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Definition

What is Keystroke dynamics?

Definition

Keystroke dynamics is the analysis of typing rhythm — the timing between key presses, pause patterns, and bursts — which is distinctive enough to characterize how a specific piece of text was physically produced.

Every typist has a rhythm: characteristic intervals between letters, longer gaps at word and sentence boundaries, hesitations where thinking happens. Keystroke dynamics measures these timings. The field originated in behavioral biometrics, where typing rhythm helps authenticate users.

For content authenticity, the relevant insight is simpler: machine-generated text is never typed at all. It arrives by paste or programmatic insertion, with no inter-key timing, no thinking pauses, and no revision trail. A document with a rich keystroke record was composed by a human at a keyboard.

Privacy matters in implementation: timing patterns can be captured without recording which keys were pressed. Humanums records only timing and event metadata — never content.