Examining the significance of high-level programming features in source code author classification
| dc.contributor.author | Frantzeskou, G | |
| dc.contributor.author | MacDonell, S | |
| dc.contributor.author | Stamatatos, E | |
| dc.contributor.author | Gritzalis, S | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2011-11-10T06:36:29Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2011-11-10T06:36:29Z | |
| dc.date.copyright | 2008-03 | |
| dc.date.issued | 2008-03 | |
| dc.description.abstract | The use of Source Code Author Profiles (SCAP) represents a new, highly accurate approach to source code authorship identification that is, unlike previous methods, language independent. While accuracy is clearly a crucial requirement of any author identification method, in cases of litigation regarding authorship, plagiarism, and so on, there is also a need to know why it is claimed that a piece of code is written by a particular author. What is it about that piece of code that suggests a particular author? What features in the code make one author more likely than another? In this study, we describe a means of identifying the high-level features that contribute to source code authorship identification using as a tool the SCAP method. A variety of features are considered for Java and Common Lisp and the importance of each feature in determining authorship is measured through a sequence of experiments in which we remove one feature at a time. The results show that, for these programs, comments, layout features and package-related naming influence classification accuracy whereas user-defined naming, an obvious programmer related feature, does not appear to influence accuracy. A comparison is also made between the relative feature contributions in programs written in the two languages. | |
| dc.identifier.citation | Journal of Systems and Software, vol.81(3), pp.447 - 460 | |
| dc.identifier.doi | 10.1016/j.jss.2007.03.004 | |
| dc.identifier.issn | 0164-1212 (print) 1873-1228 (online) | |
| dc.identifier.roid | 3601 | en_NZ |
| dc.identifier.uri | https://hdl.handle.net/10292/2490 | |
| dc.publisher | Elsevier | |
| dc.relation.uri | http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jss.2007.03.004 | |
| dc.rights | Copyright © 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. This is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in (see Citation). Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. The definitive version was published in (see Citation). The original publication is available at (see Publisher's Version) | |
| dc.rights.accessrights | OpenAccess | |
| dc.subject | Authorship | |
| dc.subject | Source code | |
| dc.subject | Program features | |
| dc.subject | Fraud | |
| dc.subject | Computer | |
| dc.subject | Style | |
| dc.title | Examining the significance of high-level programming features in source code author classification | |
| dc.type | Journal Article | |
| pubs.organisational-data | /AUT | |
| pubs.organisational-data | /AUT/Design & Creative Technologies | |
| pubs.organisational-data | /AUT/Design & Creative Technologies/School of Computing & Mathematical Science | |
| pubs.organisational-data | /AUT/PBRF Researchers | |
| pubs.organisational-data | /AUT/PBRF Researchers/Design & Creative Technologies PBRF Researchers | |
| pubs.organisational-data | /AUT/PBRF Researchers/Design & Creative Technologies PBRF Researchers/DCT C & M Computing |