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FBI To Use Ad Banners to Find Criminals
PhuptDuck writes "Federal authorities are pursuing fugitive crime boss James 'Whitey' Bulger in cyber space under a first-of-its kind agreement announced Wednesday between the FBI and Web portal Terra-Lycos. With a presence in 42 countries and in 19 languages, Terra Lycos is known for the worldwide scope of its Web presence."
and win a free wiretap!
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I am an expert in electricity. My father held the chair of applied electricity at the state prision.
I can see it now
-- Boycott Shell
I know I sure don't. I have most of them blocked, anyway.
What's next, the government spamming us with wanted posters and ASCII pictures? Why don't they invest money in a medium which people actually pay attention to? See: Television Advertisements.
--
http://nemilar.net - Not your grandmother's soup kitchen
Now ad blocking is no longer just stealing, it's a violation of the good samaritan law. ;)
Well, first we must all be happy that web advertisement might do some good.
People all over the world use Lycos. No matter where someone is, there will probably be someone near by who uses the internet. By making it as easy to report to the FBI as clicking a button, they should get results. Since it's over the internet, the reporter may feel more anonymous sending in a report.
The downside would be false reports. There will probably be more false FBI criminal sitings then elvis sitings...
"''It might simply be a clerk in a grocery store bagging groceries, goes home that night, gets on the Internet and says, 'you know, I think I saw that person bagging groceries today,''' U.S. Attorney Michael Sullivan said during a news conference in Boston on Wednesday morning. "
Why would someone who is wanted for 21 murders be bagging groceries?
If you can't beat them, embrace and extend them.
...you've won a free pardon! Click here!
Heaven help you if your email address happens to begin with 'jbulger@' and you don't know enough to protect your cookies from being read by web bugs or your machine from spyware apps.
No, of course the FBI wouldn't stoop this far. Homeland security is completely benevolent and the United States is not... despite all appearances... turning into a police state controlled by wealthy resource and media industries.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
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based on this for their game site....Escape from Levenworth.
The FBI doesn't want to find Bulger (his testimony would be too embarrasing), so they are posting wanted ads in a medium (web banner ads) that is known not to work.
It all makes sense.
So they're buying Wanted posters which has been done a million times before - what's the big deal - it's digital? ooh, it's the net! It only makes sense - more eyes, more chances to catch someone... But I've seen legitimate Have You Seen This Person? type ads on the net, so why not Wanted Dead or Alive ads?
I have to say that as I trawl the web, I have simply stopped looking at ad banners. I get the general shape, peripherially notice some flashing or wahtever, and I ignore it.
/. topic icon, I'd see it then...
Perhaps the FBI should use the dude's mug shot as a
Mafia: Give us money or we send in guys to beat you up.
Government: Give us 28% of your income and do exactly as we say, or we send in guys to take you to jail, sieze all your property and assets, put your wife and children on the street, and then let guys in jail beat you up and gang rape you.
Hooray for crime bosses!
~Hammy
http://www.boston.com/dailynews/345/region/FBI_sig ns_first_of_its_kind_de:.shtml_ guys_but_I_prefer_shorter_links_ on_boston_daily_news.html
/g
I_dunno_about_you
s/_/
Boy, I totally misread that. I'll RTFA next time, I promise.
From the headline, I thought that the FBI was attempting to track criminals through the use of banner ads (i.e. use something embedded in the ads to track those who view them). Although it seems like a very hard thing to pull off - how would you track a criminal with the data you'd collect anyway?
And then I thought about the recent article Because Only Terrorists User 802.11 and got very worried about my ability to block popups via Mozilla or hosts.deny. I was afraid of the headline "Because Only Criminals and Terrorists Block Popup Ads to Avoid Detection".
Oh well, thank god the article clarified that. The article states that the FBI will basically putting up wanted posters as ads to help find the criminal they're after. That, I don't have a problem with.
---
"Of course, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong." --Dennis Miller
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[Homer clicks on "No"]
Wiggum: You have chosen "No", meaning you've committed a crime, but don't want to confess. A paddy wagon is now speeding to your home.
Homer: Hey!!
