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Show HN: Using stylometry to find HN users with alternate accounts

stylometry.net

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Re: Show HN: Using stylometry to find HN users with alternate accounts

#111
post #101
post #94

Honeypot to see what accounts are tested in sequence? ;-)

I turned off nginx logging if that makes you feel any better. Of course there's no way for you to verify that because I'm just a random guy on the internet but I will tell you that I am a civic minded citizen who is concerned about privacy and the Internet.

Only half kidding, but I’d I were state Intel it’s what I’d be doing. :D

Re: Show HN: Using stylometry to find HN users with alternate accounts

#112
post #83

Anything like this for Reddit? Would translating to other language and back defend against this algorithm?

> Anything like this for Reddit? No but it would be easily adaptable especially given that Pushshift is archiving every Reddit comment. Based on some of the feedback I'm getting here I don't know if I should open source this even though it really wasn't that hard to make. > Would translating to other language and back defend against this algorithm? Yes. But then you have to send your original comment to a translation…

I wouldn't worry about that too much as someone's already done something similar for reddit (https://towardsdatascience.com/using-nlp-to-identify-reddito...), and has released their code publicly (https://github.com/jabraunlin/reddit-user-id)

Given the technique used, I don't see why something simple and local wouldn't defeat it? The "easiest" technique would be to use this weighting as a negative metric in rewriting.

Re: Show HN: Using stylometry to find HN users with alternate accounts

#113
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Anything like this for Reddit? No but it would be easily adaptable especially given that Pushshift is archiving every Reddit comment. Based on some of the feedback I'm getting here I don't know if I should open source this even though it really wasn't that hard to make. > Would translating to other language and back defend against this algorithm? Yes. But then you have to send your original comment to a translation…

> Based on some of the feedback I'm getting here I don't know if I should open source this even though it really wasn't that hard to make. I'd say you should. I'd rather see this as being publicly and freely available to everyone rather than some shady "Big Tech" analytics company. If the "weapons" exist, I would feel more comfortable knowing everyone can access them, not just an elite that can use it for their own (…

I am genuinely torn, because my initial reaction was almost the exact opposite, but the comparison to a weapon does ring true. And there is indeed an argument to be made for level playing field. At the very least, maybe counter-measures can be developed.

Re: Show HN: Using stylometry to find HN users with alternate accounts

#115

Ingenious idea. At the very least, this is just about finding people who write like us, the same way we seek those with similar tastes (music...) How long before large commercial indexers start offering an efficient (AI based ?) stylometry to agencies and states ? wait... do you think the NSA is already doing this?

They would be silly not to ( apart from creepish profiling of an entire globe population you also get to potentially identify bots ). We all have mannerisms that can easily 'betray us' online. I honestly thought my writing style is more unique, but as it turns out it is somewhat common.

> I honestly thought my writing style is more unique

You just showed another possible use case for this kind of tools: "How unique is my writing style ?"

Re: Show HN: Using stylometry to find HN users with alternate accounts

#117
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah top 20 is a little excessive because in my own tests I found that top 20 is only marginally more accurate than top 10. You can get a more academic explanation [here]( https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09296174.2011.53... ). I was amazed too because it seemed too easy!

FWIW, top 20 was necessary for mine. The bolding was a brilliant move. Several of my accounts were ranked 10-20, but popped out due to the bolding.

What does the bolding indicate?

Re: Show HN: Using stylometry to find HN users with alternate accounts

#118
post #106
post #90

nice one. are you using gpt3 under the hood?

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.

Don’t sell yourself short. Simplicity is smart. It’s astonishing how often the simplest thing turns out to be exponentially more effective than the so-called smart thing.

I can’t get over how phenomenal this is. Please put every one of your side project ideas into production!

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