>so you think they are confident enough to link somebodies randomly created alias, let's say "InteretDude420" to a real name?
After a certain amount of fingerprinting, absolutely. It's not as if they are solely relying on user-submitted information such as a handle to make that link. And if no link can be made right this second, they can just continue to collect data under "InteretDude420" until they reach a certain amount of confidence to link it to a real identity.
And, even if they get it wrong some % of the time, who would ever notice or find out? Eventually they just get more data and increase the confidence rating for the correlation.
It is surprising how little information (even "anonymized information") is needed to de-anonymize someone. Plenty of papers on the subject if you are curious.
Yes, zip code/geo-location plus a few other points of personal data are often enough to identify an individual. Then tie that to a browser fingerprint and you can tie together all their "anonymous" screen names.
I read recently (or heard in a podcast; can't find the source lamentably) that almost all people can be uniquely identified by the top three locations they spend most time at.
After a certain amount of fingerprinting, absolutely. It's not as if they are solely relying on user-submitted information such as a handle to make that link. And if no link can be made right this second, they can just continue to collect data under "InteretDude420" until they reach a certain amount of confidence to link it to a real identity.
And, even if they get it wrong some % of the time, who would ever notice or find out? Eventually they just get more data and increase the confidence rating for the correlation.
It is surprising how little information (even "anonymized information") is needed to de-anonymize someone. Plenty of papers on the subject if you are curious.