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When Writing, How Anonymous Can You Be, Really?

Posted by timothy on from the go-ask-your-ghostwriter dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Do you still think your online writing is, basically, anonymous? Think again! Research has it people put much of their personal traits into their writing, and computers may just be able to pick them up. That's at least what a recently announced competition on author identification (Given a document, who wrote it?) and author profiling (Given a document, what are its author's age and gender?) wants to find out. Alas, re-using other people's writing is no solution either; there's also a competition on plagiarism detection (Given a document, is it an original?). Wanna revisit your recent rants?"

6 of 184 comments (clear)

  1. Yes, we know by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    As previously reported on Slashdot. Now, please identify me. Here's a hint: I have a 5 digit UID.

  2. Re:Guess who I am! by durrr · · Score: 2, Informative

    >Based on the above, who am I?
    Anonymous

  3. Re:That's pretty easy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    Most people would just use something like Tor (or Tor and another VPN/proxy service).

    Erm... the transport doesn't matter if you're analyzing message composition.

    Right, it's not about the identity - it's about matching different pieces of text as written by the same author

    Once the texts are matched, your identity is compromised as long as ONE of the texts is coming from a known identified source (email, etc.)

  4. Re:That's pretty easy by Runaway1956 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Yep - that was part of Barr's stock in trade. He compared posts made by anon members in various venues, then traced some of those members to identify them. An IRC server was critical to Barr's process, as I recall. Or, more accurately, the IRC server was critical in this particular instance, as it maintained logs that some of the other servers did not.

    --
    "Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
  5. Re:Betteridge strikes again by complete+loony · · Score: 3, Informative
    Betteridge's_law_of_headlines

    Any headline which ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no

    Whoosh.

    --
    09F91102 no, 455FE104 nope, F190A1E8 uh-uh, 7A5F8A09 that's not it, C87294CE no. Ah! 452F6E403CDF10714E41DFAA257D313F.
  6. No -- he got the guy's name from WHOIS by TheSeatOfMyPants · · Score: 5, Informative

    The only thing that Barr did correctly was look up WHOIS info on the People's Liberation Front's website after an Anonymous guy claimed to be "Supreme Commander" of the PLF... When Barr confronted him, the guy claimed it was a joke, so Barr pointed to an innocent man instead. (Ars Tech article on the 'correct' Commander X.) Otherwise, Barr's tactics -- including analyzing what the people wrote -- gave him completely wrong answers.

    --
    Now mostly at Usenet:comp.misc & SoylentNews.org (it's made of people!)