In 1973, Flora Rheta Schreiber published a book about a woman with sixteen distinct personalities. The pseudonym she used—Sybil—would later lend its name to one of the most fundamental challenges in online systems: how do you know you're talking to sixteen different people, or one person pretending to be sixteen?

The Attack Is Simple

Create multiple accounts. Vote multiple times. Drown out legitimate voices with manufactured consensus. It requires no technical sophistication, just time and motivation.