Get a clue! Some truths about online deception

As text-based computer-mediated technologies have become increasingly commonplace for communication, our exposure to potential online deceptions like phishing, and even identity theft has also been increased. In order to avoid, or at least mitigate, the risks accompanying this exposure, we must be able to discern the underlying intent of the text message sender and to recognize whether these messages are deceptive, or not. The difficulty in computer-mediated communication is that we generally have only written words to rely on. However, prior research has demonstrated that applying certain classification methodologies to certain observable linguistic features can provide important clues to detecting deception with reasonable accuracy. This poster describes a study conducted using an interactive online game designed and developed on a University campus that mimics interpersonal deception scenarios. We applied different analytical models to the data collected as a step towards developing an automated process for detecting deception in online communication