Hide the City

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Exercise · Not a record

The Registry wants a crossing log it can plan the lamps and ferries from. It does not want a list anyone could use to find a person. You are the clerk who files it.

A game from Dreamscape Code, a novel by Nima Golsharifi. About this fiction · Need help now?

Out of the story: what a list gives away

Taking the names out of a list is not the same as making it anonymous. A few ordinary details, put together, can point to one person.

A study of United States census data in 2000 found that a postcode, a full date of birth and a person's sex were together enough to single out about 87 in every 100 people.

A study of mobile phone records published in 2013 found that four points of time and place were enough to single out 95 in every 100 people in the data.

The strongest tools are the ones in this game: leave out what you do not need, and keep the rest coarse (an age band instead of a birthday, a district instead of a street).

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