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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

#341

Post by ahmedalsudani »

Aachen wrote: post #327
phreeza wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MD5 of the username is 9abc27e93b7e3c04b7c599017c1cfe5f ? The top one seems an odd one out in that case?

Usernames aren't random enough to be safe as a simple MD5. Perhaps with a strong bcrypt, but similar to PIN codes, it might be better to give partial information like "is the second character an ...", assuming nobody else made similar statements. Or give the first ~two hex characters of the hash, so that it would match 1/(16²)rd of the usernames. I'm sure there's also a clever way for a zero-knowledge proof here, pro…

Another problem is that it's a small set. If you had a list of all HN users, you could compute md5 for all of them in seconds.

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

#342

Post by bornfreddy »

DenisM wrote: post #208

How about this for countermeasure: As you're typing out a comment the software gives you a list of accounts you're becoming similar to. That way you can adjust your writing as you type.

Sounds great, except there are many different similarity measures. Which one does the algorithm use?

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

#343

Post by CobaltFire »

bhaney wrote: post #177

Well now I'm self conscious about my closest match being an 0.34 when so many other people are reporting much closer matches with accounts that aren't alts. Do I write weirdly?

My closest is 0.40, so I’m right there with you.

Native English speaker as well.

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

#345

Post by vfinn »

4qz wrote: post #44

This is an evil website. We won’t have any anonymity soon. The highest match is my years old banned account that I forgot about. Where did you get the data from?

Imagine using this across different platforms :/, and let alone using different techniques in addition...

edit: maybe you'd catch some criminals if you tried to match reddit against dark web for example

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

#346

Post by costco »

lettergram wrote: post #194
sillysaurusx wrote: post #52

Wow. This gives a lot of false positives, but it found all ~10 of my old accounts over the years. The most interesting thing is that my writing style changed pretty drastically since a decade ago. Searching for my oldest account matches my earliest usernames, whereas searching this account matched the rest. The details of the algorithm are fascinating: https://stylometry.net/about Mostly because of how simple it is.…

Frankly similar to how I was doing in back in 2018 (when you and I chatted about it on HN lol) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17944293 The approach I took was a bit different, but also no ML required. The real trick is pruning and going cross platform. There are around 100k active HN accounts (meaning posts a few times a year), maybe 200k if you count at least one post a year. But It’s a very small space to try…

Exactly. HN emphasizes long-form posts much more than other forums which makes the commenters here very susceptible to this kind of analysis. Plus you can fit every single HN comment in RAM on a mid tier gaming laptop so it's even easier. I was trying to think of applications of this kind of data and the only thing I could think of was moderation tools/detecting ban evaders but what you've done seems much more profitable lol.

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

#347

Post by wizzwizz4 »

lzooz wrote: post #336
Aachen wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Usernames aren't random enough to be safe as a simple MD5. Perhaps with a strong bcrypt, but similar to PIN codes, it might be better to give partial information like "is the second character an ...", assuming nobody else made similar statements. Or give the first ~two hex characters of the hash, so that it would match 1/(16²)rd of the usernames. I'm sure there's also a clever way for a zero-knowledge proof here, pro…

Good point - I've been running john on that md5 for a couple minutes :)

Why use John? Just run down the list of Hacker News usernames; it'll take less time. (Or, better still, don't; just because the privacy's theoretically compromised doesn't mean we have to exploit that.)

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

#348

Post by Aachen »

musicale wrote: post #141

> I made this site mostly to show how easy this is and how it can erode online privacy looks like it can indeed > Here are some frequent HN commenters: (EDIT: Removed due to privacy concerns) How surprising that someone might object to being included in a demonstration of the erosion of privacy! Is the site opt-in or opt-out?

I doubt they asked 78k users for permission when there's no standardized way of reaching out if you're not a site admin. It's opt out if anything.

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

#349

Post by [deleted] »

rand_user_100 wrote: post #242
A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does create a high level of discomfort, because it illustrates well what privacy advocates try talking about to the population at large, but all that said.. how is it any different from regular scraping and analyzing it any other way? This is a real question.

It's different because you're removing all barriers to access and making it easy and convenient to stalk/dox people. Imagine you get the urge to track someone, but in order to do that you have to spend a week writing some new software. That's a barrier. And because of it you may change your mind because it's a lot of work with little payoff. But if that info is just one click away, it's a whole different ballgame.

[deleted]

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

#350

Post by thesz »

b112 wrote: post #334
vbezhenar wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There're 19 other accounts this tool finds similar to me. Those are not my accounts. 0.46 - 0.56 are numbers.

You are fools, one and all! This tool's only purpose, is to tag people who use it! Now they know just who cares about which alternate accounts. They know ! They freaking know, man! You have all fallen for their ploy. Fools!

I have no alternate accounts and visited the site out of curiosity, because I used to worked in the domain like this.

What I found was worth visiting the site. Somehow notably many accounts with (relatively) high similarity to mine's are sharing at least one of my personal traits.

Which is fascinating, to me.

And I think is worth to be noticed by others - what and how you write can disclose who you are.

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