Re: Zombie Patriots and other musings
Nomen pondered:
Why robbing banks? Aside from allowing the government to regulate them, what have they done to deserve being robbed
Why not? Revolutionaries need money, and the financial sector has always been asshole buddies with the police, politicians, and other pigs.
Anonymous wrote:
Nomen pondered:
Why robbing banks? Aside from allowing the government to regulate them, what have they done to deserve being robbed
Why not? Revolutionaries need money, and the financial sector has always been asshole buddies with the police, politicians, and other pigs.
Retarded. Someone trying to frame Mr. Seaver by adopting his three-space paragraph lead-ins.
On Sat, Dec 13, 2003 at 03:40:07AM +0100, Nomen Nescio wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Nomen pondered:
Why robbing banks? Aside from allowing the government to regulate them, what have they done to deserve being robbed
Why not? Revolutionaries need money, and the financial sector has always been asshole buddies with the police, politicians, and other pigs.
Retarded. Someone trying to frame Mr. Seaver by adopting his three-space paragraph lead-ins.
WTF is this bizarre shit? We got narcs trolling for "terrorists" and more (or the same) narcs attempting to do textual analysis to figure out who the anon replies are from? Or pretending to do so to implicate others? And what is my supposed "three-space paragraph lead-ins?" The concept of textual analysis to prove ID has always amused me. A competent writer can easily change writing styles from moment to moment. I well recall a university english lit prof almost accusing me of plagarism when I wrote a piece mimicking Faulkner and doing so well enough that the prof actually started looking thru his works trying to find it. -- Harmon Seaver CyberShamanix http://www.cybershamanix.com
At 09:44 AM 12/13/03 -0600, Harmon Seaver wrote: ...
And what is my supposed "three-space paragraph lead-ins?" The concept of textual analysis to prove ID has always amused me. A competent writer can easily change writing styles from moment to moment. I well recall a university english lit prof almost accusing me of plagarism when I wrote a piece mimicking Faulkner and doing so well enough that the prof actually started looking thru his works trying to find it.
Textual analysis correctly identified the author of _Primary Colors_, though that was from a pretty small field of people with the right level of inside knowledge. Does anyone know whether there have been real randomized trials of any of the textual analysis software or techniques? E.g., is this an identification technique like DNA, or is it an identification technique like retrieving repressed memories under hypnosis (or, equivalently, consulting a ouiji board)? It's not obvious to me how you'd change your writing style to defeat these textual analysis schemes--would it really be as simple as changing the average length of sentences and getting rid of the big words, or would there still be ways to determine your identity from that text? I'm thinking especially of long discussions of technical topics--if I wrote a five page essay on what to look at when trying to cryptanalyze a new block cipher, I think it would be hard to keep readers who knew me from having a pretty good guess about the author, even if I tried changing terms, being more mathematical and less conversational, etc. (Though this is more of a problem with humans familiar with my writing style, rather than with automated analysis.)
Harmon Seaver CyberShamanix http://www.cybershamanix.com
--John Kelsey, kelsey.j@ix.netcom.com PGP: FA48 3237 9AD5 30AC EEDD BBC8 2A80 6948 4CAA F259
On Sun, Dec 14, 2003 at 10:36:02AM -0500, John Kelsey wrote: | Textual analysis correctly identified the author of _Primary Colors_, | though that was from a pretty small field of people with the right level of | inside knowledge. Does anyone know whether there have been real randomized | trials of any of the textual analysis software or techniques? E.g., is Not as far as I know, and I spent a bit of time reading through both Author Unknown, by Don Foster (who named Klien) and "Analyzing for Authorship," by Jill Farringdon. Foster is an English professor, and reads the work under analysis, and then works by the potential authors. His technique would be described as intuitive, but the human brain has large power to make linkages. Analysing for Authorship, from the University of Wales press. "Analyzing for Authorship" really didn't strike me as better. It uses a technique called "CUSUM," but the methodology and graphs (as I recall) vary from text to text, and neither I, nor Alice, who read the book for ZKS, wondering if we could build this stuff into a product, was very impressed by it. | It's not obvious to me how you'd change your writing style to defeat these | textual analysis schemes--would it really be as simple as changing the | average length of sentences and getting rid of the big words, or would | there still be ways to determine your identity from that text? I'm | thinking especially of long discussions of technical topics--if I wrote a | five page essay on what to look at when trying to cryptanalyze a new block | cipher, I think it would be hard to keep readers who knew me from having a | pretty good guess about the author, even if I tried changing terms, being | more mathematical and less conversational, etc. (Though this is more of a | problem with humans familiar with my writing style, rather than with | automated analysis.) So, the question boils down to economics. There's how much you need to communicate, how much someone is willing to spend to tag you, and how good their proof needs to be. I suspect that for most purposes, proof does not need to be very strong in relation to your need to communicate. That is, if Tricky Dick thinks you're Deep Throat, or Saddam thinks you're the guy who betrayed him, etc. Adam -- "It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -Hume
Adam Shostack wrote:
... | It's not obvious to me how you'd change your writing style to defeat these | textual analysis schemes--would it really be as simple as changing the | average length of sentences and getting rid of the big words, or would | there still be ways to determine your identity from that text?
So, the question boils down to economics. There's how much you need to communicate, how much someone is willing to spend to tag you, and how good their proof needs to be. I suspect that for most purposes, proof does not need to be very strong in relation to your need to communicate.
An interesting ad-hoc test subject might be Eleusis/ZWITTERION from a.d.c.; I've wanted to see someone apply these techniques against his writing after following his posts and being amused/surprised myself. http://groups.google.com/groups?safe=off&q=Eleusis+group%3Aalt.drugs.chemistry http://groups.google.com/groups?safe=off&q=ZWITTERION+group%3Aalt.drugs.chemistry Strangely enough, the powers that be showed little interest in his electronic trail ... [ http://www.rhodium.ws/chemistry/eleusis/memoirs.html ]
participants (6)
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Adam Shostack -
Anonymous -
coderman -
Harmon Seaver -
John Kelsey -
Nomen Nescio