When coding style survives compilation: de-anonymizing programmers from executable binaries

https://blog.acolyer.org/2018/03/16/when-coding-style-survives-compilation-de-anonymizing-programmers-from-executable-binaries/


When coding style survives compilation: de-anonymizing programmers from executable binaries Caliskan et al., NDSS’18
As a programmer you have a unique style, and stylometry techniques can be used to fingerprint your style and determine with high probability whether or not a piece of code was written by you. That makes a degree of intuitive sense when considering source code. But suppose we don’t have source code? Suppose all we have is an executable binary? Caliskan et al., show us that it’s possible to de-anonymise programmers even under these conditions. Amazingly, their technique still works even when debugging symbols are removed, aggressive compiler optimisations are enabled, and traditional binary obfuscation techniques are applied! Anonymous authorship of binaries is consequently hard to achieve.
One of the findings along the way that I found particularly interesting is that more skilled/experienced programmers are more fingerprintable. It makes sense that over time programmers acquire their own unique way of doing things, yet at the same time these results seem to suggest that experienced programmers do not converge on a strong set of stylistic conventions. That suggests to me a strong creative element in program authorship, just as experienced authors of written works develop their own unique writing styles.