[OT] mitigating or defeating syntax analysis

[Vlad "SATtva" Miller]

scar (18.04.2008 02:04):
> not exactly sure how to articulate this, but i'll do my best.
> 
> assume there is a global adversary trying to track down an anonymous
> Tor-user by using syntax analysis.  that is to say, gathering sets of
> sentences or paragraphs from e-mails or forums, etc. and then
> recognizing similarities in the syntax (that is, the way the sentence or
> paragraph is written) in order group anonymous text with non-anonymous
> text and ultimately reveal the identity of an anonymous user, based on
> the way they write, basically.  the field of psycholinguistics would
> probably be a good resource for this type of analysis.
> 
> i hope that's clear enough.  so, Tor can help defeat network traffic
> analysis.  now, how can the anonymous user (or, more accurately,
> talker/writer/blogger) mitigate or defeat this syntax analysis?  are
> there any scholarly papers or websites with this information, or at
> least talking more about syntax analysis (perhaps there is a more proper
> technical term)?  for example, i think one rule would be to always use
> proper capitalization and punctuation, something i never do in my
> non-anonymous writing. ;)

One way is to use machine translators: translate your English text to
another language, and then back to English. Sure this will eliminate
most language patterns (and in some cases even the meaning of your text :-).

-- 
SATtva | security & privacy consulting
www.vladmiller.info | www.pgpru.com