Notes on  PSEUDO 

[Usenet: truncation of `pseudonym']

1. An electronic-mail or USENET persona adopted by a human for
amusement value or as a means of avoiding negative repercussions of
one's net.behavior; a `nom de Usenet', often associated with forged
postings designed to conceal message origins. Perhaps the best-known
and funniest hoax of this type is B1FF. See also TENTACLE.

2. Notionally, a FLAMAGE-generating AI program simulating a Usenet
user. Many flamers have been accused of actually being such entities,
despite the fact that no AI program of the required sophistication
yet exists. However, in 1989 there was a famous series of forged
postings that used a phrase-frequency-based travesty generator to
simulate the styles of several well-known flamers; it was based on
large samples of their back postings (compare DISSOCIATED PRESS). A
significant number of people were fooled by the forgeries, and the
debate over their authenticity was settled only when the perpetrator
came forward to publicly admit the hoax.

J3N Research Labs

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