DARPA Funds Internet Tracking Scheme

Lifewish writes "The BBC is reporting that company MetaCarta is receiving DARPA cash to design a new system for tracking individuals based on their electronic presence. One company official is quoted as saying that 'The government and international security agencies have a desire to find, track and sometimes arrest people. Our system can be used to find them across the globe.' If you ever wondered where all that information the U.S. is collecting ended up..."

Comments

Ugly choices

[erick99]

Technology seems to throw solutions at us that are sometimes in search of a problem and sometimes present some serious ethical and moral challenges. I can see how this technology for tracking people could save lives by tracking down and stopping terrorists and maybe even finding children that have been kidnapped, etc. On the other hand, the abuse potential seems almost limitless.

Happy Trails,

Erick

Re:Ugly choices

[grungeman]

Excactly. And we should consider that in order to convice people of how necessary these solutions are the government NEEDS terrorist threat. They need a problem that the solution can be applied on.

Re:Ugly choices

[corebreech]

It's not going to help in tracking down kidnapped children, not unless the kidnapper lets them go to the mall to use their parents' VISA card or log on to check his/her mail.

And only stupid terrorists are likewise going to leave a trail of electronic crumbs to track. Yeah, you could argue that stupid terrorists are worth nabbing, but clearly whomever was responsible for 9/11 wasn't stupid, nor will the individual(s) responsible for the first nuclear detonation on American soil be stupid.

No, if anything, this system will actually increase the amount of criminal activity, whether terrorism or kidnapping, or crimes in between. It only serves to aggregrate power from the many onto the very few, which means more corruption and less representative government, which in turn means more disillusionment, apathy and frustration.

Re:Ugly choices

[Karl Cocknozzle]

nor will the individual(s) responsible for the first nuclear detonation on American soil be stupid.

Indeed, and the detonations in the desert in the American west were conducted by the best and brightest of their time...

Oh, you meant the first one in a place the government DIDN'T select....

Re:Ugly choices

[Anonymous Coward]

> Indeed, and the detonations in the desert in the American west were conducted by
> the best and brightest of their time...
> Oh, you meant the first one in a place the government DIDN'T select....

He means both. Read it again.

Re:Ugly choices

[Matrix272]

Technology seems to throw solutions at us that are sometimes in search of a problem and sometimes present some serious ethical and moral challenges.

I'd like to make one small correction. Technology itself isn't throwing solutions that are ethically and morally questionable... It's the people that use technology in ethically and morally questionable ways that should be examined. In this case, it's Big Brother watching everything you do online to see if you're breaking any laws.

One time, I was in high school, and a friend of mine was scolded for using the word "rape" in a sentence that referred to something besides the obvious definition. In an attempt to support him, I did a search on "rape definition" and one of the sites that came up had ad banners for porn sites. The teacher saw that, and thought I was looking up porn at school, and it took me a long time of explaining to convince her that I wasn't. Imagine if I would have done a search on "kiddie porn" just to verify that it meant individuals under 18, not just individuals under 12 or 16, and the government saw that I looked at a site with ad banners depicting 17-year-olds doing the nasty. I had a hard enough time convincing a teacher in her early 30's that I didn't intend for that site to come up... let alone a judge and jury of my "peers".

As you said, the abuse potential for this technology is almost limitless, especially given the PATRIOT Act, and similar legislation. It is for reasons like this that I don't trust the government... whether it's with my activities on the internet (which are completely legit, except the occasional MP3 download), my tax dollars (how much do you think THIS will cost? $20 billion seem like enough?), or just generally my freedom. I'm not advocating any political stance... I'm just saying that if we're scared of the government abusing a power that we give them, why do we continue to give them such power?

Re:Ugly choices

[fireduck]

And only stupid terrorists are likewise going to leave a trail of electronic crumbs to track. Yeah, you could argue that stupid terrorists are worth nabbing, but clearly whomever was responsible for 9/11 wasn't stupid, nor will the individual(s) responsible for the first nuclear detonation on American soil be stupid.

Actually, they were stupid, or at least sloppy. Nearly one-third of the terrorists had visas or travel documents with obvious forgeries. While sophisticated in some respects, they clearly weren't James Bond supergenius villian types. In addition, more than half of them were flagged by the airlines computer system as a threat, but were never checked because the system was designed for luggage, not people. So, obviously these people had something in their history/profile that indicated they could be trouble.

Perhaps a better system could have stopped or blunted the events of 9/11. who knows...

Re:Ugly choices

[drooling-dog]

And only stupid terrorists are likewise going to leave a trail of electronic crumbs to track.

Well, as you may recall, the 9/11 terrorists were behaving pretty obviously beforehand - learning to take off but not land, etc. - to the point where local FBI field agents were practically begging the home office to follow up. The top dogs in Quantico basically told them to shut the f__k up.

Does this remind you of the Challenger disaster, where top managers repeatedly ignored warnings from the the engineers? The more data dredging they do, the more noise and false-alarms there will be. The top people - mostly political hacks, probably - won't want to be bothered, especially if the warnings distract them from their current pet projects and obsessions, or the particular axes they have to grind.

This info will come in handy, however, when they want to go after particular individuals or groups, whether for legitimate or illegitimate reasons. During the Nixon administration, all it took to attract their emnity was to publicly oppose the Vietnam war or criticize the President. Now that we're being protected against "terrorism", we can expect things to get even worse.

Re:Ugly choices

[Rupert]

the individual(s) responsible for the first nuclear detonation on American soil

That would be Robert Oppenheimer.

Re:Ugly choices

[corebreech]

This presumes that the official government story is correct, which may be the case I suppose, but as FBI Director Robert Mueller himself pointed out, there is *no* evidence implicating these men in the attack.

Not only that, a good number of the suspected 19 are still alive.

The only evidence we really have is that video tape upon which Osama is purported to have confessed to the whole affair, but a closer examination reveals that a) he may not have confessed at all, and b) it almost certainly wan't Osama bin Laden who was on the tape in the first place. Which means that what the tape really proves is that the only evidence implicating bin Laden was forged.

Which explains why you can't find a copy of the video on any mainstream media or government web site.

Re:Ugly choices

[MoneyT]

Part of this is very dependant on how the system is used. Example, does it active to trace a specific individual (and as such should fall under the jurisdiction of warrents) or is it passive, waiting to flag words (maybe assasinate, or kidde porn or whatever). If it's passive, how is it evaluated? Does it look for trends (i.e. one search for kiddie porn throws up a flag, but multiple searches over 6 months invites closer scrutiny). How is the information examined? Does it only look for specific catch words, or does it evaluate the catch phrases and then the associated locations that are accessed? i.e if you type in kiddie porn, now the system is watching your connection, but if you start accessing sites like law sites, maybe research departments at universities etc it drops the monitoring? The idea in and of itself is not evil, it's the implimentation that needs to be considered.

Re:Ugly choices

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, I'd suspect that on every flight every day, more than half of the middle easterners are flagged as threats.

Re:Ugly choices

[yarbo]

weren't these the same people who said "we want to know how to steer a plane, not land or take off"?

Re:Ugly choices

[deadlinegrunt]

No amount of advanced technology can help you if you don't have a clear idea of what the end result is. Another case for the reason you shouldn't look for technological fixes to sociological problems.

Re:Ugly choices

[cluckshot]

Actually you point out a curious fact and you didn't even know it. The enforcement mechanisms were present. The enforcers were busy chasing other objectives.

The point is that such data is NEVER used for the stated purposes. It always gets used for other things. The stated purpose gets ignored indefinitely. I remember the USA on 2000 (New Years Eve) was worried to death about Al Qaeda terrorists. It demanded a 5 Billion supplemental to track them down and deal with them.

On 9/11/2001 according to official testimony only 42 persons in FBI and CIA were even tracking the Al Qaeda types. $5 Billion leaves a slightly larger footprint than that. Bluntly they went on to something else with the money.

Suspicion of the Government by the Citizens should be Axiomatic. It isn't Paranoia it is rational. Insane behavior would be to trust them. This isn't hostile it is just the nature of the beast.

The DARPA work isn't hardly as advanced as might be thought. It is none-the-less a system which is engineered to do anything but deal with the terrorists. This is an excuse to avoid HUMINT and avoid listening to actual problems.

The instances we see on TV of Children being recovered etc via Video Cameras etc are not Government Cameras. They are private Cameras. They were only used after a problem was discovered which is the only way such data should be used. The intrinsic problem with the Government maintaining this data is that it will be searched for "problems" rather than simply supporting the handling of a Known Problem. This goes to the heart of the US Constitution which says "No warrant shall issue without Probable Cause." To look mechanically and automatically for all "violations" finds accidents it does not find injuries. Such have no "Probable Cause" in them.

The EU guys will not understand this as they have always lived in a society where you had to get permission to do anything. You had no real rights only permits. The founders of the USA so opposed such a concept that they ran it out of our land on a rail. The return of it is the return to what brought on the Dark Ages. (Something the EU guys might know a about)

The actual failures in the 9/11 incidents involve the 20 or so times that the US Citizens confronted these guys and said here is a problem only to have the US Government Types ignore them. This is like the guy at the Crop Dusting Service calling the FBI about Arabic guys who wanted to know what was obviously terrorist uses for such aircraft. He reported it. They guys should by law have been busted and deported as "Undesirable Aliens." But then we had "Probable Cause" on them by this time and naturally the FBI doesn't pay attention to that. It isn't a Sting! It isn't High Tech. It isn't sexy. It is just doing your job! (Hint to the the FBI)

DARPA is full of some really bright nice people but there are some of them who view technology as a substitute for actually dealing with PEOPLE. This is the problem. But then its a lot more fun to shoot people by remote control or catch them by computer than to admit somebody aught to pay attention and be expected to do their job. DARPA is generally a pretty good team.

All we will get out of their infinite data system after the next attack is a really good record of what happened. Remember we have video of the 9/11 guys buying the box cutters. We have video of them getting on the plane. We have nearly a perfect record already. We even had a record of their trade and movements before hand. So when they bury you in your grave after the terrorist attack we will have billions of bits of data telling exactly how you died.... Nothing will have been done about the systematic disrespect of Citizens or Citizenship which had either been respected the attack would never have happened.

The better system you talk about would consist of a respect of Citizenship and a demand for it. If we had done so at least 20 times prior to 9/11 the guys would have been out of here. Thinking that it is anythi

Re:Ugly choices

[Anonymous Coward]

Whomever was responsible for 9/11 wasn't stupid [url=http://maritimes.indymedia.org/news/2003/02/4 086.php]I thought we already knew who was responsible for 9/11...[/url]

Re:Ugly choices

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

The EU guys will not understand this as they have always lived in a society where you had to get permission to do anything. You had no real rights only permits. The founders of the USA so opposed such a concept that they ran it out of our land on a rail. The return of it is the return to what brought on the Dark Ages. (Something the EU guys might know a about)

Why the snide comments about the EU? And what on earth makes you think that we don't understand the concepts of rights and freedoms?

I find it deeply ironic that the United States, a country that prides itself on its Constitution and the rights of its citizens, is also the place where: you have giant corporations controlling your government and laughing at your legal system; you have the right to free speech, as long as you can afford the lawyers to defend it; the constitutional safeguards over copyright are being trampled by the aforementioned big corps; you hold hundreds of people indefinitely and without charge, based on an accusation and a technicality of international law that no-one else recognises; and you have a President of dubious mandate, taking your country to war supported by dubious intelligence, resulting in the deaths of thousands of innocents, the destruction of a whole country's infrastructure, the deaths of numerous American servicemen and women, and did I mention some rather lucrative rebuilding contracts for major corps with whom your senior leadership has intimate ties?

The UK government has become increasingly abusive of its authority, particularly since Tony Blair's lot came to power, with Jack Straw and then David Blunkett as Home Secretary. However, we can't even approach your level of legal impotence and government abuse, and you're busy trying to inflict it on the rest of the world! And at least at our general election next year, we'll have candidates to vote for who don't all say the same thing, which is as bad as who we've got at the moment anyway...

