Disambiguating usernames across platforms: the GeekMAN approach

Disambiguating usernames across platforms: the GeekMAN approach | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Research Article Disambiguating usernames across platforms: the GeekMAN approach Md Rayhanul Masud, Ben Treves, Michalis Faloutsos This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-3999076/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Published Journal Publication published 31 Aug, 2024 Read the published version in Social Network Analysis and Mining → Version 1 posted 7 You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract How can we identify malicious hackers participating in different online platforms using their usernames only? Establishing the identity of a user across online platforms (e.g. security forums, GitHub, YouTube) is an essential capability for tracing malicious hackers. Although a hacker could pick arbitrary names, they often use the same or similar usernames as this helps them establish an online “brand”. We propose GeekMAN, a systematic human-inspired approach to identify similar usernames across online platforms focusing on technogeek platforms. The key novelty consists of the development and integration of three capabilities: (a) decomposing usernames into meaningful chunks, (b) de-obfuscating technical and slang conventions, and (c) considering all the different outcomes of the two previous functions exhaustively when calculating the similarity. We conduct a study using 1.8M usernames from three different types of forums: (a) security forums, (b) malware authors from GitHub, and (c) mainstream social media platforms, which we use as reference. First, our method outperforms previous methods with a Precision of 81-86% on technogeek datasets. Second, we find 6327 forum users that match malware authors on GitHub with a high similarity score (≥0.7). Finally, we provide a translation dictionary for slang terms with 5.8K entries, and create GeekMAN platform to facilitate further studies https://geekman.streamlit.app . Username matching Hacking GitHub Cybersecurity Online forum analysis Social Network Full Text Additional Declarations No competing interests reported. Cite Share Download PDF Status: Published Journal Publication published 31 Aug, 2024 Read the published version in Social Network Analysis and Mining → Version 1 posted Editorial decision: Revision requested 15 Jul, 2024 Reviews received at journal 15 Jul, 2024 Reviewers agreed at journal 09 Jul, 2024 Reviewers invited by journal 10 May, 2024 Editor assigned by journal 17 Mar, 2024 Submission checks completed at journal 29 Feb, 2024 First submitted to journal 29 Feb, 2024 You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. We do this by developing innovative software and high quality services for the global research community. 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Also discoverable on Platform About Our Team In Review Editorial Policies Advisory Board Help Center Resources Author Services Accessibility API Access RSS feed Manage Cookie Preferences © Research Square 2026 | ISSN 2693-5015 (online) Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information {"props":{"pageProps":{"initialData":{"identity":"rs-3999076","acceptedTermsAndConditions":true,"allowDirectSubmit":false,"archivedVersions":[],"articleType":"Research Article","associatedPublications":[],"authors":[{"id":275725905,"identity":"a8160670-4519-463d-85be-8df5e5a270bc","order_by":0,"name":"Md Rayhanul Masud","email":"data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAZAAAAAyAQMAAABI0h/eAAAABlBMVEX///8AAABVwtN+AAAACXBIWXMAAA7EAAAOxAGVKw4bAAAAr0lEQVRIiWNgGAWjYNACAwk5fgiLmVgtFRbGkg2kaTlTkbjhALFadKcdfvyZt02CcfON5GcfGCqsExsIaTG7nWYmDdTCbHYjzXgGw5l0YrQkmDEDtbCZ3chhZmBsO0yMlvTPIIfxGM8AaflHlJYcA2meMxISBhIgLQ3EaSmTnFMB1HHmmTFDwrF0Y2IctvnDG4O6+v725McMH2qsZQlqQQUJpCkfBaNgFIyCUYALAADNVDqz8njmOQAAAABJRU5ErkJggg==","orcid":"","institution":"University of California, Riverside","correspondingAuthor":true,"prefix":"","firstName":"Md","middleName":"Rayhanul","lastName":"Masud","suffix":""},{"id":275725906,"identity":"7db6ed3f-ae69-4fca-8f2c-ff9df6b692c7","order_by":1,"name":"Ben Treves","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"University of California, Riverside","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Ben","middleName":"","lastName":"Treves","suffix":""},{"id":275725907,"identity":"e2e10efb-aed0-49e2-bea6-60b30f6fc235","order_by":2,"name":"Michalis Faloutsos","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"University of California, Riverside","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Michalis","middleName":"","lastName":"Faloutsos","suffix":""}],"badges":[],"createdAt":"2024-02-29 08:46:22","currentVersionCode":1,"declarations":"","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-3999076/v1","doiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-3999076/v1","draftVersion":[],"editorialEvents":[{"content":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s13278-024-01321-x","type":"published","date":"2024-08-31T15:57:45+00:00"}],"editorialNote":"","failedWorkflow":false,"files":[{"id":63820992,"identity":"17489f41-25f6-4c98-8d09-7ed6980e79d7","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2024-09-02 16:10:55","extension":"pdf","order_by":1,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"manuscript-pdf","size":792129,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"GeekMANSNAM.pdf","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-3999076/v1_covered_4393c322-7f29-4232-ab0d-07c14d286b19.pdf"}],"financialInterests":"No competing interests reported.","formattedTitle":"Disambiguating usernames across platforms: the GeekMAN approach","fulltext":[],"fulltextSource":"","fullText":"","funders":[],"hasAdminPriorityOnWorkflow":false,"hasManuscriptDocX":false,"hasOptedInToPreprint":true,"hasPassedJournalQc":"","hasAnyPriority":false,"hideJournal":false,"highlight":"","institution":"","isAcceptedByJournal":true,"isAuthorSuppliedPdf":true,"isDeskRejected":"","isHiddenFromSearch":false,"isInQc":false,"isInWorkflow":false,"isPdf":true,"isPdfUpToDate":true,"isWithdrawnOrRetracted":false,"journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"social-network-analysis-and-mining","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":false,"externalIdentity":"snam","sideBox":"Learn more about [Social Network Analysis and Mining](http://link.springer.com/journal/13278)","snPcode":"13278","submissionUrl":"https://submission.nature.com/new-submission/13278/3","title":"Social Network Analysis and Mining","twitterHandle":"","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":true,"editorialSystem":"em","reportingPortfolio":"Springer Hybrid","inReviewEnabled":true,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":false},"keywords":"Username matching, Hacking, GitHub, Cybersecurity, Online forum analysis, Social Network","lastPublishedDoi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-3999076/v1","lastPublishedDoiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-3999076/v1","license":{"name":"CC BY 4.0","url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"},"manuscriptAbstract":"How can we identify malicious hackers participating in different online platforms using their usernames only? Establishing the identity of a user across online platforms (e.g. security forums, GitHub, YouTube) is an essential capability for tracing malicious hackers. Although a hacker could pick arbitrary names, they often use the same or similar usernames as this helps them establish an online “brand”. We propose GeekMAN, a systematic human-inspired approach to identify similar usernames across online platforms focusing on technogeek platforms. The key novelty consists of the development and integration of three capabilities: (a) decomposing usernames into meaningful chunks, (b) de-obfuscating technical and slang conventions, and (c) considering all the different outcomes of the two previous functions exhaustively when calculating the similarity. We conduct a study using 1.8M usernames from three different types of forums: (a) security forums, (b) malware authors from GitHub, and (c) mainstream social media platforms, which we use as reference. 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