Keeping An Eye On Total Information Awareness

mesozoic writes "Wired is running a story about hackers publishing John Poindexter's personal information (like satellite photos of his home) to protest the proposed Total Information Awareness system. This is just too funny, and it may even raise a few more eyebrows among the national media."

Comments

Will this help?

[Helmholtz Coil]

It could provide him and his supporters with some evidence as to why they need such a system. Something along the lines of "hackers" (to be written as "terrorists" in the PowerPoint presentation) being able to find high-ranking DoD personnel even at home, only goes to prove we need to keep tabs on everyone.

I'm not a fan of the proposed system either, but this kind of protest might do exactly the opposite of what they intended it for.

Send in the real crackers

[tangledweb]

I don't think people are really trying.

I do not want publically available information like his phone number and house construction materials. I want real data, of the type the government is trying to conglomerate. Satellite photos Bah! What's next, a whereis.com map?

Print me a list of his credit card transactions, the itineries from his plane journeys and his bank balance and I will be impressed.

Poindexter hasn't broken any laws? Are you serious

[Anonymous Coward]

You have got to be kidding!

In you or I were in anything like his
shoes, we would be rotting in Levenworth.

Go read your history son.

This shit sucks

[Anonymous Coward]

What about the former criminal who's done his/her time and gone straight? Will they be marked for life because of some absurd TIA system? Will they have to wear a big C on their chest?

Sounds familar? This country is going down the toliet faster then my last bowel movement. It makes me sick.

Interesting-- the "re-education" of America?

[rickthewizkid]

Here's something interesting ---

I wonder what will happen in schools in a few years? When we were all kids growing up, we were taught that we were the greatest nation because we had certain freedoms, that the government had limited power over watching us etc, instead of places like soviet Russia (where the CD players listen to YOU--- woops, wrong post) that watch and control their citizens.

What is probably going to happen is that kids in schools today will be taught (slowly as not to draw attention to it) that it is good and proper for the government to watch its citizens, that there is no such thing as a "right to privacy" etc... and kids being kids will dismiss our ideas of personal liberty, privacy, etc as old fasioned - or worse, that they see mommy or daddy using PGP or linux, or planting a tree in front of the security camera in their house, and thinking that mommy or daddy must be terrorists...

Just my 2 cents' worth...
RickTheWizKid

Simple solution - follow the money

[Anonymous Coward]

Trying to change John Poiedexters mind is useless. But you CAN cut off the money to his idea so it can't take shape.

For the TIA to happen, there has to be money.

That money has to come from taxpayers, allocated by congress, then some government contractor has to take that money.

Give the TIA treatment to:

1) Congresspeople and their top staffers. Congress members who are in favor of this idea get the TIA treatment. Russ Feingold should have nothing to worry about, as he was the only one with a backbone WRT the PATROIT act.

2) The CEO's, lead techs and board of directors of the contractors who TAKE the "dirty money" should also get the TIA treatment.

You could start off with pictures, telephone numbers, tax info...that is low-hanging fruit. Add in any court cases they have been involved with.

Re:Funny, but kinda tangential to the point

[Alan Partridge]

in Britain, we went one step further - we RETAINED the aristocracy and the monarch's nominal absolute power while ensuring THAT that power could not be exercised by anyone other than the prime minister, and thus not challenged by ANYONE - not even parliament. I think our system is even more devious and underhand than yours, but then we have been doing it longer than you...

Solution looking for a problem

[dackroyd]

Why do I get the nasty idea that the some people in the military/CIA had thought of the Total Information Awareness program some time ago and were just waiting for a problem to propose it as a solution ?

I mean the horrendous events of Sept 11th didn't slip past the security services because there wasn't enough information available, they slipped past because none of the analysts connected the dots between known associates of terrorists in the USA + money being sent to these people from Saudi + lots of odd(*) people wanting to learn how to fly jets = big friqin problem.

Increasing the amount of detail that the analysts have to deal with would not solve any of the problems that allowed Sept. 11th to happen, but would make the governments job of cracking down on US dissidents easier.