You make a lot of good points in your post, and I agree with much of what you say, but with all due respect, you seem to have a serious lack of perspective on the world outside. For all our knowledge of the Dark Ages, as far as rights and responsibilities go, I'd still far prefer to be living in the EU than the US right now.

Re:Ugly choices

[ghc71]

20/20 hindsight. The only test of their stupidity, or sloppiness, is the skyline of Manhattan. They evaded the measures in place to catch them, and they flew planes into the World Trade Center. Why do you believe that people willing to do that, would not equally find ways to circumvent better systems?

Re:Ugly choices

[Anonymous Coward]

Which tape are you talking about?

Could you please back up these statements about him and the tape with some links or references to magazine articles or books? I hadn't heard a thing about it before your post. Where did you hear about it? I would like to read experts' opinions and media coverage about it.

Re:Ugly choices

[whittrash]

They will generate vast amounts of data on mostly innocent people. That data will then get mixed into a machine and stored and pulled up only after a disaster so these people can get locked up. We need more REAL people to look at data and check on things, not just computers. If we had had a decent spy or two on the ground in Iraq we might have known there were no WMD. For all the $billions we spent on intelligence equipment it is amazing how little we knew about Sept. 11 and Iraq.

Re:Ugly choices

[drooling-dog]

If we had had a decent spy or two on the ground in Iraq we might have known there were no WMD.

Assuming "we" wanted to know that, of course...

Re:Ugly choices

[G-funk]

I'm just saying that if we're scared of the government abusing a power that we give them, why do we continue to give them such power?

We don't. They're taking it from us, one teeny little reasonable-seeming, "won't somebody think of the chidlren" law at a time.

Re:Ugly choices

[instarx]

I am ashamed to say that as an American I have to agree with you. If you truly want to have freedom from government intrusion and heavy-handed abuse of your rights, you have to live somewhere other than the US. But not Britain, by the way. I still think the US is in the top 20% of countries where personal freedoms are important, but we no longer lead the world.

Things I grew up with that I accepted as being a basic part of America are just no longer true, mainly that the government can't imprison you without a trial, you are always entitled to a lawyer, and the government has to actually charge you to imprison you, and the government cannot torture prisoners. The trend of the US government to detain people they don't like indefinately without charge by calling them Material Witnesses is an abomination in this so-called "Land of the Free".

Don't even get me started on the self-serving legal maneuver of calling people (including US citizens) "enemy combatants" and giving them neither legal rights NOR rights as prisoners of war. Why doesn't this upset more Americans? I live in Manhattan and I really hate terrorsits, but these people need to be tried and punished using the democratic process.

I used to be told that one of the things setting this country apart from dictatorships was that dictatorships could imprison people at will and would not even tell their families they had been taken - they just disappeared. Well, the US has its own "disappeards" now. Two years ago I saw a newscast of family members outside a Washington State Federal Detention facility holding signs with pictures of their son they thought was being held there. It turned out later that the government wanted to hold him but because there was absolutely no evidence he committed any crime he was being held indefinately and secretly under Material Witness laws. There are people in this country that have been in prison cells for years under Material Witness laws without access to the courts or legal counsel. This is AMERICA?

Why did it not cause more alarm when this administration was seriously talking about suspending the Constitution after 9/11? Although cutting your own throat is a sure way to avoid cancer, the cure is worse than the disease. It is the same with the Bush administration and the extreme right-wing Cheney/Wolfowitz/Rumsfeld ultra-nationalistic policies the Republican Party has turned to. What is most worrying is the willingness of the average American to accept this behavior by our government and to actually support it as Patriotic.

To end on a more positive note, it is encouraging to see the Presidential candidates criticizing the current administration for trampling our Constitutional rights. That they are willing to do so indicates that there is a very large segment of the voting population that agrees that the right-wing Bush administration has gone too far.

Re:Ugly choices

[Fred_A]

Curreently, terrorists in the US are what communists were in the 1930s Germany...

Re:Ugly choices

[Matrix272]

The idea in and of itself is not evil, it's the implimentation that needs to be considered.

I absolutely agree. My point was that the government is the one that's going to be implementing this, and at the moment, the government seems to take whatever they want from the people they're meant to govern... sometimes to the severe detriment of the concepts and principles that made this country great in the first place. Keep this in mind: The government is the only organization that has the power to use force to take what they want from you. If you don't submit to their will, you could be thrown in jail. No other person or organization has quite that kind of power (at least, not without the fear of reciprication).

Easier solution

[mgebbers]

The company says this information can be used, for example, to track patterns of criminal activity and identify spots of intensity.

Try here

Law-abiding citizens

[Samuel Duncan]

don't have anything to worry.
This will make our country more secure and safer from terrorism.
Furthermore all American pariotic parties are joined in this effort to fight terrorism - even Howard Dean is supporting personal identification schemes.
And remember we are at war - the war against terrorism. And in a war everybody has do to his share to ensure the victory of the forces of the free world. If that means that I have to give up some privacy, then I'll do my share gladly.
At WWII we had to make much larger sacrifices to save the free world and democracy.

Re:Law-abiding citizens

[bigjnsa500]

Thanks Samuel for saying that. Too bad you were modded Troll. This /. crowd just doesn't realize what's at stake.

There have been no other strikes at America since 9/11 and Patriot Act had something to do with it. If you want your privacy /.'ers, move to another country. But I want safety more than I do privacy. And as the poster says, if you're a law abiding you have nothing to worry about.

Re:Law-abiding citizens

[Lord of Ironhand]

Although I agree that he wasn't trolling, I do grow tired of the "good people have nothing to worry about" argument.

If a government knows everything about any citizen at any time, people in that government can abuse that information. Many people desire power over others, and the more power someone in a government position has, the more people will try to obtain such a position for the sake of power. Law abiding citizens do have something to worry about.

Re:Law-abiding citizens

[andalay]

But I want safety more than I do privacy.

1984? Ever read that? See the movie Equilibrium?
You don't want that. You will be miserable. You will never be free again.

Re:Law-abiding citizens

[bigjnsa500]

Now I am not agreeing either that I want Big Brother watching my every move. I just don't see how we can have both the government checking out people/groups whoever, AND the same privacy we had post 9-11.

In the end, I believe the terrorists did win. We are now forced to slowly move towards Big Brother. We have to rethink our open, free borders.

Re:Law-abiding citizens

[Lord of Ironhand]

Exactly. I think reading 1984 should be strongly encouraged by schools everywhere. (though it probably won't happen in the US because people might just notice the parallels between the War on Terror and the "War is Peace" philosophy).

It is essential for people to understand (not just "learn") why privacy is essential to safety.

Re:Law-abiding citizens

[lafiel]

Ok, time to feed the trolls.

Your logic that "There have been no other strikes at America since 9/11 and Patriot Act" is like saying "There has been no more World Wars since the 1946 and the invention of digital computing."

That is, how the hell does make sense? First, 9/11 is a date, it's certainly not preventing anything. And second, just because the Patriot Act has been put out doesn't mean it's the reason why any more attacks have been deterred. Mobilization of the army might be a good reason, increased security and a global alert for the "War of Terrorism" might be next. How about "You don't strike when they're expecting it"?

You're quite gullible. Please, start thinking for yourself instead of swallowing what 'truth' has been spoon-fed to you.

Re:Law-abiding citizens

[Lord of Ironhand]

Now I am not agreeing either that I want Big Brother watching my every move. I just don't see how we can have both the government checking out people/groups whoever, AND the same privacy we had post 9-11.

You're right, we can't. But do you really think that the government's checking out of everything helps prevent terrorism? The War on Terror might very well be fueling terrorism instead of extinguishing it.

Re:Law-abiding citizens

[B'Trey]

There have been no other strikes at America since 9/11 and Patriot Act had something to do with it.

I'm not sure if you're trolling, have your tongue firmly planted in your cheek (as I believe GP post had) or if you're serious. I strongly suspect you're a troll. However, I have heard statements like this presented quite seriously, so I'm going to assume that you're serious as well.

On February 26th, 1993, a bomb went off in the basement of the World Trade Center Trade Tower Number One. It was supposed to bring the building down. It failed. We tracked down, arrested and convicted Ramzi Yousef, Ahmad M. Aja, Mahmud Abouhalima and Nidel Ayyad for the crime, and congratulated ourselves on the success of the prosecution. We did nothing other than lip service to try and identify those who were behind those four, nor did we implement any type of coherent strategic response to prevent future terrorist incidents.

The terrorist went back to the drawing board. Despite the fact that we did nothing substantial in response to the bomb, they waited eighty years before they implemented their next attack. It occurred on September 11th, 2001, and was more successful than they had any right to hope it would be.

After a failed attempt, with no response from us, it was eight years before they tried again. And now you have the temerity to say that because there have been no new attacks in two and a half years, our response has been a rousing success! Paugh!

Our responses have been knee-jerk, designed more to placate the population than to provide us any real solution. We worry more about political correctness and propriety than we do about catching those who wish us harm. We abandon the principles that made us great, and hassle our own citizens so that our leaders can pound their chests and say "Look what I've done to stop terrorism!" Clueless idiots stand by and cheer while our freedoms are ripped away from us.

You want safety more than you do privacy, but in reality you will have neither. It is fortunate indeed that our forefathers felt differently. Still, this IS America. Batter and bruised though they are, our freedoms are still muchly intact. You have the right to believe and speak as you like. However, please do me one favor. Abandon your hypocrisy. If you have any American flags on your vehicle, go out and remove them. Get yourself a bumper sticker which reads "Freedom: it's a luxury we can no longer afford." or "Give me tyranny but keep me safe!" When the National Anthem plays, just turn your back to the flag. Make your contempt for the ideals and principles which made this country great plain to all. Let everyone know that the America of the past was a failure, that we need a new country and a new government, one devoted to the proposition that all men should be safe and comfy, and no cost is too high in our efforts to achieve that.

Re:Law-abiding citizens

[B'Trey]

...they waited eighty years...

Should be EIGHT years, of course.

And I even previewed.

Re:Law-abiding citizens

[baneblackblade]

"...the essence of the evil government is that it anticipates bad conduct on the part of its citizens. Any government which assumes that the population is going to do something evil has already lost its franchise to govern. The tacit contract between a governement and the people governed is that the government will trust the people and the people will trust the government. But once the government begins to mistrust the people it is governing, it loses its mandate to rule because it is no longer acting as a spokesman for the people, but is acting as an agent of persecution." - Philip K. Dick

Look around you. How safe do you feel? Now ask yourself why and don't simply snap back the practiced response. Consider the source of these feelings. Does this make you happy?

Re:Law-abiding citizens

[Potor]

You are either a troll, or completely naive.

My bet is that you are a troll. Giving up privacy, even incrementally, has nothing to do with an increase in your security. To the contrary, it is to create a state in which the only thing protected is the state.

The funny thing is that the more the state demands from your privacy, the more the state is apt to block access to information on the grounds of state-secrecy.

Re:Law-abiding citizens

[Lemmeoutada Collecti]

The problem with that premise is that it assumes law abiding citizens. In the current state of US law, both Federal and State, every citizen has broken at least one law. Whether it is something as minor as violating a Keep-Off-The-Grass sign, or speeding on the interstate, very probably 99% or the adult citizenry have violated at least one law. If you need reaffirmation of that, look at DumbLaws.com

That is usually all the ammunition a corrupt government ever needs.

As far as terrorism, the terrorist I am more worried about are not external, but internal. The politicians, the megacorporations, the lobbying groups.

Before we try to secure the 'free world' we should look to our own home.

Re:Law-abiding citizens

[andalay]

I think the tradeoff is that with increased privacy, you get *less* safety.

However, with more safety, you get *less* freedom. No more anonymous cowards, no anonymous surfing, no encryption that cannot be broken by the people protecting you.

