> The practical lesson that I'd take here is that semi-anonymity doesn't exist. Alexander should either have written under his own name, or taken sufficient technical precautions to make doxxing by the NYT impossible.

He shows up in person to meetups and things like that, so that doesn't really work.

Semi-anonymity works fine as long as there are cultural norms toward respecting it. Nothing really works if people with resources acting in bad faith decide they want to make your life hard.