Author Unknown

Don Foster was asked to track down Ted Kaczynski by studying the Unabomber's own words (and uncovering fresh information about his choice of victims). Foster, a Vassar prof who solved a centuries old mystery involving a Shakespearean sonnet and unmasked the anonymous author of a sensational Clinton campaign book, has written a book about science, words and identity. You can run and hide, he says, but your words will always give you away. Author Unknown is relevant to life online, where responsibility for words and anonymous authorship is an everyday issue.

Author Unknown author Don Foster pages 282 publisher Henry Holt rating 8/10 reviewer Jon Katz ISBN 0-8050-6357-9 summary uncovering-the-authors-of-anonymous texts

With unattributed text, says word sleuth Don Foster -- an e-mail from a Hotmail address, the rantings of the Unabomber, or an anonymous letter to the editor -- it is increasingly possible to connect the voice with the creator of the document.

Most anonymous texts, from Elizabethan playscripts to libel on the Net, offer stylistic evidence that reveal a lot more than many scholars and detectives have previously realized. Words are our own intellectual DNA, writes Foster, a professor of English Lit at Vassar and perhaps the world's foremost word sleuth. Analyzed in the right way, they invariably will give us away.

Foster, the author of Author Unknown, has some solid credentials in this field. He solved a puzzle involving one of Shakespeare's sonnets that had stumped sleuths for centuries, identified the anonymous author of presidential tell-all Primary Colors (unmasking the journalist Joe Klein as the author), was enlisted by federal authorities in the hunt for the Unabomber, and was also asked to uncover the author of the celebrated Monica Lewinsky-Linda Tripp "talking points."

This is highly readable book, an intellectual who-dunnit of particular interest to people online who are continuously confronted with anonymous texts. And if you're hiding behind electronic anonymity, you don't want Don Foster on your case. The book tells juicy stories about some of the most sensational crimes and scandals of our time, but it's really about the human mind: the language, identity and the clues that individuals leave behind when they create text, digital or otherwise.

Criminals can ride or hide, Foster writes, but they can't disguise their words and language patterns. We are prisoners of our own language, writing from within a repertoire of certain thoughts and words and spellings.

Some words, Foster writes, are content specific. "Two documents about making salad from "dandelion greens" may have been written by the same person (in this example, Ted Kaczynski) or one writer may have borrowed from another; but if two documents about gardening mention the words "dandelion," "hoe", and "trellis," that may indicate not common authorship or indebtedness but only a shared topic."

Some of the most riveting parts of this book are the insights into Kaczysnki's character and intellect that Foster was able to piece together from a meticulous study of his letters and manifestos. Foster makes Kaczynski more comprehensible than anyone has managed to do, mostly by tracking down the influences, stories, books and writers that pop up again and again in his writings, beliefs and help explain an enduring mystery about his awful work: his choice of victims. We see how Kaczynski, holed up in various libraries, came across biographic references, academic writings or writings that triggered passions and interests (like the story of the Titanic, which obsessed him as a metaphor for failed technology and technological hubris, an obsession that cost lives).

Foster writes about how advanced Geographic Profiling used by police to track down serial criminals didn't work in the Unabomber case, since the offender's primary residence (Montana) and place of employment (none) couldn't have been pinpointed even with the help of advanced computer tracking software. But by locating Kaczynski's words and ideas, pseudonyms, even mailing addresses; by locating his books and magazines, reference works and principal intellectual influences, something could have been learned about the Unabomber's physical whereabouts, even down to the particular buildings in Utah and Northern California where Kaczynski was conducting his primary research, (including the probable dates of his most recent visits).

Foster writes that it was the famous Unabomber Manifesto, "Industrial Society and Its Future," completed and mailed in June 1995 that ultimately led the Unabomber Task Force to Kaczynski's Montana cabin. "I believe," he writes, "that the same wonderfully verbose document, partly written in California libraries, could have led agents to Ted Kaczynski even without David Kaczynski's invaluable assistance."

Foster was repeatedly led to archived stories from "Saturday Review" which Kaczynski read. The Unabomber borrowed heavily, says Foster, especially from the writings of Jacques Ellul. It was in February 1965 that American readers were first introduced to Ellul's "Technological Society" in that magazine. Kaczynski wrote his brother David that he was deeply impressed by Ellul's writings which closely mirrored his own beliefs. These ideas pop up all over Kaczynski's writings, letters and manifesto.

