I will just publish, from now on, the essays I like exactly as I get them.
Authors are invited to
- 1) download the source code;
- 2) correct it;
- 3) very important CHECK on an Opera browser that it looks ok;
- 4) resend it to me corrected
And I'll update it.
Note that if the essay should infringe on anyone copyrights, and if I receive a legitimate request
to nuke it, it will immediately disappear from my site, so you always better write software reversing
essays that are not "specific" target related... so, pointing out deficiences is OK,
individuating "software black holes" is a must, but
explaining lamers
how to register (or, even more silly, how to make a coward keygen for the idiots) is definitely NOT "fraviatiquette".
Indeed from now on I want to HELP, not to damage programmers.
This said I publish this bad formatted but extremely useful essay by Surreal5 with pleasure:
Stalking (in the sense WE are using this) is indeed a more and more important art on this web
of ours, as many readers and contributors of my messageboard know (even too well :-)
something for your stalking section maybe ?
----------------------------------------------
keyboard identification
When communicating with someone over internet, you
can't always
be sure that they are who they say they are,
especially in the area of
computer security. This goes double when they make no
untypical spelling
or language errors.(!)
knowing the various keyboards (or analyzing strange
typo's in text's,
comparing them
to keyboards) can tell you a lot about the person who
wrote it. In some
cases it can
tell you what country they are in, where they are from
originally, and what
computer they are using. Whereas phonetical typo's
require lots of text,
and lots of work
analyzing them in order to be accurate (many countries
have similar
phonetics,
many languages sound alike), keyboard related typo's
give faster, and
sometimes
more accurate indications. In communicating with
people in 4 languages,
i've noticed
more than a few giveaways.
1) the switched keyboard typo
typing the key that would hold the right character on
another language
keyboard, are
dead giveaways, but the situation is rare.
2) the neighbourkey typo
know your neighbouring keys, when in relaxed state
over the keyboard, just
before typing,
both hands tend to be positioned inward and downward
of the keys, so if
they make a typo,
it's more likely they press the key positioned
inward/downward from the
center of the
keyboard, in relation to the key they meant to press.
once you know your
keyboards you
will see in a glance which keyboard they are using.
Many people are one handed or dominantly right or left
handed typers, you
can generally
determine this from a few typo's already. The typing
style influences the
minimum and
maximum boundries of the keyboard operated with each
hand. Slow typers in
real time are
very unlikely to be equally bi-handed typers, and
possibly even single
finger typers ;).
an example of a right-handed, autodidact typer's
median hand boundries:
|-----------------------|
| left / |
| / |
| | right |
| \ |
| \ |
|-----------------------|
3) the missing number
missing numbers are very common typos for some non-US
keyboards,
that have the numbers under shift in the top row
instead of the
characters, like the widely used french speaking
variety AZERTY.
Because of this they are more inclined to use the
numbers
on the keypad, and forget to turn on numlock.
note: this also goes for keyboards where the numbers
are only present
on the keypad ;)
4) the symbol typo
by far the hardest to learn how to spot, but dead
giveaways, and more
accurate. Non-US
keyboards often have rearranged characters. even
countries that use qwerty
keyboards
often make small adjustments to fit those used in
their language more
often, or to
include currency or other symbols.
note: keep an eye out for funny characters. hehe
(!) english isn't my native language
written by surreal5 for fravia's.