clever and really wanted to we couldn't deduce your actual IP from this after a day or two.
Of course, end of the day, you kind of have to trust us on this and despite our measures to safeguard your anonymity and using an encrypted https connection, it's theoretically probably possible for tracking at your ISP, law school, firm or Pegasus-spying or NSA level to deduce posts that you make.
In short, if you're really really really worried about this or you're leaking state secrets, probably don't use the internet, or if you are, use a VPN and/or Tor and other measures to protect your anonymity...
If anyone wants to verify LI's above claim - just ▮▮▮ You will be shown an error in which you can see that emojis are being used to represent your IP.
@LegallyIndia But this is not really some strong encryption method is it? Isn't it the same as storing 'ABCD' as, lets say, 'DCBA'. Sounds more like a fun way to obfuscate things, rather than encryption.
Thanks for stress testing our system - you really shouldn't be able to see your own Emoji IP, so we'll try to fix that (have redacted the details of your post in the meantime so we don't get drowned in spam :)
If you're interested in technical details about whether this is strong enough, would welcome your feedback. Tldr, it is intended to be fairly cryptographically and practically secure. [If you're technically inclined, here are the boring details: your IP address is first 'salted' (sprinkled) with a random sequence of 40 letters that gets regenerated approximately daily, then 'hashed' with SHA384 (akin to a one-way encryption that can not be reversed), and then three partial character sequences of the hash are converted into three out of more than 1000 emojis. And even if it was theoretically possible to reverse engineer it, approximately after a day the old 'salt' is deleted and a new one is generated.]
Hope that helps and always happy for feedback and more tests.
I shared my harrowing experience with a celebrity mediator with the hope that you would support the cause and publish it. I drafted it responsibly - without giving any descriptors of this person. I am saddened to see that LI preferred not to publish it. And here I thought that LI was independent and also stood for impartiality and fairness. It is clearly under the control of the powers that be.
Somewhat off topic, and honestly, don't have any information about your specific post or that such a thing as a 'celebrity mediator' exists, so can't comment on specifics. But sometimes moderators may collectively or individually decide not publish comments for various persons, but it's nearly never to protect 'powers that be', but more likely to protect LI, if there is no way for us to confirm or corroborate the accuracy of the comment or it has been reported as inaccurate, defamatory, etc.
@LegallyIndia thanks for clarifying! I thought some salting and hashing would be involved.
So if I understand that correctly, what you are basically saying is that there are three layers to anonymize my IP address?
Layer 1: Original_ip_address ---- converted to ---> Salted_ip_address
Layer 2: Salted_ip_address ----- converted to -----> SHA384_hashed_ip_address
Layer 3: SHA34_hashed_ip_address --- converted to ---> 3 emojis
So even if I somehow reverse-engineer layer 3, reverse-engineering just layer 2 is, well, practically impossible, and reverse-engineering layer-1 is also super difficult because the 'salt' keeps on changing.
This begs the question - since no can decrypt the emojis to figure out what the original IP was (and not even LI can decrypt it because of layers 1 & 2)**, why even bother doing it? why are you even storing IP addresses?
**unless LI stores the 'Original_ip_address' along with the 'salt' used to create the 'Salted_ip_address', somewhere else in their database, because from there on they just have to carry out the steps for layers 2 & 3 to get the 3 emojis being used represent your IP. My guess is LI is storing the 'Original_ip_address' along with the 'salt' somewhere else in a different database.
Yes, your understanding of the 3 layers and the practical impossibility of reverse engineering it, is basically correct.
And yes, we do not keep any unencrypted original_ip_address in any database or log files, to the best of our knowledge (because if we intentionally did, what would be the point in going through the effort of encryption?). The original IP is used only to create the emojis, and is not written to any database or file.
In terms of why we go through the effort to store anything at all, even if encrypted: mostly to combat some spammy or malicious comments or bots, so we can block a single emojified IP address that posts a lot of crap in any 24 hour period.
But you're right, ultimately, you kind of have to trust that it works the way we say it does, and that we don't have a reason to want to have access to your personal information such as IP addresses or emails, and we don't want to secretly store such information. But like on any other website on the rest of the internet, the only real defense, if you're really worried, is to use a VPN or Tor, so we never even have access to your IP address in the first place and you don't even have to trust us to not ever store it.
Yes information about individuals kind of efficient in spotting punctuation errors and knowing basics of MS Word is very essential for government control.
What?Dont say that.No,you dufus.Thanks to LI,people got to know about legal industry,law firm cultures, law firm deets (read gossip), pay scales and ranges, some case laws (actually LI should take this up on website as a revenue stream, like a bar and bench, to survive since news articles no more permitted ).I do agree that LI has infact wrongly glorified some educational institutions,some lawyers or law firms, but Legally India when it started created great awareness.I hope LI finds a way to survive.Currently LI needs oxygen more than conversations accusing it of being a foreign law firm puppet.
Further, this pseudonymous IP encryption key gets reset and thrown away every 24-48 hours, so even if we were really clever and really wanted to we couldn't deduce your actual IP from this after a day or two.
Of course, end of the day, you kind of have to trust us on this and despite our measures to safeguard your anonymity and using an encrypted https connection, it's theoretically probably possible for tracking at your ISP, law school, firm or Pegasus-spying or NSA level to deduce posts that you make.
In short, if you're really really really worried about this or you're leaking state secrets, probably don't use the internet, or if you are, use a VPN and/or Tor and other measures to protect your anonymity...
@LegallyIndia But this is not really some strong encryption method is it? Isn't it the same as storing 'ABCD' as, lets say, 'DCBA'. Sounds more like a fun way to obfuscate things, rather than encryption.
If you're interested in technical details about whether this is strong enough, would welcome your feedback. Tldr, it is intended to be fairly cryptographically and practically secure. [If you're technically inclined, here are the boring details: your IP address is first 'salted' (sprinkled) with a random sequence of 40 letters that gets regenerated approximately daily, then 'hashed' with SHA384 (akin to a one-way encryption that can not be reversed), and then three partial character sequences of the hash are converted into three out of more than 1000 emojis. And even if it was theoretically possible to reverse engineer it, approximately after a day the old 'salt' is deleted and a new one is generated.]
Hope that helps and always happy for feedback and more tests.
So if I understand that correctly, what you are basically saying is that there are three layers to anonymize my IP address?
Layer 1: Original_ip_address ---- converted to ---> Salted_ip_address
Layer 2: Salted_ip_address ----- converted to -----> SHA384_hashed_ip_address
Layer 3: SHA34_hashed_ip_address --- converted to ---> 3 emojis
So even if I somehow reverse-engineer layer 3, reverse-engineering just layer 2 is, well, practically impossible, and reverse-engineering layer-1 is also super difficult because the 'salt' keeps on changing.
This begs the question - since no can decrypt the emojis to figure out what the original IP was (and not even LI can decrypt it because of layers 1 & 2)**, why even bother doing it? why are you even storing IP addresses?
**unless LI stores the 'Original_ip_address' along with the 'salt' used to create the 'Salted_ip_address', somewhere else in their database, because from there on they just have to carry out the steps for layers 2 & 3 to get the 3 emojis being used represent your IP. My guess is LI is storing the 'Original_ip_address' along with the 'salt' somewhere else in a different database.
And yes, we do not keep any unencrypted original_ip_address in any database or log files, to the best of our knowledge (because if we intentionally did, what would be the point in going through the effort of encryption?). The original IP is used only to create the emojis, and is not written to any database or file.
In terms of why we go through the effort to store anything at all, even if encrypted: mostly to combat some spammy or malicious comments or bots, so we can block a single emojified IP address that posts a lot of crap in any 24 hour period.
But you're right, ultimately, you kind of have to trust that it works the way we say it does, and that we don't have a reason to want to have access to your personal information such as IP addresses or emails, and we don't want to secretly store such information. But like on any other website on the rest of the internet, the only real defense, if you're really worried, is to use a VPN or Tor, so we never even have access to your IP address in the first place and you don't even have to trust us to not ever store it.
Koi judge case nahi sunege.
Extra 0.50 p for troll or contested marking.
Btw,is the commenter accusing LI from SILF?