Total Information Awareness, For One

Jason writes "This guy has created his own TIA program for his electronic transactions around DC. He writes, 'Conceptually, I decided to create a personal TIA program to track my own electronic movements... and to document every single electronically-recorded transaction I've made.' A small vignette into what could be done with your electronic droppings."

Comments

sounds a lot like LifeLog

[noahmax]

This "personal TIA" sounds a whole lot like LifeLog, the DARPA uber-diary program to catalog every aspect of a person's life.

There's more info on LifeLog here and here.

nms

Re:doesn't seem all that TIA...

[guardian-ct]

Click on the "Click for PNG link".
Then click on some of the icons on his map. It's more involved than you think. Scanned receipts from that location, including what was purchased, and how much he paid for it. It's not just a map, and it certainly wasn't generated by Quicken or MS Money, unless those two programs have gotten significantly more powerful than I thought.

Useful Illustration

[maomoondog]

He may be short on datapoints, but I think this gives a great illustration of how intrusive even a fraction of TIA's capabilities would be. This locational data could point probibalistically to hobbies, spending habits, sexual habits, organization membership and plenty of other things your employer / insurer / unfriendly regime (not talking just about USA) / local con artist / direct marketer / stalker would love to know. These systems will be made and abused, so if you care about any of the above, you should join efforts to condemn them socially wherever you are. I'm relieved the US Congress seems to be doing this by reconsidering funding TIA with taxes!

If you live outside the USA, you should take special interest in [former TIA chief] [and felon] John Poindexter's recent open letter in the New York Times.

It's pretty handwavy, but he makes a couple of interesting claims:

• He says military research is free of moral content. His scientists are
  responsible for discovering what is possible; other agencies will be
  responsible for determining its correct use. I'm all for free exploration,
  but this is calculatedly naive. I think this project in particular was
  created with use in mind, and I think tax funded research should reflect
  what taxpayers feel is in their best interest.
  
  
• He says TIA is aimed exclusively at foreign surveillance (and zeroes in on an
  American hotspot, claiming that American financial data isn't analyzed).
  I doubt this*, but even if it's true, citizens abroad should be letting their governments know about how they feel about the US accessing their data.
  

*: DARPA funds a lot of research into how to appease American privacy laws while conducting surveillance.

Re:Worrying

[legoburner]

From my unreliable, tertiary sources I believe that the UK has 6 months for standard data (eg; if you dont use your blockbuster card for 6 months they delete you from their database), CCTV in towns is removed after 2 days (if you ever need the police to review some, or want to get a copy then you need to be quick or you are out of luck), credit card data I am not sure about, though banking data disappears from my online statement every quarter and credit card data disappears after a year. One cant help but assume that my data is sitting in some offsite backup somewhere though. All this is covered under the UK's Data Protection Act 1998, in which an individual can demand a company or govt agency to give them all the data they want about themselves (for a fee of no more than inflation-adjusted 15 GBP), and if they do not, or are found to be withholding data, they are subject to a fine of something like 30000 GBP per instance.

Re:Welcome to the Global Village

[APDent]

The story you're referring to is Isaac Asimov's "The Dead Past". Google keywords asimov "dead past" [including quotation marks] for pointers and reviews. Add keyword cigarette for DMCA-violation.