It's the same in the UK. The civil service seem very eager for there to be a national identity card, and keep proposing it as a solution for a variety of different problems.
One year it can be used to combat terrorism, the next it can be used to crack down on asylum seekers. ooh how about we use to prevent identity fraud ? Every time the public refuses to accept this government monitoring of them, but still the civil servants keep suggesting the same plan over and over.

* Odd people = Students who come to the US on a visa, then are allowed to drop the studying and start learning how to do a job (breaking the terms of their visa), and who then act suspiciously enough during the lessons, so that the instructors call the FBI to warn them they think the students might be terrorists wanting to fly the planes into buuldings

Re:Solution looking for a problem

[Oddly_Drac]

It's the same in the UK. The civil service seem very eager for there to be a national identity card, and keep proposing it as a solution for a variety of different problems. One year it can be used to combat terrorism, the next it can be used to crack down on asylum seekers. ooh how about we use to prevent identity fraud ? Every time the public refuses to accept this government monitoring of them, but still the civil servants keep suggesting the same plan over and over. I must admit that I haven't fathomed out why the identity card is going to be better (New! Improved!!) than our existing passports and/or national insurance numbers. Either those mechanisms of identity verification are so flawed as to be laughable (chilling in the case of passports) or there is another agenda than merely verifying someone's identity. I note that most places are refusing passports as a method of identification these days. I'm strenuously opposing the idea they have of supplying 'smart cards' containing personal information. Kinda the reason we started using serverside sessions rather than cookies all those years back. I think one thing that annoys me more than anything else is that government looks at the technology that Geeks have put through the mincer and rejected and think, 'hey, that's neat'. I've seen what passes for IT in government and the NHS and it frightens me, seriously. Oddly Draconis. If you have to ask, you wouldn't understand.

Re:Solution looking for a problem

[5KVGhost]

WTF?? The first is grounds for arrest and deportation in and of itself;

Yes, if your goal is to simply arrest and deport individuals who violate visa restrictions then that's enough. However, lots of non-terrorists violate visa restrictions every day, and investigating, arresting and deporting all of them is unlikely to be practical or popular.

the second is grounds to start an investigation (which will turn up further causes for suspicion if the target is indeed up to something, eventually firming up into grounds for arrest and prosecution).

I agree that an investigation is warranted if there's actually reason for suspicion, but the hard part is determining what reports are valid and which are not.

The existence of this sort of database would allow investigators to better assess each individual instance prior to beginning a full-scale investigation. It also means less time wasted investigating people who are unlikely to be real threats.

The advantage of keeping the data dispersed is that it raises the bar high enough to discourage casual and illegal snooping. If a Fed has to make a few visits and involve a few other people (some of them outside the government) every time he wants to put together a dossier on a target, he's less likely to do it without legitimate reason than he would if he could just pull it up from the comfort and privacy of his office.

That's a good point, but I think there's also a legitimate need for a rapid response to certain types of threats. If we want to prohibit casual and illegal snooping then we should put technical, procedural, and legal measures in place explictly designed to prevent and punish that sort of abuse. If someone is about to poison the water supply or shoot the governor then it's the wrong time to deliberately hobble the people sworn to stop it.

Jam the system

[Trotskyite]

Couldn't some resourceful and concerned programmer simply write and distribute a program that could automatically generate key phrases and insert them into chat and e-mail messages to trigger Carnivore? DOS THEIR servers with bogus warnings that could constantly change monthly to keep up with their filters? I am sure those we write to would understand and even adopt the practice. It would only take a few thousand people all answering their phones with a, "Hello, allah ackbar!, proceed with mission, what's up? How could they truly filter out such massive amounts of info? Jam the system. Bring it to it's knees.

Connecting the Dots argument

[sckienle]

I'm tired of hearing the "connect the dots" argument for two reasons.

