Unmasking Anonymous Email Senders

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."

Comments

Finally, they can find that one guy

[_0xd0ad]

who always types part of the body of his message in the subject line.

Re:Pretty print it first

[Anonymous Coward]

They seriously think an 80% success rate is good enough to be used in court?

I'm betting the real reason is so they can go to a judge with their pseudo-evidence to get a warrant for more invasive spying.

Simple

[LWATCDR]

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.

This is why I cut & paste

[dim5]

This is why I cut & paste each word of anonymous emails from an online dictionary.

Untraceable.

Re:Pretty print it first

[spun]

"It's not a lie if _you_ believe it."

In totally unrelated news, my dick is a foot long.

Well I'd like to see that stand up in court.