On Sun, 24 Nov 1996, Igor Chudov @ home wrote:
The question is, is there a strategy of making variations and detecting them in quotes to finally catch Mr. Y?
It's not a new concept if thats what you mean. Has many names. "Canary trapping, imposed distribution attributation" and others. Generally either a single non-spelling error is introduced (generally with punctuation), or several errors are introduced in different patterns throughout the document. Word order is another common variation to use. At the most basic level, a script could easily introduce e.g., a semicolon in place of a comma once in a document, and in a different place for each document. The "phantom serial number" of a given document is obtained by counting the commas encountered before a semicolon is found. If a correlation between serial number and original recipiant is maintained, the first tier of the avenue by which the document is escaping is easily identified. Of course this method assumes that the documents are distributed onward without alteration or summarizing. More complicated variations can be introduced as is needed. (Paragraph/subject order, names of participants, etc.) Coderpunks might have a harder time. For obvious reasons technical writings are much more sensitive to even minor alterations.
- Igor.
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