Wiggum: While you wait, why not buy a police cap or T-shirt. [T-shirts and baseball caps with the SPD logo circle Wiggum's head] You have the right to remain fabulous!
Shawn
Because you gotta bitch
RTFA applies here. If you had read it, you would have noticed this bit:
Terra-Lycos spokesman Brian Payea said the company wasn't being paid for the service. ''We're committed to providing important services to our community and we feel it was a very worthwhile effort,'' he said.
I moderate "-1, Fool"
127.0.0.1 criminals.doubleclick.net
Life is the leading cause of death in America.
Just wait until the FBI starts talking about how "Blocking ads support terrorism"
Here it comes... 5 4 3 2 1...
Excuse me, I don't mean to impose, but I am the ocean
OK, OK, I know that the lead-in blurb was a little misleading, but come on, people.
1) The FBI is not using cookies to hunt down the suspect.
2) The FBI isn't paying for the banners.
3) Prof^H^H^H^H The "clerk" example in the article is *not* the suspect, but rather someone who might have seen the suspect.
Somehow, I think that G. Cooke, Tx, would give this whole set of threads a very poor review...
(email addr is at acm, not mca)
We are Number One. All others are Number Two, or lower.
--The Sphinx
An angle that entered my mind:
The website owner might say theft, but if you block the ad that you wouldn't actually buy from anyways - aren't you saving money for the advertiser to advertise to somebody that might be interested?
What we see depends on mainly what we look for. -- John Lubbock Now search for that bug slave!
"Ad Banners Finally Have a Purpose"
from the other-than-causing-epilepsy dept.
What's really interesting about this isn't that the FBI is using banner ads, but rather why they have to...
The guy they're seeking, #10 on the most wanted list, and suspected of 21 murders, is the brother of the president of the University of Massachusetts, who just plead the 5th to keep his dear brother safe.
Bulgar takes the fifth
Great to see the head of an institute of learning take such a principled stand. Not.
6'2", dark hair, enjoys dismembering small bunnies.
-Laz
Given that Bulger looks like most other balding white men in their 50s, the FBI may get thousands of false leads now. I also feel sorry for American expatriates living in Latin America, who will be faced with having to "prove" they aren't a fugitive.
Bulger, if he's smart (which is probably is), would have radically altered his appearance so that he no longer resembles the wanted poster.
All a criminal investigator really can do is sit back, be patient, and wait for the criminal to make a mistake. If Bulger ever calls his brother or an old friend or girlfriend on Christmas, for example, he's busted.
This wanted poster thing smacks of desperation on the FBI's part, which I'm sorry to see.
Next the FBI will buy "spamvertisements" and send out this info from
...... X9299J
:)
...... why not? It'd probably work just as well
slutty_FBI_baby_2009ERJKAWJEKAIOSZ@yahoo.com
Please Cum and Help Arrest This Man
Hi, I'm Federal Agent Kitten, nearly illegal
Please cum by to my new webpage and look at my sexy fugitive pics I took by myself with my new webcam! It's 100% to watch them be naughyt on my webcam! Click Here!
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-- The truth is the only thing that nobody will believe.
eat, and where else would a person on the run who can't use a legal SS# or identity work, but a low end job, no offense to any retail clerks out there, I was one during school too.
:)
Wonder if we could write this guy in on the NHL all star ballot
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
1) Figure out how you can hack into Lycos' criminal database and replace pictures of FBI Most Wanted criminals.
2) Advertise services to underworld.
3) ????
4) Profit!
Lycos is a Boston based company. Their offices are on Totten Pond Rd. in Waltham, MA, just outside of Boston.
If you block web advertisements, you are a terrorist.
In the article, it states that Lycos isn't being paid for this - sure, that's probably because this is a trial of the idea, but going forward this is a pretty cheap way to get the word out...
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
I look at Banner Adds and if it is something I am instered in then I will click on it. I much rather have banner adds on the top of the page then having PopUps and Spam. So even if the PopUp was interesting I would not buy or click on it. But Click on those Banner Adds and make the point that Banner Adds are profitable and worth While compared to Popups and Spam. But for The most wanted it is a good way to keep the information available and make a person think. Hey let me check this picture out. And perhaps help take a dangerous person off the streets.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Of course not. Everryone knows that donuts work better. Mmmm, Donuts!
