8 ms·
To the person running this, if you really want to remain anonymous, be careful not to write too much. You can be outed by textual stylometrics.
by natch 9y ago
To the person running this, if you really want to remain anonymous, be careful not to write too much. You can be outed by textual stylometrics.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- oh_sigh 9y agoThat's only assuming that they have a corpus of other writing out there on the internet which is linkable to their real life identity.
- natch 9y agoThat would help for sure, but it need not be assumed. There are other collections of text besides the public internet. Some of which are only accessible by certain entities and certain of their employees, to be sure, but still extant. Email, for example. Note I’m not implying the person has done anything wrong... on the contrary. But someone with a large quantity of BTC has reasons to be wary of rogue actors.
- oh_sigh 9y agoWhat's the play here? Let's assume the NSA or CIA has archives of everyones emails. Would the IRS troll that to try to find out who has all this money so they can properly tax it?
- joshumax 9y agoThat's always why I have a good laugh when someone comes out claiming to be Satoshi when they end their sentences with only a single space after a period. If you wanted to come out as Bitcoin's creator, you'd have used 2 spaces...
- Frogolocalypse 9y agoI think that just shows the age of the person. I learned how to type correctly on a typewriter, and that is the way that we learned. It means, for me, that SN, like me, was educated in the 70's and 80's, and formally learned how to type. Disclosure : Am not satoshi.
- aYsY4dDQ2NrcNzA 9y agoCounting spaces... story checks out.
- giarc 9y agoI was educated in the 90's and not on a typewriter. I use two spaces. There's likely more at play than just typewriter vs non-typewriter.
- bendecoste 9y agoYou only used one space in this comment ;)
- yonilevy 9y agoCheck the source.
- giarc 9y agoI wonder if that gets changed by the site or something. I remember thinking "I better be sure to use two spaces otherwise someone will call me out on it." Here's a test. I definitely put two spaces prior to this sentence. EDIT - indeed it seems that HN changes the spacing.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- mtpn 9y agoThe anecdote I heard was that the extra space made it more clear when sentences were ending based on how the fixed-width typeface would read. With proportional fonts the spacing is already clear enough with 1 space, and that has become the conventional thing. So adding the extra space creates too much space now. It certainly sends a signal to me that the person has absorbed a “rule”, but not its purpose, which I think doesn’t reflect well on that person. But on the whole that’s a minor side note and I try to not go overboard interpreting details like that.
- koolba 9y agoI’be been waiting for someone to do a cross analysis of HN comments to identify potential sock puppets.
- QAPereo 9y agoI imagine the results would be just brutal, and no surprise to anyone.
- omarforgotpwd 9y agoIf someone determines my identity through textual stylometics, finds me, manages to get me to reveal how to get my bitcoin, and then kills me I won’t even be mad. Just impressed.
- hindsightRegret 9y agochallenge accepted