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Description  |
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RELATED APPLICATIONS
A copending U.S. patent application, <Attorney Docket No. P4102>, filed
<filing date>, by John W. Richardson, et al., and titled "METHOD AND
APPARATUS FOR ANALYZING ONLINE USER TYPING TO DETERMINE OR VERIFY FACTS,"
is hereby incorporated by reference.
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The invention relates generally to the field of online communications in
multi-user environments. More specifically, the invention relates to
transforming a user's online typing to conform to user specified
attributes.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Linguists have observed that many characteristics of a speaker are
communicated through unconscious choices of style and diction. These
characteristics include, among others, gender, age, educational level, and
where the speaker was raised. The markers for these characteristics can
also be found in a person's written communication. For example, men and
women are carrying over socialized speech patterns into their online
communications. Continued communication, therefore, allows a person to
make conscious or unconscious decisions about the characteristics of
another person with whom they are interacting.
In chat rooms and in real life (IRL), this automatic determination of
characteristics has the potential to lead to a general disregard of
viewpoints presented by lesser valued speakers. This is so because once
characteristics have been attributed to a person, all subsequent
information received from that person is filtered through these
assumptions. For example, early linguistic research in the area of gender
differences suggested that women's speech wasn't as effective as men's
because women had a tendency to use certain negatively evaluated forms.
More recent linguistic research suggests, however, that often linguistic
forms that are negatively evaluated when used by women are sometimes
positively evaluated when used by men. Further, linguistic forms that were
consistently negatively evaluated were used more often by people of lesser
status than by people of greater status.
Internet service providers typically allow participants to identify their
name, gender, and age as they wish. Therefore, one possible solution for a
person to avoid being prejudged based on their real world characteristics
would be to present him/herself as a person having certain characteristics
(e.g., age, gender, educational level, etc.) known to be appealing to the
target audience and attempt to imitate a person with such characteristics.
In addition to avoiding prejudice, users, particularly female users, may
wish disguise their identity to avoid unwanted advances from other users.
However, posing as a person of the opposite gender, someone of a different
generation, or someone with a higher educational level, etc. may be
difficult to maintain. It is desirable, therefore, to provide a method and
apparatus for transforming a user's input to conform to one or more user
supplied characteristics.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
A method and apparatus for masquerading online is disclosed. A masquerade
user profile is received. The masquerade user profile corresponds to a
person to be impersonated. User input is received that is to be
transmitted. The user input is transformed into a masqueraded user output.
The resulting masqueraded user output conforms to desired elements of the
masquerade user profile while maintaining substantially the same meaning
as the original user input. The masqueraded user output is then
transmitted in place of the original user input.
Other features of the present invention will be apparent from the
accompanying drawings and from the detailed description which follows.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
The present invention is illustrated by way of example, and not by way of
limitation, in the figures of the accompanying drawings and in which like
reference numerals refer to similar elements and in which:
FIG. 1 is an example of a typical computer system upon which one embodiment
of the present invention can be implemented.
FIG. 2 illustrates the overall software architecture of an identity
transformer according to one embodiment of the present invention.
FIG. 3 is a flow diagram illustrating a method of identify transformation
according to one embodiment of the present invention.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT
A method and apparatus for creating output appropriate to a specified
masquerade profile is described. Importantly, while most chat areas allow
real-time communication among users, this is not an essential
characteristic of a chat area for the purposes of this application. The
terms "chat room" and "chat area" are used throughout this application to
refer to any online environment that allows multi-user interaction. For
example, Internet Relay Chat (IRC), multi-user dungeons, multi-user
environment simulators (MU*s), habitats, GMUKS (graphical multi-user
konversation), and even Internet newsgroups would fall within this
definition of a chat room.
In the following description, for the purposes of explanation, numerous
specific details are set forth in order to provide a thorough
understanding of the present invention. It will be apparent, however, to
one skilled in the art that the present invention may be practiced without
some of these specific details. In other instances, well-known structures
and devices are shown in block diagram form.
HARDWARE OVERVIEW
Referring to FIG. 1, a computer system is shown as 100. The computer system
100 represents a computer system upon which the preferred embodiment of
the present invention can be implemented. Computer system 100 comprises a
bus or other communication means 101 for communicating information, and a
processing means 102 coupled with bus 101 for processing information.
Computer system 100 further comprises a random access memory (RAM) or
other dynamic storage device 104 (referred to as main memory), coupled to
bus 101 for storing information and instructions to be executed by
processor 102. Main memory 104 also may be used for storing temporary
variables or other intermediate information during execution of
instructions by processor 102. Computer system 100 also comprises a read
only memory (ROM) and/or other static storage device 106 coupled to bus
101 for storing static information and instructions for processor 102.
Data storage device 107 is coupled to bus 101 for storing information and
instructions. A data storage device 107 such as a magnetic disk or optical
disc and its corresponding drive can be coupled to computer system 100.
Computer system 100 can also be coupled via bus 101 to a display device
121, such as a cathode ray tube (CRT), for displaying information to a
computer user. An alphanumeric input device 122, including alphanumeric
and other keys, is typically coupled to bus 101 for communicating
information and command selections to processor 102. Another type of user
input device is cursor control 123, such as a mouse, a trackball, or
cursor direction keys for communicating direction information and command
selections to processor 102 and for controlling cursor movement on display
121. This input device typically has two degrees of freedom in two axes, a
first axis (e.g., x) and a second axis (e.g., y), which allows the device
to specify positions in a plane. Alternatively, other input devices such
as a stylus or pen can be used to interact with the display. A hard copy
device 124 which may be used for printing instructions, data or other
information on a medium such as paper, film, or similar types of media can
be coupled to bus 201. A communication device 125 may also be coupled to
bus 101 for use in accessing other computer systems. The communication
device 125 may include any of a number of commercially available
networking peripheral devices such as those used for coupling to an
Ethernet, token ring, Internet, or wide area network. Note that any or all
of the components of the system illustrated in FIG. 1 and associated
hardware may be used in various embodiments of the present invention;
however, it will be appreciated by those of ordinary skill in the art that
any configuration of the system may be used for various purposes according
to the particular implementation.
