My nearest match is only at 0.406. It'd be interesting to see who the most unique commenters are, but it's also quite possible it wouldn't be flattering.
0.2506 is my nearest match
That's the lowest I've seen yet. You must write uniquely :)
Show HN: Using stylometry to find HN users with alternate accounts
471–480 of 562 posts
Re: Show HN: Using stylometry to find HN users with alternate accounts
#472writing "antirez" shows accounts with spanish names (none is mine). I guess Italian and Spanish speakers write very similarly English, but on HN there are a lot more Spanish speakers than Italian ones so that's what I get.
It seems the accuracy for nonnative speakers is not nearly as good as it is for native speakers. The algorithm could definitely use some work.
Re: Show HN: Using stylometry to find HN users with alternate accounts
#473It found my “alternate” account. If someone puts my username in, it’s not hard to figure out which alternate is mine.
Re: Show HN: Using stylometry to find HN users with alternate accounts
#474Earlier quoted context omitted.
I keep no alternate accounts, but this tool reports best matches for me that appear to be Slavic or just Russian - and I am Russian. Best match score in my list is just above 0.5. There are some clearly alternate accounts on the list, their match scores with this tool are well above 0.7. It is probable that persons of same cultural origin will have similar writing style and vocabulary. It is also probable that person…
My highest was 0.41 and the person writes nothing like me. I guess I'm a unique snowflake after all.
I was curious about this, my highest match was 0.47 and I have no alts, maybe I'm also a unique snowflake, or haven't said anything noteworthy enough to have been deepfaked yet ;).
Re: Show HN: Using stylometry to find HN users with alternate accounts
#475Earlier quoted context omitted.
So I am asking because my views are only challenged inside my own head, hence the need for external thoughts. But firstly the "governments will come and do bad things" argument - yes this is clearly and obviously a major problem - but not one solvable by technology in anyway. Fixing violent dictatorships is a IRL problem - one that requires enormous effort and sacrifices (see Ukraine for obvious example). We cannot p…
I am of the generation and mindset that online abuse is not real. Straight up. Log out, turn off the screen and watch Netflix, take a walk and calm down, block the offending user. It's not real. >I suspect we need better support for police in prosecuting such things We do see that! But mostly people on Facebook. Here we have had judgements of people who posted threats on Facebook because it is tied to your real name.…
> I am of the generation and mindset that online abuse is not real. Straight up. Log out, turn off the screen and watch Netflix, take a walk and calm down, block the offending user. It's not real.
Until people can pierce the veil of your pseudonymity (which isn't all that hard depending on the platform and the person) and it isn't just online abuse and harassment anymore. "Tied to your real name" includes "tied to enough information about you that someone with plenty of free time can sift through various databases and piece it together" and most people have absolutely no idea how many such databases there are, and how much piecing someone can do.
I'll say something tangential: Even if we both agree that one-off assholes are largely inconsequential, and I think we do, such assholery has a broken window effect on a platform, where people see all the assholes running free and decide that it's either a place for them to be assholes or a place they should stay away from to avoid assholes.
Re: Show HN: Using stylometry to find HN users with alternate accounts
#476Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not that smart - my site is basically just doing some calculations on word frequencies. You can read https://academic.oup.com/dsh/article-abstract/17/3/267/92927... and https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09296174.2011.53... and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33755898 for more information.
As you mention on the site, you don't do punctuation. But I'm guessing there are some pretty good fingerprints like: two spaces after a period Whether someone uses an em-dash/single hyphen/double hyphens (which may correspond to house style they're used to) Whether they use semi-colons (Presumably harder) but consistent substitutions like loose for lose, break for brake, etc. Use of accents
I manually determined there was an individual posing as two people (playing both the antagonist and the adversary) because they consistently misspelt certain words such as "definitely" as "defiantly".
Fingerprinting certain linguistic traits and mapping that to time-zones as well as confirming there is a partial overlap in posts but never exact worked exceedingly well. Someone can't easily maintain a fluent conversation between themself on two accounts, but they can either get close, either through unnatural delays between sentences or just never interacting with the "other" party at the same time.
Re: Show HN: Using stylometry to find HN users with alternate accounts
#477Earlier quoted context omitted.
What could possibly be the harm in allowing people to harass others based on posts they made decades ago? What could possibly be harmful in making a person who for whatever reason has changed their online identity easier to track? What could be remotely harmful about allowing Marlboro to find the accounts of ex-smokers? What could be the harm in tracking underaged users site by site? I'm sure this is completely harml…
I think this might be old age creeping up on me but I find it harder and harder to work backwards through "argument by sarcasm" to arrive at what you meant. I think clearly you are heartfelt in your views that having your identity online be a real one is bad - but I am not sure if that is because of posts you made years ago being linked back to you or nefarious advertising ? The old posts issue is interesting- do you…
My view isn't that accounts tied to real people are bad. It's that your lack of ability to think of cases where what you propose could be harmful points to a total lack of critical thought on your part.
The point that I am making is that it's incredibly easy to decipher why "track everyone under every identity they choose" can go wrong and lower the quality of discussion, and specifically, that it's so easy the fact you can't think of a single reason why it's a bad idea to completely eradicate privacy.
If I can find an alt of yours saying that you've quit smoking and then push tantalizing ads to you, you're going to bring me a better return than blind-firing into the American public.
If someone is looking for people who are easy to manipulate in borderline-illegal fashion (let's say, sex crimes), it's a cheat code if they see some throwaway account on HN comment on a post about the treatment of youth, "As a present high school student, I disagree with your statement because..." and track it back to a minor.
Re: Show HN: Using stylometry to find HN users with alternate accounts
#478Earlier quoted context omitted.
It’s a little writing trick I leaned from (I think) Orwell. Any time you’re about to use a common metaphor, try to tweak it. You’ll catch readers off guard, which piques their curiosity. It’s a fun game, too. I wish I’d used “the cat’s out of the hat,” but I didn’t think of it till later.
Yeah, it’s like shooting ducks in a barrel it works so well. Easy to overuse then people just get annoyed though…kind of like commas, I suppose.
That reminds me of a PETA campaign on social media trying to get people to replace violent idioms with alternatives like "feeding a fed horse" and "there's more than one way to pet a cat."
Re: Show HN: Using stylometry to find HN users with alternate accounts
#479Re: Show HN: Using stylometry to find HN users with alternate accounts
#480wow, this is way off on me, didn't find my alts and the bolded accounts on my list are from different countries, use language I'd never use (cusses) and I see I've downvoted some of them...
I'd love to have the experience and or apparent wealth my "alts" have