Alright, so, I might be a bit of a Linguistics nerd, but this caught my eye on Slashdot today:

“You can now get GPLed JVM sources from Sun. Everyone seemed to be expecting the desktop version (J2SE) but J2ME has been released first. It looks to be buildable for Linux x86, MIPS, and ARM platforms. Sun now calls it ‘phoneME.’ Enjoy.”

For those without the technical background, Sun Microsystems, who created the original code to the popular Java programming language (used by many applications and websites), has decided to release the source code to that language, making it usable for anybody. This is very cool, and will be a huge step for open source software. w00t for Sun!

What caught my eye, though, is the name: “PhoneME”, which is a recapitalization of “Phoneme“, a linguistics term, indicating a group of sounds, which, although different in terms of sound and articulation, sound the same to a native speaker of a certain language (think the L’s in “People” and “Light”).

I’m not certain why they chose this particular name, but hey, whatever. Perhaps it’s a commentary on the fact that, although Java has many distinctly different libraries and implementation, all users view it as one thing. That, or maybe they just don’t have a clue what they did. Yeah, I’m gonna go with the second option there.

I have an instant messaging (IM) problem. I’m always on AIM or Yahoo Messenger, and pretty frequently, I’ve got a few different “conversations” going at once. It’s a great method of communication, but there are a few difficulties inherent to the medium. Perhaps the most frequently exploited difficulty (at least, among the young and drama-prone) is the fact that you never can be 100% sure that the person talking to you is who they say they are. However, there’s one, frequently overlooked means of partially overcoming this trouble.

E-Dentity Theft

First, let’s introduce some terms, this time, from Cryptography. In cryptography examples, they frequently use a short list of recurring characters. Alice and Bob are two people trying to communicate a secret message with one another. Alice wants the message to get to Bob and only Bob. Eve is a third party, trying to break into their communications and read that message (A truly great cartoon involving Eve). So, for our examples here, Bob will be trying to get in touch with Alice, and Eve will be trying to get information from them.

Every messenger service has some safeguards (usually passwords) to try and make sure that unauthorized people don’t get on your account. This will keep Eve from signing on at her home computer and pretending to be Alice. However, once Eve has physical access to Alice’s machine, this breaks down. If Alice runs down the hall to use the restroom, closing her existing conversation, Eve can sit down and start a conversation with Bob. At this point, Bob is completely vulnerable, as he still thinks he’s talking to Alice, and will share information as such. There might be a warning sign, though.

E-Diolect

Some while back, I discussed the idea of Idiolect, or the patterns of usage, meaning, and sound that are specific not just to a group, but to a single individual. In spoken language, this might be expressed by specific turns of phrase (for instance, I’ll say “w00t” in conversation) and sound changes (I usually put a slight hint of “L” in the words “walk” and “talk”).

However, people tend to have an online idiolect (I prefer E-Diolect) as well. In email, some people tend to include a full “Hello Alice” at the start of every email, and end with a “Love, Bob”. Others will just type out the message with no formalities at all. Similarly, when quoting a message, some will split the quote with their responses, and others will just respond at the top, and leave the quote at the bottom.

Over Instant Messager services, the E-Diolect really shows up nicely, and tends to express itself in many different ways:

1. Emoticons (”Smilies”): Does the person use them at all? If so, which ones? It’s rare that people will use all the different ones available, and most people stick to a comparatively small set. That set can be used to identify them. Also, do they make the smilies using an “=” or a “:” [”=)” or “:)”]?
2. Capitalization: I capitalize pretty obsessively in IM, whereas other people will never hit the shift key. Some are a mix, capitalizing “I” and some names, but never the first letter of a new thought/sentence. aLsO, sOmE pEoPlE are prone to varying their capitalization.
3. Contractions: sum ppl r rly obsessd wit makin cntractns on im. wut bout ur friendz? (Some people will use only specific ones (like “brb” (be right back) or “ppl” (people).
4. 1337-5p34k: Pronounced “Leet Speak”, a sociolect in which people replace certain l3tt3r5 with numb3r5, among other changes. (Check out the 1337 translator)
5. Line break habits: Some people put line breaks/between every/other word, just/hitting return as/they go/writing in a/stream of/consciousness. Others prefer long messages.
6. Correction: When somebody sends a typo in IM, do they correct it? If so, how? Do they just retype the word? Do they usually put a *star in front of it?
7. Actions: When expressing taking an action via IM, some people will *put it in stars*, others use IRC markup (/me writes a post), and some even ~*~get creative~*~.
8. Punctuation: Few people use periods (.) in IM, but question marks and commas aren’t uncommon, everybody has their habits.

