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pseudo: /sooŽdoh/, n. [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.
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