An anonymous letter, publication or message is examined as written language. Checking authorship requires both the disputed passage and reliable, comparable texts by the presumed author.

Subject of examination

  • Anonymous letters and messages
  • Publications and sequences of messages
  • Reliable samples of written language

Sample questions for the expert

  • Is the anonymous material sufficient for authorship comparison?
  • Are there comparable, stable linguistic features?
  • Are there signs of common authorship of several messages?
  • How do brevity, copying or editing affect the possibility of a finding?

The final questions are formulated according to the objects and circumstances of the particular task.

What to prepare

  • Complete material with context and the sequence of messages
  • Samples from the presumed author with verified origin
  • Information about the time, platform and method of preservation
  • Description of possible templates, quotations and reposts

How the examination is conducted

A pattern of linguistic features is examined, rather than an intuitive impression of style. Similarity between anonymous materials and samples is assessed with regard to their common topic and the circumstances of communication.

Scope and limitations

Individual identification may be impossible from a single short message. Authorship analysis does not establish an IP address, device owner or account user; these are separate technical questions.

What the deliverable records

The deliverable shows the suitability of the materials, significant similarities and differences, and the limits of the answer concerning authorship.

Cost and terms

from RUB 80,000. The exact cost depends on the length of the text, number of samples, number of authors, questions and urgency.

How to prepare a group of anonymous messages

Several messages should not be assumed in advance to form a single text by one author simply because they were published under the same name. It is useful to preserve each available publication separately in the set, together with its place in the correspondence and information about how it was obtained. A shared account, a shared device and common authorship of written language are related but separate circumstances.

For a large collection, prepare an inventory: message identifier, source, date recorded, addressee, genre and known changes. Mark quotations, forwarding, templates, translation and an editor's involvement separately. If there are grounds to suspect several authors, describe this as a hypothesis to be checked, rather than an established fact.

  1. Preserve the original sequence and remarks by other participants that are relevant to the meaning of the exchange.
  2. Do not correct spelling or punctuation when preparing the materials.
  3. Separate disputed messages from texts with reliably known authorship.
  4. Explain which messages are to be compared with each other and whose samples they are to be compared with.
  5. List unavailable continuations, deleted passages and other known gaps.

If only a selected part of the collection is used in the assignment, the reasons for selection must be clear. Undisclosed exclusion of short messages or messages contradicting a hypothesis may change the picture of linguistic behaviour. The deliverable can separately describe the suitability of different passages and how well their grouping is justified, preserving the boundaries between an authorship finding and technical information about publication.