"Security through obscurity" being bad only applies to cryptography, and have no bearing whatsoever to the concept of security in real life.
To answer your question, actually, yes, it's almost proven to be the most effective measurement for one's safety: don't want to get hurt? Don't let people find you: get in a forest/ mountain range and hide.
> "Security through obscurity" being bad only applies to cryptography, and have no bearing whatsoever to the concept of security in real life.
Why do you believe this? The concept predates widespread use of encryption and originally applied to things like physical locks. Their "security through obscurity" approach was custom mechanisms which were easily defeated shortly after development by determined thieves. This race between security experts (in their various incarnations) and security breakers (again, in their various incarnations) has been going on since the first person tried to secure some property with something more complex than a crossbar on a door. And this race continues, even in the information age, to occur in both the physical and information realms.
That statement, read alone, sounds a bit more stronger than I intended for it to be. I agree with what you said. Although I should note that we aren't allowed to run around in top secret building to draw out the floor plan ;).
Thinking about it, I guess "security through obscurity" wasn't the correct term to use in the case. What I meant was simply that: there are completely valid reasons to keep your name and/ or location unknown, both for your safety, and otherwise convenience of life.
Now First Blood is an underrated movie but I'm not sure it, or anything else, supports your claims. Hiding in the mountains has been a proven way of lowering life expectancy for millennia.
On HN I've seen that pattern and sometimes it was a well-respected poster, hammering on something pedantic and off-topic, derailing the thread. Point being, sometimes someone can be right, really knowledgeable and a (thread-localised) k00k.
added: then again, there's also something about HN's discussion structure (mainly lack of collapsing comments like Reddit has) that makes these derails get in the way much more than necessary. Reddit even has place for strings of puns without them significantly derailing the discussion.
To answer your question, actually, yes, it's almost proven to be the most effective measurement for one's safety: don't want to get hurt? Don't let people find you: get in a forest/ mountain range and hide.