The solution is obvious.
FBI purchases $5 million worth of X10 wireless cams to use in the hunt for Whitey. This way, we see fewer Ads, X10 sells some cameras (other than for use as a wireless choo-choo cam), and the FBI comes closer to thinking they are gonna nab bulger.
Wow, I can just imagine these ads spreading from busting a mob leader to fighting terror. If they can't trick us into clicking, they will implicate us instead!!
"You're either with us, or against us. You're either clicking on Banner Ads, or you're clicking on terrorism. To block pop-ups is to block our crusade on evil"
Why does this remind me of minority report?
13 year old white supremacists are shitty web designers.
Granted: Most of us don't directly look at the banners at all. But you always take a quick glance at them. Why not use the same idea to find missing children?
aka The Murphia?
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
1. Nobody looks at these ads. Pop-ups, maybe.
2. They'd have better luck putting posters in every Dunkin Donuts from Saugus to Ptown (the day he made the most wanted the gal at the Bourne DD's swore to us that he was in there that very morning)
3. The only one who could safely turn him in is his own brother (high profile, public figure) and he won't, so this really is a wild goose chase.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
Hmm, how about if they make a 'Wanted' banner with Amelia Earhart and Jimmy Hoffa? I'd love to hear from the 'clerk' that notices one of them is getting groceries... :-)
Then there's always Bigfoot, Nessie, et al.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
The thing to remember is, this is not an ad for something, it's a wanted poster. And while people have become adept at ignoring banners, they're still there and people still see them. They're just not clicking on them, which is not that surprising since you'll probably see hundreds per day.
I'll bet you WOULD notice and pay attention if a picture of someone you knew popped up in front of your face. Recognition would be instantaneous and unexpected. And a lot of people will be seeing these. Certainly a lot more than watch America's Most Wanted, or the notices at the post office. If I were this guy, I'd lie low 'til the banners stop.
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
Why would someone who is bagging groceries be wanted for 21 murders? Could their job be less than fulfilling?
Now, if the FBI is going to use Ads to track down criminals and terrorists will ad blocking software become illegal?
Yeah, just like ignoring wanted posters and those "have you seen this child" mailings has been made illegal.
You're either a moron, or just didn't read the article...
Actually, you could be both!
"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge"
- Charles Darwin
i actually saw it for the first time in a long time this last week (while working on a webpage) and they said something about having a hand in helping capturing over 700 people..... they also do/did that show "manhunt" or whatever it was called that was a bio kinda thing on one criminal that was 30 or 60 minutes. the only one of those i ever saw was the one on Ira Einhorn..... how was captured in France a few years ago and just retried in Philadelphia (for a murder in the 70s) earlier this year.
i'm sure most watchers are just staying tuned after COPS and not thinking they are going to hunt down somebody, but i guess they have made the stories interesting enough for that show to last 15 years or however long it has been on.
Not only are we thieves if we block banner ads, but now we're aiding terrorists too! And by the Bush Doctrine, that makes us Evil Terrorists(tm) as well!
Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.
"It might simply be an informant you've been working with for years, goes home at night, gets on the Internet and says 'you know, I think that informant we've been covering for for years while he murdered his competition and tipped off that we might be about to indict him, and that we recently had to indict some of the FBI agents who helped cover it up, I wonder if he might be a mobster? Nah, let's try to distract people by holding a news conference about Internet ads.'", US Attorney Michael Sullivan carefully refrained from saying during the news conference.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
American jurisprudence also has a bunch of 1960s practices like the Exclusionary Rule and the Miranda Warning which say that courts can't admit evidence that was acquired improperly, whether it was from beating prisoners until they confess, illegally searching homes without warrants, or getting warrants by lying to judges, or lying to prisoners about the law when they don't have lawyers to advise them. Again, it didn't totally eliminate abuses, but the traditional example for its effectiveness is that the year before the Exclusionary Rule, police in New York City didn't bother getting any search warrants - they just illegally searched anybody and any place they wanted to, while the year after the rule, they almost always got warrants when they needed them (even if they still lied about their evidence on occasion.)
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks