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Throwaway accounts using "clever" turns of phrase can often be anonymized by double click, right-clicking -> googling their witty pun and seeing their the sole

Throwaway accounts using "clever" turns of phrase can often be anonymized by double click, right-clicking -> googling their witty pun and seeing their the sole instance elsewhere, on Twitter, Facebook, etc If I see a couple words I dont know in a row, I can infer a posters real name. Id be more specific but any example is doxxing, literally so

plagiarist 8mo ago
I assume one's vocabulary is basically a fingerprint, even if one doesn't use unique turns of phrase. Domain knowledge just leaks in and we aren't conscious of it being identifiable.
- somenameforme 8mo ago
  It also geographic. There's a bunch of quizzes online where in 10 or 20 questions, it can tell you exactly what area in the US somebody is from. It comes down to the terms you use that you might not even realize are not universal. Highway vs freeway, what you call a sugary carbonated drink, and so on. OTOH I think a lot of these methods don't matter that much because of plausible deniability. Stylometry and other stuff processes is always probabilistic, and can be dismissed.
  - john_strinlai 8mo ago
    >OTOH I think a lot of these methods don't matter that much because of plausible deniability. Stylometry and other stuff processes is always probabilistic, and can be dismissed. while all of it is probabilistic, the issue is that the probability can quickly begin to approach 1 when multiple sources of data & varying techniques are combined.
  - sixeyes 8mo ago
    >OTOH I think a lot of these methods don't matter that much because of plausible deniability. Stylometry and other stuff processes is always probabilistic, and can be dismissed. i've come to realize, often the "opressor" or whatever party i imagine using this kind of thing against me, they do not care about being exactly <right. i will not be able to lawyer my way out. if something is actionable, action will be taken. and i'm not the one deciding if its actionable
SchemaLoad 8mo ago
If you have access to the whole site dataset it's much more reliable with simpler checks. You can just use word usage frequency of common words. Someone posted a demo here of doing this to HN comments which was very effective at showing alt accounts for a user.

plagiarist 8mo ago

I assume one's vocabulary is basically a fingerprint, even if one doesn't use unique turns of phrase. Domain knowledge just leaks in and we aren't conscious of it being identifiable.

somenameforme 8mo ago
It also geographic. There's a bunch of quizzes online where in 10 or 20 questions, it can tell you exactly what area in the US somebody is from. It comes down to the terms you use that you might not even realize are not universal. Highway vs freeway, what you call a sugary carbonated drink, and so on. OTOH I think a lot of these methods don't matter that much because of plausible deniability. Stylometry and other stuff processes is always probabilistic, and can be dismissed.
- john_strinlai 8mo ago
  >OTOH I think a lot of these methods don't matter that much because of plausible deniability. Stylometry and other stuff processes is always probabilistic, and can be dismissed. while all of it is probabilistic, the issue is that the probability can quickly begin to approach 1 when multiple sources of data & varying techniques are combined.
- sixeyes 8mo ago
  >OTOH I think a lot of these methods don't matter that much because of plausible deniability. Stylometry and other stuff processes is always probabilistic, and can be dismissed. i've come to realize, often the "opressor" or whatever party i imagine using this kind of thing against me, they do not care about being exactly <right. i will not be able to lawyer my way out. if something is actionable, action will be taken. and i'm not the one deciding if its actionable

SchemaLoad 8mo ago

If you have access to the whole site dataset it's much more reliable with simpler checks. You can just use word usage frequency of common words. Someone posted a demo here of doing this to HN comments which was very effective at showing alt accounts for a user.