Author Unknown is a great read, timely and riveting, and with special relevance for cyberspace. "In a culture that encourages anonymous communication and the right to speak without responsibility for the content of the utterance, the spoken message and, eventually, language itself are depleted."

There may be a flip-side to Foster's new science. In the wrong hands, it could mean that the kind of free speech and safety sometimes associated with anonymity -- Anonymous Cowards on this site can be obnoxious, but they also pass on valuable information -- could be lost.

But thanks in part to Foster's ground-breaking research, speaking without responsibility may one day be tougher to do.

You can purchase this book at ThinkGeek.

Comments

Now the next $100,000 question...

[Tony Shepps]

To stay a step ahead of the spooks: can one effectively FRAME someone by copying their writing style and influences?

I've used techniques like this on usenet.

[shippo]

There's a local usenet group I semi-lurk in. There's one trolling poster who posts using a number of different pseudonyms, ISPs and email addreses, yet it always possible to tell that it is him just by the style of his postings, the separation of the various message parts, and the fact that he is one of the few that top-posts in that group.

Kill-filing this looney is impossible as his email address constantly mutates.

We must apply this to the trolls!

[Hairy_Potter]

And Taco must use this to find the identities of all the trolls by comparing their troll posts with their regular logged in posts. Then Taco should find out the real world identity of the trolls by examing their email address and posting packets.

Once all the trolls have been identified, a crack team of Andover sponsored Army Rangers should break down their doors, grab the trolls, flog them with wet lasagna noodles, and send them packing to Belize, preferable Temptation Island, where they will be sentenced to death by oral sex.

Finally, Slashdot will be troll free!

Give the author a break

[Microsift]

He doesn't claim he found the Unabomber, only that he was asked to help. I heard an interview with this guy on NPR, sounded really interesting. Another interesting application of this methodology is determining if someone who claims to be an author of a work actually is. I guess there is some controversy as to who actually wrote "A visit from St Nicholas" (Twas the night before XMas). FOster contends that it is very unlikely that the author who took credit for this work(Clarence Clark Moore?) is the actual author, since the tone and style of the poem is a complete departure from the author's earlier work. There's more evidence than just that, but it is nonetheless an interesting tool.

Regarding using BabelFish, or other tools, I don't think that's a good countermeasure, clearly no one could tell who wrote the article, nor would they care, since the final presentation would lack style, and readability. In arguing against translating works of literature, Mark Twain demonstrated the folly of such an enterprise by translating one of his short stories to French and then back to English. The resulting text lacked Twain's style, and was unreadable.

Which is longer and more rambling?

[Zico]

(a) The Unabomber Manifesto
(b) An average Jon Katz article

Pencils down!

Cheers,

Big Deal

[wfberg]

Who wouldn't recognize a JonKatz rant?
--

Pshaw! This one's easy!

[rjh]

Online anonymity is easy. If you want to really screw up efforts to identify you by specific language details, just run your posts through the Fish a couple of times. What comes out is guaranteed to give Foster a first class migraine.

=====

On-line anonymity is simple. If you want to really upward screw efforts to identify itself by the specific language details just your masts by the fish execute a pair of the periods. Which comes out, is guaranteed, giving foster a first class klassenmigraene.

(English->French->German->English, for those who are interested.)

Travesty generators - technological arms race

[dpilot]

Now that we know the techniques, how about some countermeasures...

Travesty generators have been around for some time, taking random sequences of letters and filtering them into the style of Shakespeare. This makes for something between Shakespeare-sh gibberish and amusing reading.

Imagine something like a travesty generator that can decompose your writing, sentence by sentence. Then, armed with a built-in thesaurus, grammatical rules, etc, it could re-cast your words into someone else's mold.

In other words, scan manifesto A, scan writings of author B, building rulebases of both. Convert manifesto A into style of author B.

I don't believe we have this, but I don't believe it's much of a stretch, either. Kind of a computerized equivalent of cutting the words and letters out of magazines and newspapers, then pasting them back into your own message.