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Unmasking Anonymous Email Senders

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the i-see-you-over-there dept.

alphadogg writes "Just because you send an email anonymously doesn't mean people can't figure out who you are anymore. A new technique developed by researchers at Concordia University in Quebec could be used to unmask would-be anonymous emailers by sniffing out patterns in their writing style from use of all lowercase letters to common typos. Their research, published in the journal Digital Investigation, describes techniques that could be used to serve up evidence in court, giving law enforcement more detailed information than a simple IP address can produce."

3 of 204 comments (clear)

  1. Simple by LWATCDR · · Score: 5, Informative

    Use Google translate. Translate it into Spanish, then into German, then back into English, then into LEET.

    It should be simple to obscure the style and weaknesses of the author with this method.

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    See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
  2. The actual research paper by Sara+Chan · · Score: 4, Informative

    The actual research paper is at

    http://www.dfrws.org/2008/proceedings/p42-iqbal.pdf

    Note that it was published in 2008. So Slashdot is reporting relatively quickly here.

  3. Re:Pretty print it first by OzPeter · · Score: 4, Informative

    run it thru pretty print or some other formatter before sending it.

    Nah .. run it twice though Google translate

    Nah .. ejecutarlo dos veces a través de Google Translate

    Nah .. twice run through Google Translate

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