In return for increased safety, you essentially say, "Tell me what to do, and I'll do it, and you can watch over my shoulder all the time, even when I take a crap". This is fine for an assembly-line worker mentality, but it does nothing for enjoyment of life!

On a somewhat unrelated note, I caught the middle of a documentary on the CBC about 9/11 facts vs beliefs. The link below is not of that but another one:

http://www.truthuncovered.com

TOTALLY 1984 dudes! We're fucked.

Re:Law-abiding citizens

[Anonymous Coward]

Innocent citizens have nothing to fear from an innocent government.

Do we have an innocent government?

Re:Law-abiding citizens

[number11]

remember we are at war - the war against terrorism.

We are also at war with freedom. Make no mistake about it, every move against terror that infringes on personal privacy and freedom is also a move against freedom.

They that give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.

Re:Law-abiding citizens

[Tuxedo Jack]

Yes, but in World War II, we had a clearly defined enemy, and we were separated from them by an ocean on either side. This particular style of fighting is far more insidious; the "fifth column" doesn't exactly give warning and have rallies, you know.

Besides, if you're so gung-ho on patriotism, you should remember what one of our Founding Fathers said - "They who give up an essential Liberty for temporary Security, deserve neither Liberty or Security."

And that was Ben Franklin, by the way.

Re:Law-abiding citizens

[wintermute740]

"don't have anything to worry.
This will make our country more secure and safer from terrorism.
Furthermore all American pariotic parties are joined in this effort to fight terrorism - even Howard Dean is supporting personal identification schemes.
And remember we are at war - the war against terrorism. And in a war everybody has do to his share to ensure the victory of the forces of the free world. If that means that I have to give up some privacy, then I'll do my share gladly.
At WWII we had to make much larger sacrifices to save the free world and democracy." - Samual Duncan

"He who would give up liberty for security deserves neither." - Ben Franklin

Re:Law-abiding citizens

[bigjnsa500]

I think it does prevent terrorism because they (the terrorists) have to grow eyes on the back of their head.

Re:Law-abiding citizens

[Anonymous Coward]

We are now forced to slowly move towards Big Brother. We have to rethink our open, free borders.

I disagree strongly that we are "forced" to do so. I agree that we appear be making those movements in many ways. The government is slowly stealing our freedoms and privacy away, for no measurable gain.

We are moving towards electronic voting, even though it is much simpler to change a million votes electronically than physically, especially with the current systems.

The root of the problem is that people vote for the candidate whose "plans" give them the most money, even when those plans are not realistic. There is too much pork, too many programs design to cost little for ten years, and then skyrocket, and too little focus on issues and too much focus on slogans. There is too much focus on the media, even by the media.

Freedom is not free, either to gain or maintain. This is true in the Open Source movement, as well as in the government. People are greedy. Power corrupts. Privacy is necessary for freedom. A government scared of its own populace has failed to govern properly.

Would you rather live in a completely safe country or a free country? Women and men, both within and without the USA, fought and died to defend the freedoms in their country. Let not their struggles have been in vane.

</rant>

Re:Law-abiding citizens

[seraph93]

At WWII we had to make much larger sacrifices to save the free world and democracy.

I agree, we had to do all that we could during WWII to support the war effort. Some civil liberties simply had to be suspended. Did we cry and whine about freedom? No! We swore to never forget the horrifying events of February 27th, 1933, and supported the Reichstag Fire Decree like any true patriots would. The decree itself should sound familiar to you:

The articles 114, 115, 117, 118, 123, 124 and 153 of the constitution are suspended until further notice. It is therefore permissible to restrict the rights to personal freedom [meaning habeas corpus], freedom of speech, including the freedom of the press, the freedom to organize and assemble, the privacy of letters, mail, telegraphs and telephones, order searches and confiscations and restrict property, even if this is not otherwise provided for by present law.

It was a bold step for the government, but such measures are necessary to prevent terrorism. Law-abiding citizens had nothing to fear, of course, and terrorist activities were made a thing of the past. I'm proud and happy to see the United States following the example that the Fatherland has provided. Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it, and America has learned so very well.

Re:Law-abiding citizens

[MoneyT]

The problem with security, is 90% of the time, you don't know if it's working. We haven't had another attack on american soil since 9/11. Does that mean that the security works? Or does that mean no other attacks were planned for the immediate future? Is the current level of security sufficient? Or is t a mere token security that just hasn't been tested yet?

While we can guess, and preform some tests, there is no way to really answer these questions.

Re:Law-abiding citizens

[Lord of Ironhand]

I agree that the average Joe Terrorist (hmm... doesn't sound right...) will have to be more careful and has less chance of succesfully attacking a target in the US.

However, you should also consider that by fueling anti-US sentiments in the middle east, terrorist organisations have absolutely no problem finding new members prepared to give their lives for the cause.

I'm guessing that added together, these two effects still amount to an increase in terrorism. A different approach to terrorism (such as trying to remove the cause of those anti-US sentiments) might be much more effective.

Re:Law-abiding citizens

[PrionPryon]

The law is defined by the authorities. If you accept it as it is now, then you do not have anything to fear because you will obey the law. What if the law changes? What if, as a hypothetical example, a law comes down saying reading books is no longer allowed. Or owning a personal computer is no longer allowed. If you do not agree with these new laws, and perhaps you find them so horrible that you cannot obey them, than you are not a law abiding citizen. The new horrible laws may even lead you to revolt against your government. Because of your time spent gathering your personal data when the laws were acceptable to you the authorities now have all the information they need to use against you now that the laws have changed and you have become a criminal because the things you hold dear have been criminalized.

What is now may not always be. It is not prudent to give up to authorities all your information regardless if you are law abiding in the current legal system.

Re:Law-abiding citizens

[Skjellifetti]

You must be a very average, boring person.

Re:Law-abiding citizens

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah yes lets move toward big brother, reduce freedoms, etc. In fact lets do everything we can EXCEPT actually addressing the issues that create terrorists in the first place.

Re:Law-abiding citizens

[jefeweiss]

Freedom in America is an illusion, and has been for quite some time. You can choose Coke or Pepsi. You can vote Republicrat or Democan. You can get your news from CNN or Fox News. If you define freedom as being the ability to make legitimate choices there's not really too much left. Back in the day if you didn't feel like paying rent you could just head for the horizon. Now if you head for the horizon you get arrested for trespassing.

All I have to say is thank god you can still smoke marijuana in your own home. Oh wait, you can't legally do that. Well, at least you can politically protest without being shot with less lethal ammunition. Oh wait, you can't do that either. Well, at least we still have to freedom to travel where ever we want (unless we happen to have an Arabic last name.) In college towns you can't even drink a beer in your own yard without getting harassed. Freedom in America has been on a downhill slide pretty much since it's inception, and I don't really see much being done about it.

Re:Law-abiding citizens

[RatBastard]

We don't need to move towards Big Brother. We need to stop the political infighting between the Intellegence agencies and we need to ask GW Bush why he ignored all of the threat assessment that Bill Clinton's administration had compiled.

9/11 was not a failure or our American way of life. It was a failure to take seriously the work of a previous administration combined with the blind hatred of that administration (and the need for a "Pearl Harbor" as some people would argue).

Re:Law-abiding citizens

[autechre]

"War on Terrorism" is crap, just like the "War on Drugs." It is not something that can ever be solved without continuous monitoring of every human on earth 24/7. As this is obviously not acceptable (or shouldn't be), it is a "war" without an end, as the stated goals cannot be achieved. It therefore serves only as a tool for those in power to do what they like in the name of patriotism and America. I find this to be repulsive.

Re:Law-abiding citizens

[Robbie Gage]

"Of liberty I would say that, in the whole plenitude of its extent, it is unobstructed action according to our will. But rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law,' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the right of an individual." --Thomas Jefferson

"Those who desire to give up Freedom in order to gain Security, will not have, nor do they deserve, either one."
-- Thomas Jefferson

Re:Law-abiding citizens

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I want my privacy and I don't want to move to another country with a different culture/language. The laws passed in the wake of 9/11 are nothing more than a power grab by the government, eroding our rights further than the War on Civil Rights, uhh I mean the War on Drugs did.

All the TSA, Patriot Act, Echelon and its brethren do is provide the basis for uncostitutional searches. What part of "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." don't you understand. The governement needs probable cause to search me. The fact that I have a ticket to ride in an airplane is not proabable cause. The fact that I have an untrimmed beard is not probable cause.

It's not like any of TSA stuff is effective. If I wanted to blow up planes, I would A) use a TOW rocket, B) falsify a credit card for booking and drivers license to match for the at the gate check, or C) falsify employment documentation and pull an inside job. The TSA crap would be an inconvienence at best. All it really does is annoy the airline customers and provide an illusion of safety.

Re:Law-abiding citizens

[Anonymous Coward]

At WWII we illegally internened citizens in concentration camps and used them as slave labor. Granted we didn't run a pogrom of extermination against the unfortunate Asian-Americans we imprisoned, but it was still reprehensible behavior and should not be used as justification for less evil acts.

The Orwellian nightmare brought to us by GW Bush and his croneys has got to stop.

Then again IMHBT.

Re:Law-abiding citizens

[Razor Blades are Not]

Go into politics.
Seriously. If running for office doesn't do it for you, write scripts for those who do.

They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security
- Ben Franklin

Re:Law-abiding citizens

[Anonymous Coward]

On February 26th, 1993, a bomb went off in the basement of the World Trade Center Trade Tower Number One

It was WTC 7. Sorry to correct you but I used to work in the building.

Re:Law-abiding citizens

[Anonymous Coward]

OK, so for all those people out there who REALLY think "if you've done nothing wrong, you'll have nothing to fear"...

Read this book (or even just flip through it) and then reflect on just what the honest and upstanding individuals discussed in it could do with all that data.

Re:Law-abiding citizens

[B'Trey]

Please, don't apologize for correcting me if I make a factual error. I was going from this article, which says in part:

The epicenter of the blast was approximately eight feet from the south wall of Trade Tower Number One, near the support column K31/8.

I took that to mean it was eight feet inside Tower Number One, but now realize that it could have been in a nearby building, eight feet from the outside wall of Tower One. Regardless of the location, the intent of the bomb was to bring down Tower One, toppling it in to Tower Two.

Sounds neat and all but...

[andih8u]

I don't really see how advantageous this system would be. They say it scans documents a user looks at to get references to geographic locations, but how effective can this be? "Hey, Osama, quit checking weather bug, you know the US has that new MetaCarta system." Normally an ISP is more than happy to hand over your info to the government, so what is this good for?

Re:Sounds neat and all but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Osama, quit checking weather bug

If Osama wants to check the weather, he calls his old friend Rumsfeld.

Re:Sounds neat and all but...

[edbarrett]

They say it scans documents a user looks at to get references to geographic locations

No it doesn't. It says it extracts references to people and place names and deduces from there. So (making this up as I go along) if Osama blogs "I went to the store today and bought a mess of bacon" This software could theoretically dig through a list of all the stores in the Middle East that sell bacon and look for Osama's CC#. Of course, the article doesn't say that, but that's what I'm understanding.

Slashdot to employ Troll tracking systems

[Anonymous Coward]

I would be willing to give up my rights to catch members of the GNAA

Re:Slashdot to employ Troll tracking systems

[Orion442]

What the hell does the Greater Nashville Auburn Association have to do with this???

Hrmm

[acehole]

obviously the echelon project isnt enough or probably not suited for internet tracking.

Re:Hrmm

[surprise_audit]

You don't seriously think they'd only have one tracking system? Why only have one, when you can have two for twice the price?

no shit.

[SinaSa]

The way I see it (just an opinion here), this is happening just because people let it.

Right now to be a functional member of some societies (namely the U.S) you need to give up your personal information to various people/companies. If you don't, thats your choice, but you can't do certain things (renting cars, getting a loan, etc).

These companies weren't originally allowed to do this, but people let them as time passed. In places like Germany, privacy invasion is a much harder scheme to run with. People fight it tooth and nail. Both right and left wing parties in the government are avowedly "pro-privacy".

Now this is a sad picture to portray, that people in America have to give up their basic right to privacy to be a part of society.

I don't think its irreversible, and it may be a lot of work, but maybe its time for U.S citizens (not to mention any other privacy beleaguered citizens) to take their privacy back, chunk by chunk?

Re:no shit.

[garcia]

that's because people the USA do NOT care. It's sad actually.

People routinely fork over their SSNs, DOB, phone number (especially to pizza outlets, delivery places, etc. I go and pick up my food so that I don't have to have a "call back" number they can store).

How about Papa Johns storing MULTIPLE credit card numbers on file under your phone number? It makes it easy to get your pizza without doing any work but do you trust Papa Johns with that info?

Scary.

Re:no shit.

[rm007]

In places like Germany, privacy invasion is a much harder scheme to run with. People fight it tooth and nail.

One of the differences between Europe (especially Germany) is that their views on such things as privacy have been formed in the context of direct recent (in terms of living memory of the politically active population of the past 50 years) experience of totalitarian government and/or occupation. Perhaps some Americans are more willing to trade off security for liberty because they can't conceive of what the loss of liberty means. If you let it go a bit at a time, you do not notice it. If it gets take away all at once, you do.

Re:no shit.

[rokzy]

wtf?

usually the point of a pizza delivery is that someone comes up to you and hands you a pizza soon after placing your order.

at that point, you can pay with cash just as easily as you can at the restaurant, but without the risk of being seen on CCTV cameras or mugged en route.

Re:no shit.

[Anonymous Coward]

America seems to be a paranoid war-mongering bunch of idiots at the moment. Maybe more of you should go vote this time around and select a more appropriate figurehead to represent your people.
I think you'll be amazed what a charismatic intelligent leader could do not only for your society, but also for your society's image outside the US.
Bush has probably sent more Americans to their deaths than all terrorism against Americans EVER has. And it's easy to find him and get rid of him, so do it. :) (ie: vote)

Re:no shit.

[Sumocide]

In Germany you're not even allowed to leave your home without your national ID card.

Re:no shit.

[LittleCryer]

I live in the USA and you are right...I don't care. Perhaps I'm simply used to it, but I don't see any personal danger in doing this. I know that no one would have any reason to harm me specifically in this way, unless it's a random and rare case of identity theft, so I see no reason to really worry. Although the pizza example you gave does seem a bit over the edge.

Re:no shit.

[stratjakt]

What's Papa Johns gonna do?

Like anyone who isn't an idiot, I watch my statements closely, first sign of a false charge, I'd report it to the card issuer and police, and if it was some clerk at Papa Johns, they'd be in cuffs inside of a day.. Lifting customers credit cards is probably the stupidest crime there is, and the easiest to track.

As for caring if Papa Johns "tracks" me, I dont. I really dont care who knows that I like bacon, pineapple and tomato on my pizzas.

As for my address and phone number, there's this crazy database called a phone book that lists all of that information.

Re:no shit.

[Anonymous Coward]

"in order to understand what a broken toe is, someone has to stamp on your foot" - AC

Re:no shit.

[Noryungi]

One of the differences between Europe (especially Germany) is that their views on such things as privacy have been formed in the context of direct recent (in terms of living memory of the politically active population of the past 50 years) experience of totalitarian government and/or occupation.

This is true, but with a small caveat. If you read this book (highly recommended), you'll note that US researchers were the first to blow the whistle, in the '60s if I remember well, about the risks of database tracking individuals and collecting way too much info about citizens.

The US governement did nothing about this, but Western European (Eastern Europe is something else) governments did, and created several tough laws designed to protect privacy. Whether this was due to the history of Europe, and, as you mention, to the memories of the Nazi regime is open for debate.

This being said, these European privacy laws are being undermined by the US government as we speak. The first step was, of course, to require European airlines to communicate information about their passengers to US authorities.

Re:no shit.

[rm007]

US researchers were the first to blow the whistle

You are, of course, correct, and it must also be said that there is and remains a strong privacy constituency with memebers from across the political spectrum in the United States. That being said, as you allude to, they are not often listened to. I can't help but speculate that part of the problem is that not only does it never really become a big public issue in the US but also that political participation in the US keeps on decline. A more politically active population (i.e. taking the trouble to vote) might help, so too would a mass media that more readily courted controversy. Sure if you look you can always get coverage on issues such as this on PBS or NPR, but their audience is a small minority of Americans.

Re:no shit.

[garcia]

What's the difference if they don't start charging your credit card? What's the difference if YOU don't care that they sell your eating preferences.

I CARE.

Perhaps you are one of those people that LIKES getting spam in their mailbox or junk mail from the USPS. Perhaps you even enjoy idle conversation with the telemarketers.

Remember, the DNC lists only work when you haven't had an active relationship with a company. If you let them have your phone number they and their parent companies and their child companies can then call you at their will.

With the way the conglomorates are forming do you really want to do that?

I didn't think so.

Re:no shit.

[houghi]

People routinely fork over their SSNs, DOB, phone number (especially to pizza outlets, delivery places, etc. I go and pick up my food so that I don't have to have a "call back" number they can store).


Yes, indeed you can get it yourself. The reason a pizzaplace wants your number is because for the safety of the driver and to make it possible to do a callback. APDD has several stories where this would have saved a persons life. The company will have no problem whatsoever when you pick it up.
br>
About giving your CC number to somebody. This goes for any business and do you trust the CC company to have not only your details; also the possabilaty to see WHAT you buy at different stores?

So for the callbacknumber. There is a very good reason for it.

Re:no shit.

[XorNand]

Interesting you bring up pizza joints. Here's your tinfoil hat fact for today: There is a large datawarehousing company in the US that specializes in providing information to gov't agencies for forensic purposes. Since so many people have unlisted phone numbers nowadays, they purchase customer lists from pizza places (because almost everyone has ordered a pizza and the stores always ask for your phone number).

Re:no shit.

[Rudebr00d]

To paraphrase the great George Carlin in his rant on airport security: All of these measures exist for one thing - so that overprivelaged white people get the feeling and illusion of safety. People don't mind giving up a little bit of privacy and personal information for the illusion of feeling safe. Nothing can be made perfectly safe, but the idea sounds good, and therefore people aren't resisting these intrusions into their personal lives and all of the information around it.

Re:no shit.

[Anonymous Coward]

good reason or not, they are unnecessary, and people should be wary of any database of private info.

Re:no shit.

[SacredNaCl]

Pizza companies do indeed speed a lot of money on software and database access to verify addresses. They spend money on address maps and surveys as well. Most of this is indeed done to protect the driver from getting hit over the head with a bottle and having his money stolen. ...But that isn't the only use for this data, nor is it the only thing they do with it. They also sell this information to a variety of database companies that use it for skip tracing, records verification, credit card purchase history, travel history (IE: you buy a domino's pizza on vacation in NY but you live in Kansas and regularly order there..The system does make a note of it.)

Perhaps you should wonder over to Nexis and have a look at all of the different packages they offer for various industries?

Re:no shit.

[Anonymous Coward]

The fact that people agreed to have SSNs in the first place is stupid. You lose all privacy right there.

Re:no shit.

[danila]

Americans better understand it quickly and by themselves, or someone will stamp on their face... forever.

Re:no shit.

[Aceticon]

How about knowing how many condoms somenone has bought in a month?

How about figuring out that such someone usually buy condoms thursday late afternoon at a certain place?

How about figuring out that that person also rents a hotel room in a closeby location every thursday afternoon?

How about figuring out that he leaves work early on tursday afternoons and arrive home late?

How about figuring out that a collegue of him does the same?

How about if someone unscrupulous with access to this information threathens that he will denounce the love affair with the work collegue to said person's wife?

What if that collegue was a man?

Not to mention telling that person's boss?

And all his work collegues?

...

There's all sorts of socially frowned upon behaviours people don't want their work collegues or their family to know about. Sometimes not even about oneself but about one's family:

Does one really wants that all his work colegues know he has pissed in his bed til 14?

Or that his son was once arrested for drunk driving?

Or that in a period of his life he was an alcoholic?

Or maybe just telling one's cristian studies group exactly what one does on friday evenings (boose, woman and gambling)?

Re:no shit.

[Anonymous Coward]

You may not be my sister sam but that doesn't mean someone else isn't.

Re:no shit.

[Anonymous Coward]

Germany?
Just today I listened to a radio broadcast about the planned highway toll collection and photographing (and storing!) of all license plates w/ place and timestamp on all bigger streets in germany.
So there goes the privacy.

Nice to hear from a politician (CDU, the conservatives in germany): "We no longer have to fear the government, that time is over, we have to fear the felons...". That he's right-wing probably doesn't matter that much because our home secretary (SPD, left-wing) already said similar things.

So, actually, even in western europe everything is not THAT good!

Re:no shit.

[Anonymous Coward]

So get off your tubby little ass and learn to cook instead of wasting money on Pizza.

(or are the grocery stores watching you as well?)

Re:no shit.

[Anonymous Coward]

People routinely fork over their SSNs, DOB, phone number (especially to pizza outlets, delivery places, etc. I go and pick up my food so that I don't have to have a "call back" number they can store).

Not sure what pizza outlet you use, but I have never heard of one asking for someones SSN. Aside from someone not having a phone line, every pizza joint I've ever ordered from has always asked for phone number. Why the hell would a pizza place ask for a SSN in the first place? They can always store customer information based on either Phone number or Address. Other places might ask for the last 4 digits of your SSN for security purposes, but there are very few places which should be storing that information in the first place - especially when they will never need it.

Yes, citizens seem to give out their information too easily, but please come up with less ridiculous sounding reasoning to further your argument.

Re:no shit.

[Lord_Dweomer]

Reminds me of the X10 Camera spams I'd get.

FIND OUT IF YOUR SPOUSE IS CHEATING ON YOU!!!! HIDDEN CAMERflk;ajvcoinvapoivwi

Re:no shit.

[0x0000]

there is and remains a strong privacy constituency with memebers from across the political spectrum in the United States

Interestingly, this constituency you refer to appears to be the same constituency that has consistently and whole-heartedly espoused (at least until very recently) the belief that the US can never be totalitarian simply because the US has fought totalitarian societies in the past.

I consider it unfortunate that the US population has trotted so far down the path taken by totalitarian nations in the past that is become a virtual certainty that the US will be recognized as a totalitarian nation within the next couple decades.

The US population simply sees no reason to guard itself agaist totalitarian mores and, ultimately, totalitarian leaders, since totalitarians are the Bad Guys, and the US -- by its own definition is not Bad.

The US move to becoming an unabashedly totalitarian society is well advanced. The scramble to recoup lost freedoms has begun, but it is too late. By November 2004 DC will be in such chaos over some "terrorist activity" or another (ricin, anthrax, suitcase nukes, rabid monkeys, whatever) the elections will have to be postponed. At which point ... well, you figure it out.

The US becomes a totalitarian state because it's population has been trained (brainwashed is not to strong a word, imo) to believe the it can't possibly happen, so they see no need to guard against it. It will take a 21st Century Stalin or Hitler to finally degrade the quality of Freedom enough that the good Citizens will realize where the totalitatians went when the US kicked their asses on every other continent on the planet...

More eye-candy to suck up govt bucks

[shoppa]

Others get worried by all these government contractors who are making big bucks by selling privacy-invading tools to Uncle Sam.

But I don't. Why? Because 95% of all government software projects end up either being outright failures or not useful. (You'd be surprised how many contractors know that they're meeting the requirement specification but know that the result won't be useful to anyone.)

Now, I do not like the fact that my government is wasting money on software that doesn't help make me any safer. We have to do something about that, this is the real lossage.

Re:More eye-candy to suck up govt bucks

[houghi]

Others get worried by all these government contractors who are making big bucks by selling privacy-invading tools to Uncle Sam.

But I don't. Why? Because 95% of all government software projects end up either being outright failures or not useful.

This means that 5% is not a failure and it will be 'Usefull' for the governement. If the tool is there to invade the privacy, it will only take time before it will be abused. At this moment it will be used to find the guilty. At some point it will be used to find the inocent and when you are not on that list, you will be guilty.

This already happens when they did a DNS test of a complete village (UK? France? Belgium? Sorry I forgot where).

I personaly do not mind so much the money that is wasted. If done correctly, it flows back into the economy. I do mind the fact that anything I say or do can be used against me, even when I am not arrested or under investigation. At this moment it still is that you are OK when you do nothing wrong. Soon the time will come you will have to prove that you did nothing wrong. The way the governement is looking at it: you are guilty unless proven inocent. What other reason is there to track what everybody is doing?

Re:More eye-candy to suck up govt bucks

[jefeweiss]

A lot of these new programs aren't actually operated by the government. That's because the government isn't allowed to do some of these things by law. They hire private companies because private companies can do whatever the hell they want. This isn't the only company working on projects that are similar to this. Slashdot's headlines since TIA went down in flames are full of them.

The things is, this is nothing new. I had seen proposals for commercial versions of this for a long time. Cell phones that advertise for businesses that you happen to be near, in car navigation systems that advertise for restaurants you are driving by. I would be very surprised if credit card companies haven't been selling all kinds of information to marketing agencies, as well as other financial companies. I tend to agree with people that say the US sold it's right to privacy a long time ago for easy credit. The only right we may be able to claim is transparency to see what happens to our data, and I don't see anyone pushing for that. David Brin wrote an interesting book called The Transparent Society where he explored transparency as an alternative to privacy. I'm really getting tired of people bitching about the government invading our privacy when the government is 30 years behind the private sector. It's not like anyone is using this information with our best interests at heart, unless you think getting more advertising is neat.

Re:More eye-candy to suck up govt bucks

[Dracolytch]

I agree. I've been a developer for government/military funded software for a while. Over the years, I've begun to get a feel for what is a pet project or idea that won't really be used, and what is software that actually has a purpose. From how the article reads, I feel this system will either go mostly unused or the data from it will be unhelpful/misleading.

~D

Re:More eye-candy to suck up govt bucks

[Matrix272]

I personaly do not mind so much the money that is wasted. If done correctly, it flows back into the economy.

It may flow back into the economy later, but that doesn't help ME when they take 30% of my paycheck, that I work very hard for. In fact, there's a VERY good chance I'll never see a penny of that money again, since it "flowed back" into someone else's pocket.

Re:More eye-candy to suck up govt bucks

[FictionPimp]

"This already happens when they did a DNS test of a complete village (UK? France? Belgium? Sorry I forgot where). "

I wish they would come to my town and do a DNS test. My ISP's DNS server has been crappy latley.

Re:More eye-candy to suck up govt bucks

[pauly_thumbs]

I totally agree with you. Most govt projects are not going to go anywhere at all. Their reward system is also set up to incentify those who do not take risks. Hence pensions are not risked and career ending moves do not occur.

I recently heard a story about the agent who found the explosive in the trunk of the terrorsist who was trying to bomb LAX in the year 2000. Instead of being rewarded for her vigilance, she was transferred out of the seattle are to east bum hump montana. She had to sell her house else risk being fired and losing her pension and or pay grade.

When I hear about those government agency projects i generally scoff because they are eithe a) vapor ware. or b) collecting dust because they were purchased just to blow a budget.

Re:More eye-candy to suck up govt bucks

[houghi]

That should have been DNA test. DOH!

We know who you are...

[Noryungi]

And we know you have been posting on Slashdot way too much.

Go back to work, you slacker. If you post too much on Slashdot, the terrorists will win!

--
This post has been brought to you by CitizenWatch(tm) a division of DARPA / Homeland Security.
"We watch because we care" (tm & sm).

Re:We know who you are...

[Anonymous Coward]

Ha! Excellent.

Reminds me of a Spam FIlter...

[QuiK_ChaoS]

"We guarantee less than 1% false positives!"

Re:Reminds me of a Spam FIlter...

[RetroGeek]

"Make it idiot proof, and someone will make a better idiot."

"No program is foolproof, because fools are so ingenious."

Tinfoil hat time

[IamGarageGuy 2]

Our society as a whole is allowing this infringment upon us. There is nobody to blame but ourselves. This attack on our freedom is pushed by the people that scream "what about the children" in attempts to save us from ourselves. If there was a big enough uproar about this happening it could be stopped, but unfortunately anybody that stands up to this is shouted down with threats of wanting to aid terrorists and kill babies and such. The old adage comes to mind, the way for evil to prosper is for good men to do nothing.

I am curious to see if there will ever be a call to arms from the freedom loving americans that fund the government that creates these programs.

Re:Tinfoil hat time

[GuyinVA]

The problem is most Internet users do not know about these things. I think it is our responsibility to spread the word that our goverment is doing this. We need to spread the word come election day. I have a feeling that these types of things will surface with in 2 major elections, and internet security/freedom may become a polical issue..

Re:Tinfoil hat time

[Turd Rippleton]

I agree. Believe it or not, the laws of the land are to protect ourselves from the government, and unfortunately I find ourselves drifting closer to communism. Our liberty is slowly fading away through pretenses of terrorism and proliferation of WMD.

We as a people need to stand up and say enough is enough.

~Turd

If such a system were implemented

[kemapa]

Criminals would just find a way around the whole system, while honest people would be the ones tracked. Just like guns... if you create a law eliminating guns the criminals will still get them illegally, while regular citizens won't.

Re:If such a system were implemented

[the_mad_poster]

The first thing I thought of when I saw this is "wow - the Bad Guys could have a field day with this". Imagine - you find yourself on the wrong end of a PI or something, you have skills, you turn the tables and hunt this guy instead. Somebody gaining a level of control with this type of system would pose an unprecendted threat (on the offchance the stupid thing acutally worked).

Better yet, Kevin Mitnick's "two computer" scheme came to mind where he was intentionally leading his pursuers at the FBI around by the nose so they THOUGHT they were chasing him, but really, he was just sending them on snipe hunts all over the country. After all, if you KNOW they're tracking you, disinformation becomes the ultimate weapon.

Re:If such a system were implemented

[ratamacue]

That is exactly why England's murder and violent crime rates have skyrocketed since the 1997 gun ban: (1) Criminals will always be able to obtain weapons, no matter what the law says, and (2) for the criminal, the ideal victim is the one who is unarmed or has no means of self-defense.

It follows that society is safer in general when every individual has the potential to be armed. Criminals don't even need to see the gun -- the fact that a victim MAY be armed is enough to make them think twice. "Tougher" laws and penalites for crime won't change a thing, because the law can't possibly address the need for immediate self-defense.

A similar situation has occurred in Washington, D.C. History has proven, time and time again, that gun "control" (restrictions on the individual's right to self-defense) actually increases, not decreases, the overall crime rate. Of course, if you ask me, that is exactly what government wants. (The higher the crime rate, the more "justification" for expanding the powers of government.)

Refer to this article for a good intro to this issue.

Use of technology

[canfirman]

There are a few quotes from the article that are of interest:

Search results appear as points on a map instead of as a list of documents. The company says this information can be used, for example, to track patterns of criminal activity and identify spots of intensity.

Just wait. Businesses will be requiring this data for "demographics". The RIAA can search for those who talk about "downloading music". Police can use it to track those who distribute kiddie porn. (Uh oh! I just used "kiddie porn" with my name! They'll be after me next!)

The point is that anyone can say the data will be used for "tracking criminals", but we all know that will not be the case. Heck, the "Patriot Act" was supposed to combat terrorism, but we all know of the abuses of it. IMHO, this software will do more harm than good (unless you're the one collecting the data).

PS: Since September 11, US security agencies have increasingly turned to technology to help them process website postings, internet chat and e-mail traffic....and still no sign of Osama Bin Laden.

Re:Use of technology

[kinnell]

this software will do more harm than good

I thinks this misses the point. The software is just a visualisation tool. Nobody should be up in arms about this software, because it is not a threat to your civil liberties. The real threat is when government agencies are allowed to accumulate and use the necessary information about private citizens in the first place. Also, for innocent people, the real threat is not that they can be located, it is that they can be picked out of data warehouses using search terms which incorrectly label them as "subversive" or "potential terrorist".

Re:Use of technology

[supersam]

PS: Since September 11, US security agencies have increasingly turned to technology to help them process website postings, internet chat and e-mail traffic....and still no sign of Osama Bin Laden.

Exactly! ... and they won't catch him till Osama brings his audio and video recorders (the ones that he uses to make all those tapes) online! ;-)

I dunno who's the more naive of the lot...
Government - for thinking that it can catch the Osamas of this world by developing such softwares...
or the Public - for thinking that the law-abiding citizens don't have anything to worry about these anti-privacy initiatives...

Re:Use of technology

[KarmaMB84]

"Just wait. Businesses will be requiring this data for "demographics". The RIAA can search for those who talk about "downloading music". Police can use it to track those who distribute kiddie porn." Now...which one of those is completely out of place? If they use it to catch child exploiters, I'm all for it.

Re:Use of technology

[Anonymous Coward]

Thats because I'm Osama Bin Laden and I'm too slick to get caught.

PS: Saddam, the package has been delivered.

Re:Use of technology

[Azghoul]

They can point this software (which as someone else said is just the visualization and geocoding part) at Google News. Are you concerned that Google News is evil?

MetaCarta's software is only good for whatever input you give it. If you don't have input on common folks, it ain't gonna find common folks.

Useful? But for whom?

[Epyn]

I'd like to think I'm not paranoid and such. But I've recently lost significant faith in the prosecution of real criminals in the states, there've been a few scapegoats of late. I just don't see WHY they would use this without abusing it. 'They', being the scary government and such, have been very self-serving lately. /me points to the spam bill, which is almost helpful for everyday email users.

Here is the tracking program

[adagioforstrings]

I got a copy of their program in my mailbox!!

Hello Everyone, And thank you for signing up for my Beta Email
Tracking Application or (BETA) for short. My name is MetaCarta.
Here at DARPA we have just compiled an e-mail tracing program
that tracks everyone to whom this message is forwarded to. It
does this through an unique IP (Internet Protocol) address log
book database.

We are experimenting with this and need your help. Forward this
to everyone you know and if it reaches 1000 people everyone on
the list you will receive $1000 and a copy of MetaCarta Geographic
Text Search at my expense.

Enjoy.

Note: Duplicate entries will not be counted. You will be notified
by email with further instructions once this email has reached
1000 people. MetaCarta Geographic Text Search will not be shipped
until it has been released to the general public.

Your friend,
MetaCarta & DARPA

Enemy of the State

[glyph42]

I just watched Enemy of the State last night. I guess I should stop developing automagic 3D image reconstruction algorithms :(

International Organizations eh?

[Thunderstruck]

I'm not worried about being tracked with such a system here at home for two reasons. I usually use cash and I have PGP encryption for my emails. But then again, I live in South Dakota and everyone always knows where everyone else is anyway so the point is moot.

What worries me is what a foreign nation might do with this information. Say I own a piece of software that is legal at home, but illegal in the nation where I spend my spring break, am I going to get Skylarov'ed for something I do in a different nation with different rules?

Re:International Organizations eh?

[Skater]

Skylarov was arrested for something he did while in Russia that was illegal in the US.

In your example, you'd be doing something illegal in [whatever country] while you're in that country. So, yes, I'd say it's possible you'd be arrested, but it's not the same situation as Skylarov.

--RJ

This is going to catch criminals?

[DangerSteel]

Not trying to be too cynical here, but let's be realistic... I can't count the number of criminals I read about who police caught and had prior warrants for thier arrest, but they have never checked thier last known address. Getting another database of that information will somehow help?

Nigerian friend

[savagedome]

So, now we would finally know where our Nigerian Spammer friend actually is.
I am going to forward MetaCarta guys a copy of my 419 Nigerian email right away. Brilliant!

Re:Nigerian friend

[Anonymous Coward]

I long for the days of the Nigerian spam. Now, all I get are emails asking me to put a patch on my penis. Since I've only ever been with my wife I'm assuming that she's the one who blabbed about my size and the reason that I'm inundated with penis enlargement spam.

Eeh. If you can't beat 'em... join 'em

[Greyfox]

We're watching you.

Dear DARPA: +5, Hilarious

[Anonymous Coward]

I handle all my gun running for BCCI over Freenet

Respectfully,
Kilgore Trout

Privacy in the USA? NO WAY!

[Anonymous Coward]

America is too concerned with the mainstream collective. Privacy and personal rights are not top issues. 'If given for the right reasons' giving out personal information can be okay, especially if it is to counter terrorism.

Lets just take a look at the debates:
*Abortion...Nevermind what the pregnant lady thinks, its wrong!
*Marijuana...You are not allowed to do what you want in your own home, stop asking.

jk, lol, GOD BLESS AMERICA!!!

~Snit

Our Privacy is Doomed anyway

[NixLuver]

As someone pointed out in a post yesterday, privacy of information is becoming endangered, and there is nothing we can do to stop that from happening short of becoming Luddites - all of us - and adopting 'less than appropriate technology'.

As an example - waaaay back in '85, when I was hacking on a 8086 Panicsonic Business Partier, I was playing with biometrics with a keyboard snatching TSR (for the company I was working for at the time) that would identify individuals by their idiosyncratic keystroke patterns. The identification was very successful, but on that limited hardware the database involved was prohibitive. There are probably thousands of idiosyncratic behaviors that could be monitored by interactive websites (or 'routers' that could examine traffic) to identify and track users; it's only a matter of CPU power, which Moore's law will take care of - unless it hits Moore's Wall soon.

Re:Our Privacy is Doomed anyway

[Magada]

You must know that one of the entropy sources for the linux system entropy pool is keystroke time logging. Any thoughts on that?

Re:Our Privacy is Doomed anyway

[NixLuver]

A little background to explain how I got there. The system was supposed to monitor user keystrokes constantly for comparison, and pop a flag when the 'user' changed; we tested 'random characters' to see if that would trigger the 'new user' alarms. If the typist left their hands in the 'home' position, they normally would not change their idiosyncratic timing patterns much, but when they did 'hunt and peck' or lifted their hands from the keyboard to do random typing, the idiosyncracies changed.

As to the use of keystrokes for entropy - I've never looked into the algorithm behind that choice in modern OS's, but if I were doing it, I would use inter-key timing and some checksum value of the keys struck to generate a seed for a psuedo-random generator... I would guess that would insulate the algorithm from the idiosyncratic consistencies pretty well, I would guess...

1984

[Alephcat]

Yet another reason not to visit the united states, don't give them any information and hopefully they will not have enough to be able to find you.

tinfoil hats all round!

even if it is successful

[andih8u]

Having worked as a contractor for a government agency, I can tell you that the people behind the wheel more than likely won't be the sharpest knives in the drawer. One woman I worked with, her whole job for the entire day was to burn 6 cds. Other people just outright slept most of the day. Sure they may have some great new system, but the bottleneck will be that person that has to burn a backup cd of the data before its passed along to intelligence...at 6 cds a day.

Hmmm...

[Dracolytch]

You know, after reading the article, I'm skeptical that this software is of any real use. I mean, it sounds like an interesting idea or theory, but actually carrying it out to practice with any sort of reliability or usefulness is questionable.

Of course, I find it interesting that people are relying more and more on computers to do this kind of work. I mean, computers are very gullible. What's to say that people won't use code, euphamisms, or lie to send programs off on the wrong track? From how this article reads, it really wouldn't be hard.

So don't mind me... I'll just sit here trying to take over the world whilst sitting under Niagra Falls.

~D

Re:Hmmm...

[Anonymous Coward]

yup, computers are indeed gullible.

especially programs that use some sort of so called "AI"
to distinguish patterns.

send software looking for a criminal, and it *WILL* find
a criminal even if one isn't there.

the gov does not have to be out to "get you" directly,
merely doing their jobs to meet quotas, look like they
justify their budget, etc. and more and more innocents
will be labeled guilty.

the usa is fucked and unfortunately has the power to drag
the rest of the world down with it. the last people on
the planet smiling will be terrorists. because they *KNOW*
they have already won, *completely*.

It is useful

[RedLaggedTeut]

Such a tool is useful to an agency because you don't have to find a reason to get connection logs from an ISP and you can forget all the paperwork and the delay(maybe weeks) involved.

So suppose you have someone look at a "dangerous" document, then the tool can tell you whether the looker is in a place of interest (likely the USA or the middle east).

it hurts

[NoGuffCheck]

Y'know when you sign up for something (crap) online and they ask you to check your favorite sports, hobbies, work industry, gender etc.. just so they can provide you with "a better quality of service, that will help us send you only information on products that will meet your wants/needs...." Why the f*ck do I keep getting the lastest catalogue of penis enlargers?

Re:it hurts

[mangu]

Why the f*ck do I keep getting the lastest catalogue of penis enlargers?

Maybe because you wrote your penis dimensions in their form?

Try this

[binaryDigit]

Really simple example. I send an email to my buddy saying "I'll meet you at the Burger Hut at 11:00am". Presumably, their software would identify "Burger Hut", look up it's address and be able to plot that on a map. If I sent another email at 12:45 to a buddy of mine, you could look at the ip I sent it from. If it's my work ip, then there is a reasonable probability that I'm at work (yes I know, telecomuting and other technologies doesn't make this 100%, but for many it's a damn close guess), so at 12:45, one can guess that I'm at the office. I use my CC at the grocery store, the location of the grocery store is then tracked.

Put all these things together and you get a spatial picture of me. This is simply another way of looking at the data. From this you can more easily discern patterns. A more powerful example is if in another email I mentioned that I ate lunch with Osama, you could correlate the fact that I was at the burger hut around lunch time, and therefore there was a good possibility that Osama was there too.

Re:Try this

[Anonymous Coward]

All very well and good, until you try it in a city like New York or Seoul or Tokyo or London where there are thousands of public terminals, and possibly 50~100 "Burger Huts". And with general demographics around the world showing migration into metropolises, it's only gonna get easier to lose yourself in the crowds. Also a simple word substitution code foils this pretty nicely (ie. Burger Hut = bad bad man's predetermined meeting place which is not actually called Burger hut but is somewhere else).

Re:Try this

[Anonymous Coward]

where there are thousands of public terminals

Actually public terminals would be easier to track since they're typically physically static.

and possibly 50~100 "Burger Huts"

True, real life examples would be Star Bucks or McDonalds. But at least you've whittled an infinite number down to a "manageable" one. You could then use other intelligence to try to figure out which ones are more likely to be "THE" Burger Hut. Never said that it would be an exact science.

Also a simple word substitution code foils this pretty nicely (ie. Burger Hut = bad bad man's predetermined meeting place which is not actually called Burger hut but is somewhere else).

True, so does spoofing your MAC and using wifi and other counter measures. For those who are savvy enough and REALLY don't want to be tracked, they can find ways to help prevent it. But just like you'd think that various crimes would have been done for so long that anyone trying today should be able to "nail it", the fact is criminals (and terrorists) are people too. They get lazy, they make mistakes, or they're simply ignorant of the technology available to law enforcement. You might not catch everybody, but no one is expecting that.

Tax payer's delight?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is that the same government we have elected? Is that what we want them to do with your tax dollars? Is that what we want?
Am I the only one who thinks something went terribly wrong here?...

Re:Tax payer's delight?

[Anonymous Coward]

We elected this government?

Re:Tax payer's delight?

[Trurl's Machine]

Is that the same government we have elected?

No. It's the government elected by Electoral College, an obsolete instutution that hardly any democratic country uses these days. You - the voters - have elected Al Gore, who won the popular vote, but he was turned down by the electors. First such occurence since 1888 and a MAJOR signal that America needs a significant upgrade of its voting system. Electoral College is sooo last century... no, not even that, it's actually sooo last century before the last century!

Re:Tax payer's delight?

[Apple Acolyte]

You're off base their, Trurul; I suggest that you brush up on your political theory before making irresponsible populist statements. The electoral college is a functional, positive mechanism designed by the framers of our Constitution in order to both check potential tyranny of the majority as well as to give individual states an opportunity to shape the collective political destiny of the nation.

The electoral college provides smaller states with representation, which they would be lacking if we were to switch solely to the popular vote. Please realize that without the electoral college, presidential candidates would only need to concentrate on the most populous states (CA, NY, Texas Florida...), and all of the smaller states would be ignored. You may advocate such a system, but I believe smaller states deserve to be heard. When we became a union, states were guaranteed a certain amount of sovereignty. Consequently, the electoral college facilitates state democracy. Just as Judge Bork stated years ago, the doctrine of one person one vote is not consistent with the foundational code of our system. Eliminating the electoral college would subject smaller states to another's political will, without their support or input.

Re:Tax payer's delight?

[JofCoRe]

But aren't the electoral votes based on the states population? Meaning that larger states _still_ have a larger voice? Sure, rhode island is guaranteed their 2 votes or whatever they get, but does that really compare to the 50 something that CA gets?

(I'm pulling these numbers out of my ass, BTW, in case you were wondering.)

Re:Tax payer's delight?

[0x0000]

> We elected this government? ...pay no attention to the man behind the curtain...

Re:Tax payer's delight?

[Trurl's Machine]

You're off base their, Trurul; I suggest that you brush up on your political theory before making irresponsible populist statements. The electoral college is a functional, positive mechanism designed by the framers of our Constitution in order to both check potential tyranny of the majority as well as to give individual states an opportunity to shape the collective political destiny of the nation.

Sir, with all due respect, across the pond there are some democratic countries that elect their presidents in direct vote. There are many reasons to dislike those pesky French, but they can hardly be called a tyranny. The framers of the US Constitution were framing it in a different era, where only a small faction of adult citizens was eligible to vote etc. etc. What was good in the late 1700's might not be that good in the early 2000's.

The electoral college provides smaller states with representation, which they would be lacking if we were to switch solely to the popular vote. Please realize that without the electoral college, presidential candidates would only need to concentrate on the most populous states (CA, NY, Texas Florida...), and all of the smaller states would be ignored.

And that's exatly the way it is today. California has 54 votes. Montana has 3 votes. The candidates indeed concentrate on the most populous states (that's why there was so much fuss about the Florida counting; should the same situation happen in Montana, nobody would ever care).

That's an awfully expensive tracking system

[Srividya]

We just use cookies.

Trade freedom of speech for German privacy?

[swb]

Since Germans don't have unlimited freedom of political expression, I wonder how many Americans would give up theirs and accept the yoke of censorship for privacy?

As much as I want privacy, I have a hard time feeling like I'm a victim of lack of privacy. I'm more annoyed on a practical every day basis with the nosy neighbors than I am with US Bank's selling my credit card purchase information or Tivo's aggregation of my viewing habits.

I'm actually much more concerned about the government's ability and willingness to repress political speech than I am whether some database knows I bought a couple of cans of jock itch spray with my credit card.

Re:Trade freedom of speech for German privacy?

[caudron]

"Justice Douglas, writing the opinion of the Court, asserted that the 'specific guarantees in the Bill of Rights have penumbras, formed by emanations from those guarantees that help give them life and substance.' Thus, while privacy is nowhere mentioned, it is one of the values served and protected by the First Amendment, through its protection of associational rights, and by the Third, the Fourth, and the Fifth Amendments as well. The Justice recurred to the text of the Ninth Amendment, apparently to support the thought that these penumbral rights are protected by one Amendment or a complex of Amendments despite the absence of a specific reference. Justice Goldberg, concurring, devoted several pages to the Amendment."

So you see, according to many legal scholars including the Supreme Court of the United States, giving the government the right to void my privacy DOES abate my Freedom of Speech.

Re:Trade freedom of speech for German privacy?

[Anonymous Coward]

But the article comes right out and states they are using this info to track and arrest people. Not do marketing research you ignorant clod. I will bet you money that this "will" be used to repress political speech. This tactic is taken right out of the Chinese governments users manual.

Re:Trade freedom of speech for German privacy?

[demachina]

Protection of privacy and right to free speech go hand in hand. Society is reaching the point where you wont have privacy, and won't leave an electronic trail when you buy the jock itch spray unless you:

- carry around lots of cash
- use cash to buy everything
- minimize the trail you leave when you get fresh cash
- don't fly
- don't use the Internet
- don't use electonic toll paying devices
- don't use a cell phone
- etc.

Of course, this makes you a Luddite and it makes it vastly harder for you to function and to speak out against your government's evil tendencies. This is, of course one of the goals.

Now, if you still leave an electronic trail, and still exercise your right to free speech and say or do something that pisses off a government with an established tendency to punish critics, like the Bush administration (Remember Wilson and his CIA wife), they can then use your electronic trail to punish you in a variety of ways:

A. Find you to arrest you
B. Detect associations with other people that may be terrorism suspects, rightly or wrongly. As I recall the Canadian programmer that was sent to Syria for a year of torture was mostly guilty of co-signing a lease for someone who was tenuosly linked to terrorism.
C. Study your internet porn viewing habits including those blind links taking you places you really didn't want to go so they can arrest you for child porn.
D. Detecting that you failed to report a little side income on your tax returns so they can arrest you for tax evasion.
E. Find ways to get you fired and make you unemployable. Arresting protesters and tagging them with minor convictions or any other means to put a conviction on your record will work. Since 9/11 a myriad of companies have started doing extensive background checks and a record will make you vastly less employable. Making you unemployable in a capitalist economy is the kinder, gentler counterpart to the gulag's in the totalitarian state. You can end up starving with either approach. Taken to the extreme you end up homeless and you die without so much as a second thought from society.

The U.S. approach is much more clever and subtle than the Chinese approach. The Chinese use heavy handed censorship and arrest people directly for doing things like advocating democracy. It doesn't work real well and it triggers outrage.

The U.S. uses an approach that doesn't look totalitarian on the face of it, but can accomplish many of the same goals in suppressing dissent. They can arrest people for terrorism, child pornography or tax evasion instead of arresting them for exercising free speech and dissenting. The American public will never have a problem with arresting people for the former but would howl if it were for the latter.

Just look at the case of Captain Yee and a couple Muslim friends at Guantanamo.

http://www.counterpunch.org/wright02022004.html

Yee was put in solitary confinement, charged with espionage, and was facing a death penalty case. All indications are their main crime was they were Muslim, spoke Arabic and had some sympathy for the horrible plight of the people thrown in to Camp X-Ray without charges or legal process. The Christian, non arabic speaking soldiers around them apparently decided to crucify them for it.

The DOD eventually realized they had no case and they weren't guilty of anything except being Muslim and being surrounded by a bunch of American soldiers that didn't like the fact they could speak Arabic and wanted to easy the misery of "suspected" terrorists.

Last I heard Yee is now being charged with using a military computer to look at porn and adultery and is still facing a long term in Federal prison. His life is destroyed. If you charge all guilty soldiers for these things half the military would be in the brig.

Yee is in the military which means he has less rights than most, but he is a really good example of what might happen to you too if you let your government run amuck. Of course, its even more likely to happen to you if you try to keep your government from running amuck. This is Catch-23.

Re:Trade freedom of speech for German privacy?

[Jo_2521]

Since Germans don't have unlimited freedom of political expression, I wonder how many Americans would give up theirs and accept the yoke of censorship for privacy?

This sounds like you have to gamble freedom of political expression for privacy. Yet, one is not possible without the other. See elections as example.

It's true that theoretically the American constitution grants a higher freedom of speech than the German one does. This is (among other things) due to the Nazi regime and ongoing revisionism in the days the German constitution was formed (1949).

But in practice there shouldn't be much difference. You are allowed to deny the Holocaust and freely wave the flag of the 3. Reich in the US which is a crime in Germany (one I don't oppose), but I think racism, at least origining from corporations, is forbidden in the US too?

By the way, in Germany songs with words such as "fuck" are played as they are, yet in the US these words are beeped. Seems that your freedom of speech isn't so absolute after all...

Re:Trade freedom of speech for German privacy?

[swb]

By the way, in Germany songs with words such as "fuck" are played as they are, yet in the US these words are beeped. Seems that your freedom of speech isn't so absolute after all...

Don't confuse freedom of speech with poor taste..

Re:Trade freedom of speech for German privacy?

[DF5JT]

" Since Germans don't have unlimited freedom of political expression" You, sir, know nothing about Germany in the first place.

Re:Trade freedom of speech for German privacy?

[Happy go Lucky]

You are allowed to deny the Holocaust and freely wave the flag of the 3. Reich in the US which is a crime in Germany (one I don't oppose), but I think racism, at least origining from corporations, is forbidden in the US too?

Not quite.

Discrimination on the basis of race is forbidden in public accomodations, but that's part of the civil code. We don't arrest people. Rather, the victim (or the state Attorney General) files a civil suit to recover damages and have the court order the actor to stop. And those laws mainly just require that race, sex, ethnicity, et cetera not be a factor in business.

There are criminal "Hate Crime" codes in a few places. In my state (Colorado), our law refers to "ethnic intimidation," and is not actually much of a stand-alone issue. It only covers instances where another crime (assault, harassment, menacing, etc.) has already been committed, and race was part of the motive.

It's a useless charge, IMHO. It opens a Constitutional can of worms, for no real reason, is not all that easy to prove in court (it requires us to prove both motive and specific intent, which is hardly the easiest thing to do), and I can just arrest the actor for Third-Degree Assault. Nobody in the justice system in my state needs to look that one up to know what it is.

Re:Trade freedom of speech for German privacy?

[uxo]

swb:

I'm actually much more concerned about the government's ability and willingness to repress political speech than I am whether some database knows I bought a couple of cans of jock itch spray with my credit card.

But dude, then you aren't "free" to buy cold pills at a dozen different stores with your credit card and cook meth in the "privacy" of your own home without the man hasslin' you.

Hacking of this system being made into a film...

[WIAKywbfatw]

...called Get MetaCarta.

How it Works - and what it means

[subjectstorm]

well, i just RTFA.

this software really only does one thing - it sucks the names of geographical locations out of text documents like web pages and emails and translates them into points on a map. That in itself is harmless.

the real invasion of privacy isn't this program - it's that the feds are monitoring communications of many types, all over the globe, 24-7-365. Until now, they've had FAR more information than they could ever hope to process. They had to sort through stuff manually, and a single day's captured communications could take years to sort through.

if you need a reason to jam that tinfoil hat on a little tighter, just start asking yourself how much privacy you've actually got right now. these fine folks can already hear anything you say on a cell phone WITHOUT a wiretap order that they would have to justify. they can already nab everything that you say on the net. they can snap a shot of you from freaking orbit if they know where to look lol

this program isn't a privacy issue. it's just making the gov a lot more efficient at what they were already doing - and THAT is the privacy issue.

interestingly enough, to fool this system requires only that (when online) you:

(A) refrain from mentioning geographic locations at all
(b) mention the WRONG ones - like saying "mt vesuvius" when you actually mean "toledo"

oh . . my . . . . god. i hope the terrorists didn't just read my post. DAMN MY HACKERESQUE POWERS OF GENIUS!

Re:How it Works - and what it means

[lutefish]

Mentioning the wrong place name works fine if they're not using a graphical traceroute while they're compiling the information.

Re:How it Works - and what it means

[Eudial]

Or simply syntax your mails like this:

Hello dave, i'm going to see my aunt in florida next week, so i'll look forward to meeting you...
-
append a handwritten image of your actual message with alot of noise (junk, say a picture of a cat or a car or something) in the background. Heh, atleast my scanner text-recognition can't read it =P

Re:whats so funny

[Anonymous Coward]

the u.s. is becoming the number one conflict zone with every day that passes.

bush administration and all their secret background supporters and who really are in charge are gonna doom this planet real soon now.

have a good laaf again, when u'll finaly realize this.

No longer land of the free

[hey]

We're all under house arrest now.

re

[include clue.h]

Doh. Now all those government types are going to suss me as a computer-nerd. /must protect tin-foil hat from big-brother investigations.

Apathy

[Alioth]

The problem is that you have to work very hard at freedom and democracy et al. The natural ground state for human society is totalitarian dictatorship, and free and open societies are really exceptional cases.

People would much rather be safe than free, by and large. Most people will gladly give up all their important freedoms if it means they have safety (or just the illusion of it). People generally prefer to follow the path of least resistance too - another factor that works against freedom since you must work at staying free.

Expect more of these schemes to come into action with the majority of the public either not caring (path of least resistance) or just accepting (safety over freedom) the changes. If we want to make sure these schemes don't keep adding up, bit by bit, be prepared for an uphill struggle.

Re:Apathy

[gavri]

The natural ground state for human society is totalitarian dictatorship, and free and open societies are really exceptional cases.

huh? how do you figure this out?

Re:Apathy

[Alioth]

By having some basic knowledge of world history. Things like the US constitution is the exception - not the norm.

Re:Apathy

[gavri]

I accept that free and open societies, as you say, are exceptional cases, but i don't agree that 'totalitarian dictatorship' is the ground state ('The state of least possible energy'). Democracy is the ground state.
Dictatorship is forever at the risk of a revolt.It is less stable than a democracy.

Re:Apathy

[Anonymous Coward]

The natural ground state for human society is totalitarian dictatorship, and free and open societies are really exceptional cases.

Examine your thesis in the context of popular uprisings. if people truly preferred safety to freedom, would they rise up against their totalitarian government? Did they realize that they are no safer under a tightly controlled system than they were under an open one?

Humans are strongly oriented towards building collaborative social structures which raise the value of society as a whole. It's not always obvious, but there's good evidence to suggest that in the long run, social complexity (meaning more individual connectedness) will tend to improve quality of life and resist consolidation of resources. I believe that this will be borne out, though it will likely be over the course of years beyond any lifetime.

I do agree with your initial statement, however... democracy *is* hard work, or at least, it requires more work than most people want to put into it, and that's a critical concern.

Amendment IV The Bill of Rights

[NoGuffCheck]

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

nuff said!

Bleh

[stratjakt]

You can't stop people from gathering information. If I want to get out a spiral notebook and a pencil and start writing down every liscense plate number I see and descriptions of the drivers, I can.

What's needed is systems in place to ensure that the information is not abused, and punishments for abuse.

Like the Do Not Call list. I was bombarded with telemarketers before it went into affect (you need only buy a home to get every mortgage agent in the universe to start calling). Now they've completely stopped. Do I care that people can go find out how much I owe on my mortgage? Not really.

Outsourcing

[somethinghollow]

Why didn't they just give DoubleClick the bid? They already seem to have the tracking thing down.

Convenience in Law Enforcement

[4of12]

The government and international security agencies have a desire to find, track and sometimes arrest people. Our system can be used to find them across the globe.

There will be some people who will feel more re-assured that such an effort is underway, that the "terrorist" threat will be diminished by developing these kinds of technologies.

These are the same people who will give you a confused look when you mention that the government of the Peoples Republic of China is very interested in exactly the same technology for exactly the same stated purpose.

This will create a new disinformation industry

[Anonymous Coward]

An industry to put documents in various locations
ostensively from a certain person but really not.
All with the purpose of messing up their software.

