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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

#351

Post by UncleEntity »

sillysaurusx wrote: post #186
VyseofArcadia wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but the cat’s out of the boot It's my first time hearing that variant. Usually its, "the cat's out of the bag" where I'm from. Do you mean boot in the UK sense, what Americans would call the trunk of a car? Or do you mean a sturdy piece of footwear? Obligatory xkcd https://xkcd.com/2390/

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.

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

#352

Post by bornfreddy »

forgotpwd16 wrote: post #153
zxcvbn4038 wrote: post #99

How long until this becomes the algorithm for a dating site? “Find hot single women who write just like you”

Wouldn't be surprised if dating sites already used similar algorithms.

Wouldn't be surprised if most of the women on a specific dating site had very high similarity scores.

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

#353

Post by DrStrangeLoop »

pvg wrote: post #285
DrStrangeLoop wrote: post #269

I tried dang's old account (gruseom) expecting to see his dang account listed. Nothing. Tried dang, sctb (a previous admin) was listed as closest match. I wouldn't rely on these results https://stylometry.net/user?username=gruseom https://stylometry.net/user?username=dang

I wouldn't rely on these results You picked a user who posts a massive volume of repeat, template-y comments and found their former colleague who also posted piles of repeat, template-y comments, that being part of both of their jobs.

There are a few close matches to dang's style of template-y comments in the results. Afaik none of the listed accounts are Daniel.

I picked dang as he is the figurehead of hn, and didn't want to inadvertently reveal some other user's identity.

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

#354

Post by kaba0 »

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.

Someone linked it in the thread: https://github.com/psal/anonymouth

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

#355

Post by closeparen »

drc500free wrote: post #155

This is a super interesting tool for self reflection. Looking at the top 10 similar accounts to mine, it gives me an arms-length view of how other people probably interpret my tone. I appear to be a well-educated, over-confident know-it-all.

That's what we all come to HN for...

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

#356

Post by headhasthoughts »

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #254

How much should we fear de-anonymisation ? A lot of discussion on the thread are over "how can we prevent this". I would like to know why should we not embrace this and similar technologies? The benefits in my view are large - online behaviour tracks back to real life - and epidemiology speaking the value of millions of test subjects across every question are invaluable - from traditional medicine to "mass psychology…

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 harmless and will not harm society.

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

#358

Post by stupendous_luck »

krisoft wrote: post #329
stupendous_luck wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the same time, HN doesn't let you delete comments. Maybe with some GDPR magic.

Not sure what is your point, or how does that connect with my comment. Care to elaborate?

Your comment quotes an HN guideline, and my point relates to it. Some users may feel the need to create throwaway accounts in order to post comments that in an alternative reality they could post under their primary account and later delete if desired. It may not stop a scrupulous collector of data, but such a scenario may not be the object of their worry.

Drawing this into the logical conclusion, a user may opt to always post under a throwaway account, to avoid any possible tainting associated with a primary account.

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

#359

Post by Aachen »

WaitWaitWha wrote: post #281

I checked a few random user names and I am confused. - Why is the author costco[0] not in this lookup? [0]: https://stylometry.net/user?username=costco

- Their first comment and submission were 4 hours ago.

- The text on that page is accurate it seems.

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

#360

Post by bee_rider »

irrational wrote: post #319
jsnell wrote: post #105

After a few tries on boring accounts, I thought to try the account of somebody who was notorious for an incident outside of HN, and had a (deservedly) bad time at HN for a couple of years before the account went dark. And yeah, there's a bunch of high confidence (.6-.8) hits for that account, and from a quick browse of the comments of the recently active ones, they look really likely to be alts. Like, all three that…

.6 is high confidence? I did my own username, wondering what it would return, since I know I don’t have any alt accounts. The top results are in the .6-.7 range. If they aren’t alt accounts, is it just coincidence that we have similar writing styles?

I think so.

A funny thought — my “matches” cap out at around .56. Having false positives* in a tool like this might feel like a “bad result” but actually I think it just means that if someone were running this sort of tool across the whole internet, I’d be relatively easy to correlate, while your identity would be intermingled with your .6-.7 partners.

*actually they aren’t really even false positives because the tool doesn’t promise to detect alts in the first place, just find similar styles.

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