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Tripcodes & Anonymity

From Chan Top List, the imageboard wiki.

Tripcodes are a feature of 2channel and most subsequent imageboards that allow users to assert a persistent identity without registering an account. By including '#' followed by a passphrase in the name field, the software hashes the passphrase and displays a short identifier alongside the post. This grants a posting identity that other users can recognize across threads while preserving the underlying account-free model.

How they work

When a user types a name like 'moot#secret', the imageboard software strips the '#secret' portion before display, hashes it, and replaces it with a short string such as '!Ep8pui8Vw2'. The result depends only on the passphrase, so anyone who knows the same passphrase can produce the same tripcode — and anyone who keeps it secret retains exclusive use of that identity.

Secure tripcodes

Because short tripcodes are crackable by brute force, most modern imageboards also support 'secure tripcodes' (entered with '##') that mix the passphrase with a server-side secret to make them effectively impossible to reproduce off-site.

Cultural meaning

Tripcodes are used sparingly. On most boards, posting with a tripcode without a clear reason is considered tacky or attention-seeking. They appear most often when an author needs to prove continuity — for example, when a thread's original poster needs to be re-identified across replies.

See also

  • 2channel / 5channel — The Japanese textboard founded in 1999 that became the template for nearly every imageboard that followed.
  • 4chan — English-language imageboard founded in 2003, modeled on Japan's Futaba Channel. One of the most influential sites in internet culture.
  • Greentext — Imageboard posting convention in which lines beginning with '>' are rendered in green and used to quote, narrate, or list events.
  • Imageboard Software — Survey of the open-source scripts that have powered most imageboards since 2001: Futallaby, Wakaba, Kusaba, vichan, lynxchan.

This page was last updated on April 29, 2026.