Assuming Identities Online: description, development and ethical implications.

对严重犯罪的预防性警务有时涉及欺骗和伪装。一个恰当的例子是防止因恋童癖打扮和对等网络而产生的虐待行为，在这种网络中，讨论和交换虐待儿童的图像。警方调查人员的预防技术包括假定现有社区成员和儿童的身份，以便进行干预和逮捕。通常，这一过程有紧迫的时间限制--在引起对目标的怀疑之前，调查人员只有一个很小的窗口来了解和假定有问题的身份(S饰)。卧底在线调查人员目前接受的培训，尽管广泛地受到语言学理论的影响，但仍需要发展。此外，时间的限制意味着一个协助身份假设的半自动系统将是对调查工具的重要贡献。迄今为止，采用计算方法分析在线交流的研究绝大多数集中在计算机中介话语(CMD)的结构元素上，如排版、正字法和其他低层特征，很少或根本没有注意到嵌入这些特征的社会语境话语。法医语言学中心(CFL)是阿斯顿大学(Aston University)内一个结合尖端研究和调查法医实践的研究中心，它与Lexegesys-一家专门开发和实施数据分析解决方案的咨询和技术公司-最近合作了一个项目，该项目成功地自动识别和提取低级别特征的过程，目的是在Twitter的背景下确定未知文本的作者。然而，CMD已经被广泛认为是在许多语言层面上运作的，例如那些意义层面、互动层面和社会实践层面。在计算语言学领域之外，CMD的特征被理解为用户在特定语境中构建身份时所利用的资源，CMD本身和它本身构成了社会实践，而不是简单地被社会变量塑造。采用归纳法，即兴趣现象而不是特定的理论范式是主要的，本研究的目的是弥合在线身份话语建构的复杂理论与分析在线交流的计算方法之间的差距。CFL和Lexegesys目前正在进行的一项小规模研究正在解决语用和交互层面上的自动化挑战，致力于对间接言语行为和话题管理等现象进行半自动识别。这项工作非常实用，并由现实世界的警察调查提供信息。作为该项目的合作伙伴，西米德兰兹郡警察技术情报发展股非常致力于提供数据和行动洞察。除经验应用语言学外，该项目还为软件开展概念验证工作，这些软件将有助于在警务中合乎道德地使用假定身份。此外，它将涉及对在线身份执行中复杂的警务和安全所涉道德和政策问题的评估。这项提案以前已提交给AHRC，现在根据他们的建议重新提交。

Preventive policing of serious crime sometimes involves deception and disguise. A case in point is the prevention of abuse arising from paedophile grooming and peer to peer networks where abuse images of children are discussed and exchanged. The preventive techniques by police investigators include assuming identities of existing community members, and of children, so that interventions and arrests can be made. Often, there are tight time constraints associated with this process - investigators have only a small window in which to learn and assume the identity in question before arousing suspicion in their target(s). The training that undercover online investigators currently receive, although broadly informed by linguistic theory, is in need of development. Furthermore, the time constraints mean that a semi-automated system to assist in identity assumption would represent a crucial contribution to the investigative toolkit.Research taking a computational approach to the analysis of online communications has thus far focussed overwhelmingly on the structural elements of Computer Mediated Discourse (CMD), such as typography, orthography and other low level features, with little to no attention being paid to the socially situated discourses in which these features are embedded. The Centre for Forensic Linguistics (CFL) - a research centre within Aston University combining leading-edge research and investigative forensic practice - and Lexegesys - a consultancy and technology company specialising in developing and implementing data analysis solutions, recently collaborated on a project that was successful in automating the process of identification and extraction of low-level features for the purposes of attributing authorship of unknown texts within the context of Twitter. Yet CMD has widely been recognized to operate on a number of linguistic levels, such as those of meaning, of interaction, and of social practice. Outside of the computational linguistic field, the characteristic features of CMD are understood as resources that users draw on in the construction of identities in particular contexts, and CMD constitutes social practice in and of itself rather than simply being shaped by social variables. Taking an inductive approach, which is to say that the phenomena of interest, rather than a specific theoretical paradigm, are primary, this research aims to bridge the gap between complex theories of the discursive construction of online identities on the one hand, and computational approaches to analysing online communications on the other. A small scale study CFL and Lexegesys are currently engaged in is addressing the challenges of automation at the pragmatic and interactional levels, working towards the semi-automated identification of phenomena such as indirect speech acts and topic management. The work is extremely practical and is informed by real-world police investigations. A partner in the project, the West Midlands Police, Technical Intelligence Development Unit is crucially committed to providing data and operational insights. In addition to empirical applied linguistics, the project conducts proof-of-concept work for software that will assist in an ethical use of assumed identities in policing. Furthermore, it will involve an assessment of the ethical and policy implications for policing and security of complexity in online identity performance. This proposal was previously submitted to the AHRC, and is resubmitted here on their advice.