[OSM-talk] Maintaining privacy as a casual mapper

[Maarten Deen]

On 2019-11-03 11:42, Philippe Latulippe wrote:
> Hello everyone!
> 
> I like to improve OSM casually, making small fixes as I use the map in
> my day-to-day life. However, doing so without any precautions would
> reveal a great deal of information about where I've been, since my
> edits cover exactly the places where I'm active. A look at my edit
> history would reveal where I live, where I work, where I've traveled.
> If last night I had added a detailed POI of a restaurant and nothing
> else, one could correctly assume that I was at that restaurant
> recently.
> 
> I've managed to protect my privacy somewhat by creating one account
> for every neighbourhood I want to map. This is time consuming and
> error prone, and it's held me back from making improvements to the
> map.
> 
> Are there better ways to maintain some privacy while editing the map?
> Are there some tools? Or is there a way to make edits in a way that
> doesn't reveal my username to regular users?

What do you use your OSM username for? Is there any reason not to create 
an anonymous username like anon65498?

I mean, sure your mailadres suggests your name is Philippe Latulippe and 
I can find some people with that name on the internet, but how do I know 
that is your real name and not an alias?

Regards,
Maarten