On Saturday, April 26, 2003, at 06:54 PM, Thomas Shaddack wrote:
On Sat, 26 Apr 2003, Major Variola (ret) wrote:
But seriously, you've just mentioned what's called "textual analysis". Spelling errors and other idiosyncratic choices can be used to "pierce the veil" of anonymity. That's what did in Dr. Kaczynski, who pissed on the FBI for over a decade, until his brother recognized his text.
Couldn't there be a standard English-based language, "Anonglish", with a subset of English grammatical rules, human-readable (though maybe with its own idiosyncrazies) and machine-parseable, which appearance would not give many more clues than that Anonglish was used? Something where grammar rules would be few, strict, and easy to machine-check, spelling as well, and still be readable to anyone who knows "standard" English? Possibly with a "translator" from "normal" English (of course with the necessity to read the translation, correct eventual semantical mistakes introduced by rearranging the words, and "anonspell-check" the result)?
That would put textual analysis from comparing the errors characteristic for a given person to comparing of trains of thoughts, which is much more difficult, much less being a "reliable proof", and practically impossible for very short messages.
REQUEST SPEC SOONEST. IDEA RELAYED BUPERS SUBJECT APPROVAL COMMAND. There are various synthetic languages, not the least of which is the form of "milspeak" used for quasi-literate military memos. But of course people aren't going to learn new human languages for such an ephemeral and mostly useless reason as to hide their textual clues. Kascinski got nailed because his rants were so long, running to many newspaper pages (as they were printed, at the FBI's request or his request, or both, I forget the details) and were filled with a lot more than just grammatical and stylistic clues: the rants had his political views, his analysis of history, etc. It's doubtful that K. would have had any interest in trying to write in some synthetic language, stripped of various stylistic choices and options. Or that we would want to. By the way, there was a book out a few years back by an academic who specializes in "forensic text analysis," e.g., analyzing the text of Shakespeare, Pynchon, etc. to do this kind of analysis. (He lived in Soquel, a town near me, and he analyzed letters by a "Wanda Tinasky" which were believed by some to be actually written by Thomas Pynchon, the famously reclusive author who, by coincidence (or not?) lived for a decade a couple of ridges over from me, in Aptos, also near Soquel. Small world. Google should turn up the author for those interested in finding the book. "We are at war with Oceania. We have always been at war with Oceania." "We are at war with Eurasia. We have always been at war with Eurasia." "We are at war with Iraq. We have always been at war with Iraq. "We are at war with France. We have always been at war with France."