1. If it really were that easy, they wouldn't need the TIA effort at all, the information currently collected would be enough.
2. I remember reading some where, I wish I could remember, that the FAA was supposed to contact the military when any flight deviates from its course without notification. If that was done, there would have been jets around the planes well before they could have crashed into the buildings. Sometimes executed response plans are enough to help ensure safety.

problem is information monopoly

[g4dget]

The problem with "TIA" is not that it peeks into everybody's finances and personal life--the problem is that it gives the government so much more information than private citizens. That kind of information monopoly means that the government can then use blackmail to manipulate people. And don't think it doesn't happen--this kind of thing has a long history, both in the US and other countries.

If information like taxes, license plates and vehicle registration, purchase patterns, driving records, medical treatments, etc., were universally and publically available, I think we would have fewer problems than we have now. Most people would realize that their deep, dark secrets are not so deep and dark--that there are many other people with similar issues. It would keep politicians and regular folks more honest and polite--because nothing would be really anonymous anymore. And blackmail would be pretty much impossible--how can you blackmail someone if everybody can find out almost anything anyway? And, finally, people could negotiate their salaries sensibly--right now, chances are you don't know how much you are being paid relative to your co-workers--how can you ever get an efficient labor market if the prices are not known?

Of course, public access does not mean that things need to be as easy as Googling someone. I think Brin has captured a good balance between privacy and publically accessible information in his book "Kiln People" (it's incidental to the story): basically, you can find out, but the data is not aggregated in a single place, so if you do want to find out, it still costs you some time and money.

Re:Don't complain too much, people...

[IndependentVik]

Ya know, I want to be a Libertarian, I really do. But I'm reminded of what Berke Breathed said: "And I'd be a Libertarian, if they weren't all a bunch of tax-dodging professional whiners."

Yes, in theory, Libertarians want govt to stay out of our lives and uphold this principle equally with regards to all the ways govt is intrusive. In reality, almost every Libertarian I've ever met is a greedy ahole who doesn't want to pay any taxes but expects all the roads to get paved anyway. If the party tried to focus more on "hey, we're the party for freedom" instead of "hey, vote for us and no income tax" then I think they might get more of a following.

Truth maintenance?

[emjaycue]

I love this little blurb from the IAO's home page under "IOA Vision":

"Story telling, change detection, and truth maintenance"

(emphasis added)

Truth maintenance, huh? I never knew "truth" degraded over time... Good thing we detected change in the story-telling so we could come in and do some ole-fashioned truth maintenance!

Who woulda doublethought...

--M

Wait til War breaks out

[TarPitt]

TIA is useless for tracking terrorists. You are trying to find a few thousand dedicated individuals among massess of millions, based on shopping, Web surfing, etc.?

Consider what this MIGHT be useful for. Say there is another large scale war. Say the government needs to start drafting young adults to fight this war. Assume the war is very unpopular, and many of these young adults would prefer not to be drafted, in fact not to register for the draft after all. Wouldn't a database such as TIA be eminently useful for this purpose?

It was relatively easy to avoid registering for the draft in the Vietnam War era. It will be impossible in the next war.

Keep in mind avoiding conscription is a criminal act, and keep in mind those attempting to do so will easily be labeled terrorists.

Re:a neat idea.

[Ironica]

Well, the presidential candidate who picked him as a running mate did publicly mention that atheists make him uncomfortable because they think they're intellectually superior. Or some such nonsense.

Liebermann said that quote only once (during a campaign visit at a church), but he frequently called for more open discussion of religion. You know, in schools and other places we don't have a choice of being. He thought it was just terrible that people have to "hide" their religion just because they're in a public office where they are required to represent diverse populations, or they are asked to impartially judge crime and law, or whatever their duty. He was appalled that people think that just because not *everyone* is religious, that religion should be a personal matter... especially for public officials.

The same guy, who ostentatiously kept the Sabbath and went to synagogue every Saturday and made much of these things in his campaign, was first asked nicely by the same synagogue to quit flouting his religion for political gain. Then, when he didn't, they kicked him out.