2y ago

What should be used for anonymous usernames?

More often than not, the best way to hide is to simply blend in with the crowds -- this also encompasses one's choice for a username. It is relatively simple to make a single throwaway account -- just come up with a username, and off you go -- however, if one makes throwaway accounts often, the task of thinking of a unique, and non-identifiable username can become a challenge. I would argue that poeple would often resort to using a pattern employing small changes for all subsequent usernames. Such patterns can be identified to a specific user if all users have their own unique patterns.

How can one reliably generate many unique-but-normal, and non-pattern-identifiable usernames?

61 comments

- Yup that's where my username came from
  
  (👁 ͜ʖ👁)
- It does.
  
  What the fuck. I never knew Bitwarden had a username gen until I went to checked to see if it did, and I immediately notice it

$ diceware -n2
UnfixableHappy
$

- And your username has enlightened me that the fediverse lets us have spaces in our usernames (?)
  
  [This comment has been deleted by an automated system]
  
  I like the ambiguity.

Use a password generator in a password manager for the username AND password. Bitwarden is free.
Use a temporary email for email signups. getnada.com works fine, but so do many others.
- Skiff is great. They even generate an @random.maskmy.id so you can type anything before @. It's nothing new but great since you can set 5 static aliases also.

Don't complicate simple, there's millions of people making random shit usernames, the only ones that are going to wind up with a pattern are the people (trying) not too. Smack a bunch of buttons on your keyboard and call it a username. Done!
Or if you want to make more work, every password manager at this point will generate random usernames.
- Or for even more work, use a password manager to generate a super secure password, and use that password as your username
  
  I sometimes use MAC addresses as usernames.

Random nicknames are not recommended, they are unique identifiers, it is better to use nicknames of famous people or movies, video games, etc., because it makes it difficult to find them on the web, especially if different ones are used on each site.
- this is a really good idea

Go to reddit, pick a username from the front page, use that. Any searching into your use of it will lead to that front page post and its reposts on click mills.

There's user name generators. Even fantasy name generators too so it's not a weird jumble of letters and numbers like a password.

I let Bitwarden generate my usernames for throwaway accounts. I don't care if my username can be identified as Bitwarden-generated.

Good usernames are Google, Yahoo or Barrelroll, this is fun when someone searches for you by nickname

Well I love your name 😍 one of the best characters

Pick a random book from your shelf.
Open at a random page. Take the first word on the left page.
Open at another random page. Take the first word on the left page
Repeat for as many words you like. Discard words you don’t like. Slam the words you like together.
Examples:
thickestneedhelped
ritestayoutdoors
passedthejust
- I see a pattern here...

I don't create anon accounts nearly as much as you say you do, but when I do I a correct-horse generator, and just pick the first two words and mash them together. It has never produced a conflict yet.
keepass2android's password generator can generate these on mobile, and there are several for the command line.
- I, too, was immediately going to recommend correct horse. It is random and it works.

- Or if you want to be really fancy, you can just pick one of the Fantasy name generators: https://www.fantasynamegenerators.com/
  Draknolf Frozen-Fur, a Nord from Skyrim has a nice ring to it.

English word + four numbers
- That's what you think, Michael

deleted

Try random real words until you hit one that's free! Those are the most satisfying usernames anyway imo haha

$ pwgen 8 100

Do random word generators exist?
ETA: https://randomwordgenerator.com/
- They do. You can use passphrase generator of any pw manager. Bitwarden has a nice one
  
  Interesting. I also found the url above.

I use SimpleLogin for email alias, and username usually has to be associated with email address. So I just use whatever SimpleLogin generates for me

I normally use the lastpass username generator, though fair warning, they will try to sell you lastpass.
- deleted
  
  Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
  https://piped.video/O0lS4vff_TM#t=17s
  Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
  I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
- You're still using lastpass?
  
  No, I don't use lastpass at all. Just the username generator.

I usually just use a fake name generator to create a name and use it as a username this takes care of my inability to think of random usernames, birth date and other stuff that most websites these days ask. And it also makes me look like another dumb idiot and not a l33t haxor.

May not be popular….
But Apple can use hide my email, similar to Bitwarden.
So there’s another option

Model: Wizard-Vicuna-13B-Uncensored (running locally).
Prompt: Give me a list of 10 good "average" sounding usernames, such as Reddit or Discord users might use. Try to pick names that will blend in with the crowd, rather than stand out or draw attention to themselves, but they should still be clever or witty, rather than boring or random. Please do NOT use actual reddit users names. Come up with original names. Blend in some random words, if you have to.
Response: Okay, here are ten good "average" sounding usernames that I came up with by blending some random words with some average usernames:
AverageJoeBookworm
EverydayMikeCasual
CommonSarahSimpleton
NormalNickEasygoing
OrdinaryOliviaBasic
BasicBrianHumble
StandardSamanthaNormal
TypicalTommyAverage
RegularRachelCommon
TraditionalTaylorEveryday
- My neural-ass brain smells pattern
- They don't seem good at all, long and weird
  I don't know what text the LLM sniffed, but those aren't average at all
- This is a good example of hallucination, both by the AI and by OP. The first and third word of each line is a synonym for average.
- One time I asked chatgpt to come up with a list of random street addresses, and the first couple were fine, then one was like "123 cherry street", then each following address was like "777 apple lane" "888 banana ave" and so on. Which was wrong but also pretty charming I thought.
- It misunderstood your question.

61 comments