Faustine wrote: Dr. Evil wrote:

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Not safe at all, even the unclassified programs are getting better all the time. Check the archives for some interesting past discussion--and if you feel like tinkering around yourself, there's a ton of free software you can download here: http://www.content-analysis.de/software.html Very interesting! I wonder if it is possible to learn to write in other "linguistic fingerprints"? I'll have to look into this.

Part of the problem is that in order to do that you'd need to change the subjects, sub-subjects and themes you like to talk about, period-- because "fingerprint" goes a lot deeper than word frequency. Even pure code has a discernable "fingerprint" of sorts. It's a losing proposition.

Are there any such programs that are free and run under Linux?

I'l bet there are, I just can't remember any off the top of my head. If you root through the links, I'm sure something interesting will turn up. And if you have access to a Windows box at all you could always disassemble a sample program you like and rewrite it under your own platform. I'd rather get in there and improve it than use it straight out-of-the-box anyway.

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More interesting by far would be to write software that sanitized the text. Learning to write with a *different* fingerprint should be easy.

Not as easy as you might think: even a causal reader familiar with these analytic techniques knows how to spot a faked style--and if you're the only person in the group who takes a real interest in a certain cluster of subjects, how hard is it going to be to pin the nym to you, if you've already written a body of posts to compare it with? I've been told the FBI uses technology that would knock your socks off. I bet they had a lot of fun tracking down Hanssen's other usenet nyms...not a bad test case for the hobbyist, actually. Faking a style might be good for short messages and the like, but participating in a discussion group for a length of time? Forget it. Unless you're willing to put some serious work into creating a totally distinct persona, you're wasting your time. This might seem a little unorthodox, but if you're really intent on it, a couple of classics which could help are "Building a Character" and "Creating a Role" by Constantine Stanislavski. No need to re-invent the wheel... ~Faustine.