Applied E-Diolect Studies

So, Eve is on Alice’s computer. Bob gets a message:

cryptogeekalice: hey bob, wut did u get eve 4 xmas

cryptogeekalice: i want 2 know so i dun g3t her teh same thing ;P

If Bob paid attention, he’d quickly notice that Alice capitalizes, hates contractions, never uses any smilies but :) and :D, and uses Question marks. He’d smell a rat, and likely withhold any information about Santa-related activities.

However, it’s not always that easy. Eve might know Alice’s style too, and try and make some adaptations. However, it takes a lot of observation and skill to mimic somebody online in all of the above factors, while still maintaining a natural, conversationally believable tone. Finally, Eve will have to mimic Alice’s communicative style, making sure not to use her own catchphrases, conversational norms, and other such things.

The last words

Bob and Alice are never really safe. With enough research, observation, and planning, Eve will be able to imitate either of them, and it would be very difficult to detect without a webcam or some biometric device. However, a little observation and awareness of E-Diolect goes a long way towards discouraging Eve and people like her from engaging in a little bit of E-Dentity Theft.

This post contains some objectionable language. That’s the nature of the beast when discussing graffiti, but still, keep that in mind.
Perhaps I have too much free time, but I’m starting to realize that senseless graffiti is truly fascinating. However, I take heart in the fact that I’m not alone (for my Linguistics in US Society class, one paper option was to write about bathroom graffiti on campus). I’ve written two other posts about it already (here and here), and the more I look around, the more interesting examples I see. However, last week, I saw something that really, truly threw me.

I had the occasion to be at a moderately sized Lutheran Church helping with an event, and, as humans tend to do, I used the restroom. No place is sacred to the bathroom graffiti artists, as there was one etching on the inside of the stall door, the word “EMINEM!”.

What struck me was that, well, this was incredibly tame for stall door graffiti. On campus, generally there’s never an etching without at least one swear word, and generally, the subject matter is either political (F— LIBERALS!), sexual (YOU F— MEN!) or Drug related (F—ING LEGALIZE IT!). However, “Eminem”, the name of a popular American rap artist, is really none of those.

That led me to search for a link. On campus, the bathroom walls seem to be a sounding board for what people are thinking, but forbidden to say in public. So, you get all sorts of confessions (”I had sex with a man last night” in a men’s room), random uses of profanity (”F— you s—headed f—ing s—s!), unpopular opinions (any variety of hate speech and insults), political extremism (”Liberals should all go die!”), and talk of other societally forbidden subjects (”smoke the pot!”).

Then, it occurred to me, to a young, churchgoing boy, the mere thought of liking and listening to Eminem is an unpopular thought, and a subtle rebellion. Really, the boy carving “Eminem” in a church wall is no different than the college student carving “Smoke pot!” in the library study area, it’s just a different forbidden fruit.

My mind then jumped back to a recent retreat I went to, hosted at a YMCA camp. There, on the bottom of the bunk bed, was a series of scribbled graffiti, ranging from “Alex + Sarah = Luv!” to (really) “I just pooped on the bed”. Once again, forbidden subjects of the age group that might be prone to staying there.

So, I’m not a psychologist, but I think there’s a pretty obvious pattern, where, given a certain age group, the graffiti will pertain to the subjects which are forbidden in open discussion.

The next step, of course, is to find new age groups. So, if you’re acquainted with the graffiti in a day care center, corporate office, or retirement home, I’m interested to hear about it. I just wonder if, in the bathroom in the Linguistics department at UC Berkeley, there’s a hastily written note carved into the door, saying “Chomsky is right!”