Pseudpocalypse • Hacker News Board

Re: Pseudpocalypse

#11

Post by tacostakohashi » Thu, Jul 16, 2026, 9:18 PM UTC

erelong wrote: post #4

yes but no, can't we just ask AI to sufficiently shuffle our words or for algos to do so? "boom", pseudoanonymity (spell?) restored?

for future words, sure. but lots of people have an extensive volume of word they already published with the hope / expectation of remaining anonymous.

Re: Pseudpocalypse

#12

Post by Rendello » Thu, Jul 16, 2026, 9:21 PM UTC

There's been some interesting threads about stylometry over the years [1]. The top link was quite decent at unmasking HN alt accounts with basic ngram analysis whipped up in one day [2].

1. https://hn.algolia.com/?q=stylometry

2. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33756141

Re: Pseudpocalypse

#13

Post by tacostakohashi » Thu, Jul 16, 2026, 9:22 PM UTC

inigyou wrote: post #7

This always seems theoretical. Has it happened?

Things like it have happened. The Unabomber was identified through his writing idiosyncrasies.

Lots of criminals have been identified by reanalyzing old DNA samples using data and genealogical techniques that weren't possible at the time the samples were left.

Re: Pseudpocalypse

#14

Post by lnrd » Thu, Jul 16, 2026, 9:35 PM UTC

One would think that it could be possible to make a tool that takes some text and "anonymizes" it by making it a little more standard and boring (uniforming punctuation and sentence structure, changing words with some synonyms, etc). Maybe wouldn't make it particularly compelling, but would be valuable for political dissidents and other people with a high threat model.

Does anyone have some tools to share?

Re: Pseudpocalypse

#15

Post by ButlerianJihad » Thu, Jul 16, 2026, 9:38 PM UTC

tacostakohashi wrote: post #13

inigyou wrote: post #7

This always seems theoretical. Has it happened?

Things like it have happened. The Unabomber was identified through his writing idiosyncrasies. Lots of criminals have been identified by reanalyzing old DNA samples using data and genealogical techniques that weren't possible at the time the samples were left.

> The Unabomber was identified through his writing idiosyncrasies.

By his brother, apparently. His brother read the manifesto, and said, “hey, sounds eerily familiar!”

But wouldn’t it be deliciously ironic if A.I. had caught Kaczynski‽

Re: Pseudpocalypse

#16

Post by kibwen » Thu, Jul 16, 2026, 9:40 PM UTC

As long as you're fine with losing your distinctive voice (which should be taken as table stakes for people who value anonymity to the extent of worrying about this), it's perfectly reasonable to use tools to stymie stylometry. I'm not even suggesting using an LLM (which may or may not be sufficient, it would be difficult to verify either way); it would suffice to have a tool that rewrites your prose (or analyzes it and flags it for manual correction, etc.) if it isn't written in, say, a form where every sentence is primitive subject-verb-object, limited to the 1,000 most common English words, with no contractions, idioms, or exotic punctuation. Yes, this doesn't completely eliminate all possibly identifying bits of entropy, but it would more than suffice for hiding in a crowd ("hiding" in the sense of obviously standing out as someone trying not to be noticed, and as long as you're also careful about your opsec in other ways, like time of posting, etc).

Re: Pseudpocalypse

#17

Post by jay_kyburz » Thu, Jul 16, 2026, 9:40 PM UTC

lnrd wrote: post #14

One would think that it could be possible to make a tool that takes some text and "anonymizes" it by making it a little more standard and boring (uniforming punctuation and sentence structure, changing words with some synonyms, etc). Maybe wouldn't make it particularly compelling, but would be valuable for political dissidents and other people with a high threat model. Does anyone have some tools to share?

Not sure if you are joking.

Try ChatGPT.com

Re: Pseudpocalypse

#18

Post by two-sandwich » Thu, Jul 16, 2026, 9:51 PM UTC

I wondered something almost the opposite the other day. With consistent interaction with chat bots and AI output, their linguistic ticks are surely bleeding into every day speech ("smoking gun" and other turns of phrase). What if our linguistic output starts to conform?

> Do they, incorrectly, position their adverbial clauses? Underrated line.

Re: Pseudpocalypse

#19

Post by rel_ic » Thu, Jul 16, 2026, 9:55 PM UTC

two-sandwich wrote: post #18

I wondered something almost the opposite the other day. With consistent interaction with chat bots and AI output, their linguistic ticks are surely bleeding into every day speech ("smoking gun" and other turns of phrase). What if our linguistic output starts to conform? > Do they, incorrectly, position their adverbial clauses? Underrated line.

That whole paragraph is clever :)

Re: Pseudpocalypse

#20

Post by inigyou » Thu, Jul 16, 2026, 9:56 PM UTC

sixtyj wrote: post #9

> A stronger conjecture is that we’re heading towards a sort of generalized pseudpocalypse. Perhaps, in the future, if you interact with the world through essentially any high-bandwidth channel, then you identify yourself. Say you wear a mask in public and only speak by sub-vocalizing into a voice changer. That’s fine, you’ll still be identified using your body shape, gait, or chemical signature. Or say you don’t lik…

Useful to whom?

See, I used "whom", messing up my fingerprint.