Don't buy stock in Reynolds;

[Morologous]

Because they could find out that you're a non-conforming individual.

And don't buy your foil with a debit or credit card! Pay cash only, and don't use a loyalty card. Best to wear a disguise while you're at it. Too many cameras. Take the bus to the store, but don't redeem a bus ticket, use coins -- but only ones you've wiped down to remove fingerprints. And don't leave from your home, or your office; leave from a neutral public site! And whatever you do, don't look up. Those spy satellites could recognize your face if you do, and then it would be all in vain.

Pity the poor uninformed conspiricy theorist who wears his tinfoil hat to prevent mind-control but forgets all of the paper trail that he leaves when he buys his tinfoil.

Bush Economy II

[Quantum-Sci]

a new system for tracking individuals based on their electronic presence.

My god. Not only do they tip up the U.S. Treasury and shake it empty, but they also want to track everyone as we try find a job? Double-plus ungood.

Any remaining Party members should have a look at this. We have been raped and robbed, repeatedly, and we should start publicizing it, and see to ars publicum, as they have seen to their radical self-interest, for so long.

{foil hat}
This in mind, I offer a deeply cynical view of this Senate ricin episode:
- In 2001 several middle-left congressmen and newspeople were targeted with anthrax, which was truly deadly because it was extremely fine and it had a special exotic treatment on each particle to cause it to fly airborne. It could even pass through the pores in an envelope.
- Now "gray granules" of ricin are found in envelopes to conservatives.
- Only an idiot would think granules would be a real threat. The kind of idiot who would leave fingerprints on the envelope and DNA in the glue, which is not the case here.
- U.S. Gen Tommy Franks recently said that the Constitution "may have to be suspended if there's another major terrorist attack".
- Some are concerned that the 2008 elections may be suspended on grounds of national security; but hopefully it won't be the 2004 elections instead? If Kerry or Edwards is too strong?
- With the blame made this time on 'linux hippies?
{/foil hat}

Re:Amendment IV The Bill of Rights

[Tackhead]

> The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated [ ... ] (emphasis poster's)

So close, and yet so far, from the truth.

RTFWW. Read the fucking Weasel Word.

It says "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated [ ... ]" (Emphasis mine)

Nowhere does it say the people have any say in defining what's reasonable. The Legislature does the defining. The Executive does the searching. Where it's not clear whether a search was reasonable and a warrant was not issued, the Judicial branch determines if the Executive crossed the line.

If I made an ad that says the Yugo is the fastest car, you'd be able to sue me for false advertising. If I made an ad that says the Yugo is the fastest car in its class.

The fact that the Yugo is a Class I.3c.55.X vehicle - "Imported 4-cylinder sub-sub-sub-compacts, maximum safe speed 55 miles per hour, resale value of less than scrap value" - is a little detail I choose to leave out. Determining how many classes there are, and what class the Yugo is in, is an exercise for the student.

Likewise with "unreasonable".

Re:Support the SAFE act

[Anixamander]

This may seem a touch off topic, but if you are interested in helping fix some of the problems introduced by the PATRIOT act, you should urge your congressperson to support the SAFE act. Details and an easy way to send a fax to your congressperson here

Where there is secrecy, there is no democracy.

[Futurepower(R)]

The U.S. government has secret agencies. Their funding is secret, their objectives are secret, and their methods are secret. The CIA, the NSA, the FBI, and other agencies whose names are secret operate everywhere in the world. They interfere with the politics of other countries. They sometimes arrange to kill leaders or destroy property.

The secrecy began in the 1940s when oil companies asked the British and U.S. governments to protect their interests. The countries in which they operated began claiming the oil and oil facilities for themselves. On the one hand, it is easy to see that the oil companies did not like their property taken from them without sufficient payment. On the other hand, the oil companies were paying very little for the oil, so the countries felt robbed.

The U.S. and British governments began trying to help the U.S. and British oil companies by operating in secret. For example, the U.S. government's CIA agency overthrew a democratically elected president in Iran. The U.S. government supported a violent government instead, that of the Shah of Iran. Years later, Iranians objected, and the Iranian government began terrorist activities as a way of retaliating against continued secret U.S. government operations in Iran.

The present terrorism against the U.S. people is the result of the U.S. government's secret violence. About a year ago, I hastily put together a short, incomplete history that shows what happened: History surrounding the U.S. war with Iraq: Four short stories.

Those who work for the U.S. government's secret agencies have a huge conflict of interest. If they cause trouble, or if they find some trouble and help make it bigger, they are promoted. If they help assure that everyone lives together in peace, they become less important, and some lose their jobs. So there is a terrific pressure for them to cause trouble.

Democracy is founded on openness. If a government can do things without the approval or even the knowledge of its people, it is not a democracy. Therefore the secret side of the U.S. government has, in part, overthrown the real U.S. government.

How corrupt is the U.S. government? Here's just one example: Mr. Dick Cheney, who is now vice-president of the U.S., was once head of an oil company called Halliburton. Mr. Cheney went into the U.S. defense department, and while there, arranged that secretly awarding contracts would no longer be illegal. Later it was arranged that Halliburton would secretly get a contract for work in Iraq. Then the U.S. government invaded Iraq, with no reason, as we are now seeing.

It's important to understand that oil companies do not want the oil. They want the oil profits. The U.S. government's war in Iraq has allowed U.S. companies to get Iraq oil profits. Before, the oil profits went to Iraqis. The amount of oil coming from Iraq to the world has remained somewhat the same.

Anyone who reads this should understand that there may be inaccuracies due to the fact that secret government agencies are sometimes able to keep their operations secret, or are able to mislead the public about what they have done. The information here has been reported many times by many well-respected news agencies, and is believed completely accurate.

Re:Where there is secrecy, there is no democracy.

[scampiandchips]

Have you been watching swordfish?? Actually you are pretty much on the right track, i used to work for a major oil contractor and whenever negotiations got a little *tough* i.e. the locals wouldn't do what was wanted. All the negotiators used to call it a day go back to the hotel for a few days and hey presto new locals to negotiate with... 'Where Vultures feast' is a very accurate book -its easy to be calm when your sitting on top of a mountain and having nothing better to do

Loss of privacy good thing

[sckeener]

Losing privacy is not the problem. Having the data linked to individuals is the problem. Law makers need to know what their voters want.

I think anonymous stats could help to free us, but I fear data being linked to small groups like individuals.

A good example of anonymous stats is when anthropologists ask about your drinking habits and then go to the local dump to confirm the results....that you drink a ton.

The trick is to keep it anonymous, but those types of stats can show law makers what their voters really care about...

Classic Red Herring

[Wun Hung Lo]

In World War II we were fighting nations with governments. There were central authorities that could be identified as leading these governments and it was easy to tell when they were defeated and the war was over. The war on terror CAN'T EVER BE WON. Terrorism has no central authority or borders. Anyone with a cause , a weapon and the will to use it can be a terrorist. Didn't you ever read George Orwell's 1984 where the country was in a never-ending war with an un-named enemy and if you questioned it you were unpatriotic. It's very scary how easily people are willing to throw their freedoms away.

What about indirect censorship?

[lysium]

"I'm actually much more concerned about the government's ability and willingness to repress political speech..."

If I recall correctly, protesters in the US are corralled into tightly-secured pens, with ranks of riot police on all sides, helicopters\snipers lurking overhead, and undercover agents in the crowd around you. So technically, everyone is allowed to voice their dissent. But the rules are designed to discourage as many people as possible. Do you want to be penned, covertly photographed, and possibly get 'swept up' by being near the wrong people?

We may have more freedom of political expression than, say, China, but that freedom depends upon anonymity -- or do people keep the curtain wide open when they vote? Does everyone make it a point to inform their employer of their political opinions (especially the unpopular ones)?

" I'm more annoyed on a practical every day basis with the nosy neighbors than I am with US Bank's selling my credit card purchase information ..."

You do not see the connection between 'nosy neighbors' and a nosy government? Astounding.

=============

Re:What about indirect censorship?

[swb]

If I recall correctly, protesters in the US are corralled into tightly-secured pens, with ranks of riot police on all sides, helicopters\snipers lurking overhead, and undercover agents in the crowd around you. So technically, everyone is allowed to voice their dissent. But the rules are designed to discourage as many people as possible. Do you want to be penned, covertly photographed, and possibly get 'swept up' by being near the wrong people?

This only happens at extremely high profile events or events with high security concerns. Ordinary run of the mill protests happen all the time without any barricades or other limitations on freedom of expression. And I might add that this would be even less common if the WTO protesters hadn't decided instead to become *rioters* and smash downtown Seattle. Now there's a lot of concern (some legitimate) from locals when one of these high profile gigs comes to down that a bunch of out of towners are going to come in and wreck shit that the locals have to pay for (stores, signs, businesses, cars).

Furthermore, I hardly think the Europeans have a lock on free and open dissent. World Economic Forum in Switzerland? They practically walled it off. When the WTO met in Italy a couple of years ago, they LITERALLY walled it off with shipping containers, and a lot people were hurt and I believe a couple KILLED in protests and action by the police. I've never seen a water cannon used against US protestors (nor am I aware of any ownership of them by any police department) since limited use of firehoses against protesters in the 1960s (the symbolism of which probably limits their use to this day).

Re:What about indirect censorship?

[Ben Hutchings]

"Limited use of firehoses", eh? How about the shooting of protestors at Kent State in 1970.

Re:What about indirect censorship?

[swb]

OK, you've named one, extremely infamous, case from one of the most violent eras of modern American social history, for which there is an equally infamous European counterpart -- the Bloody Sunday shooting in Northern Ireland. And that doesn't even count the British detentions without charge, targeted assassinations, and so on.

I wouldn't say that the US doesn't have some infamous moments in crowd control, but I also don't think it represents a pattern of repression of public protest. While America had race riots in the 1940s, a lot of Europeans were committing genocide on massive scale. Who looks worse?

Re: Self-funded Agencies

[Quantum-Sci]

Most people don't know that many U.S. agencies like the INS, are completely self-funded through fees.

Fewer people know that the CIA et al, own numerous key businesses worldwide, and this comprises a major source of shadow income for them.
It means that they are essentially not accountable to us, and can become as strong s they want.

Is internet anonymity a right?

[mjh]

I don't mean to enrage the slashdotistas, but I find myself wondering why I should care about this. I don't personally view anonymity on the Internet as a right. It's nice and convenient sometimes, but not a right. So, it means that I have to be careful about the things that I do on the Internet. If I do something that makes me a target of a criminal investigation, isn't it a good thing to be able to track me?

Of course, there's a limit to this. Law enforcement should not be able to track anyone for any reason. They should only track those for whom they have sufficient cause. But that's true in the non-cyber world, too. In the non-cyber world, if you do something that provides justification for tracking, you have no right to anonymity. Ted Kaczynski did not have a right to anonymity after he started planting bombs. Just because Ted Kaczynski gets tracked doesn't mean that everyone should be tracked. But at the same time, just because there are limits on who to track doesn't mean that we shouldn't track Ted Kaczynski.

So my question is this: how is the internet different? Shouldn't law enforcement be able to track criminals on the internet? If controls can be put in place to prevent tracking anyone for any reason, shouldn't we encourage being able to track suspected criminals?

Re:Is internet anonymity a right?

[scampiandchips]

I see it as a question of the ease of tracking, I think it is basically a necessity of civilized society that if a criminal agency needs to track you it should be able to. At the moment its a non-trivial task to go about tracing someone who doesn't want to be found, so it only gets done in serious instances.

With the advent of all these new tracking systems, centralised global databases it data gathering becomes much easier, faster and more accessible. Its *this* that makes poorly thought out systems so dangerous as it vastly improves the potential its got to be abused.
What worries me the most is the fact that when government agencies go out to to contract usually the cheapest or their best buddy; and have a laughable record at dealing with sensitive information that isn't about them.

Re:