The present invention is related to the use of computer system 100 for
transforming a local user's text input into output conforming to a
specified user profile. In one embodiment, computer system 100 executes a
program that alters information provided by a local user to create output
seemingly produced by a user meeting a specified user profile.
FIG. 2 illustrates the overall software architecture of an identity
transformer according to one embodiment of the present invention. Identify
transformer 200 includes a pair of lexical analyzers 205 and 220, an
expert system 210, a query recognizer 215, a word substitution process
230, a sentence structure substitution process 225, a dictionary/thesaurus
235, a grammar database 240, a speech pattern database 250, and a user
profiles database 245.
The identify transformer 200 accepts user input in the form of a text
message and transforms the user input into masqueraded user output. The
masqueraded output represents a text message having the same basic meaning
of the input text message; however, the speech patterns are modeled after
another user's profile.
Lexical analyzer 205 receives text based messages from the local user and
prepares the character stream for processing by the expert system 210.
The expert system 210 directs the processing of the word substitution
process 230 and the sentence structure substitution process 225 based upon
transformation factors provided by the user. The transformation factors
can be provided, for example, in the form of a user profile from the user
profiles database 245, a subset of characteristics from a given user
profile, or characteristics can be provided directly without reference to
a user profile. In this manner, the user can choose to transform his/her
input to emulate a specific person, only specific characteristics of a
specific person, or specified characteristics without reference to a
particular person.
The word substitution process 230 alters the local user's input by
substituting words appropriate for the specified user profile. The word
substitution process uses the dictionary/thesaurus 235 to find appropriate
substitutions based upon the direction from the expert system 210. Other
substitutions can also be made to make an impersonation more convincing.
For example, if the user to be impersonated frequently employs
abbreviations or acronyms such as the "Net abbreviations" discussed above,
the phases in the input stream can be replaced by the appropriate
abbreviations/acronyms. Also, if the impersonated user is a fan of
emoticons, "smileys" can be generously distributed throughout the
masqueraded output.
The sentence structure substitution process 225 receives sentences written
by the local user and alters the sentence structure. In accordance with
input from the expert system 10, the local user's sentences are converted
into more or less complicated sentence structures with reference to the
grammar database 240. Sentences produced by the structure substitution
process 225 can make the masquerading more convincing if appropriate
speech patterns for the specified transformation factors are also
employed. Speech patterns are accessible for a given characteristic from
the speech pattern database 245. Of course, the expert system 210 should
direct both the word substitution process 230 and the sentence structure
substitution process 225 in a manner that maintains the same basic meaning
as the user's original input.
Lexical analyzer 220 receives other user input from other users in the
conversation and processes the text message for the query recognizer 215.
The query recognizer 215 signals the expert system 210 when it determines
a question has been asked by one of the other users in the conversation.
To improve the response time of the identity transformer 200, in one
embodiment, the expert system 210 is capable of producing suggested
masqueraded output (e.g., greetings, filler remarks, smalltalk inquiries,
suggested responses to queries from the other users, closings, etc.). The
suggested masqueraded output is based upon input from the specified user
profile and the state of the conversation. In this embodiment, the local
user can transmit the suggested masqueraded output, transmit a modified
version of the suggested masqueraded output, or key a response of his/her
own that will be transformed and output. The process of supplying
suggested masqueraded output is described further with respect to FIG. 3.
The user profiles database 245 can be generated from prior contacts with
users as described in <Attorney Docket no P4102> or it can be manually
generated. In any event, the user profile database 245 preferably includes
a statistical profile for each user in the database, conversational
constructs employed by the users, and characteristics of each user.
The statistical profile can include metrics and statistics on several
variables including: typing speed, typing rhythm, typing patters such as
inter-key and inter-word timing differences, common spelling, grammatical
and punctuation errors, weak phrasing, frequent use of slang, cliches,
long or incomplete sentences, redundant phrases, incorrect verbs, and
other factors determined to be important for convincingly masquerading as
the desired user. Additionally, usage, choice and frequency of "emoticons"
(e.g., smileys), and usage, choice and frequency of "Net abbreviations"
such as "IMHO" ("In my humble opinion"), "IRL" ("In real life"), "INAL"
("I'm not a lawyer") can be recorded in a given user profile to facilitate
future user identification. Many other variables can be tracked depending
upon the complexity and accuracy goals for the system (e.g., word choice,
breadth of vocabulary, length of sentences, references to events or
popular icons of a particular era, music, complexity of sentence
structure, etc.) Further, it is appreciated that online communication is
becoming more and more graphically oriented. Therefore, in an alternative
embodiment of the present invention, the user profile database 245 would
also include graphic information associated with a user such as avatars,
icons, and the like.
The conversational constructs should include at least one or more of the
following: frequently used conversational openings, filler comments,
typical smalltalk inquiries, and frequently used conversational closings.
The characteristics should include at least the user's gender, age,
educational level, and where he | | |
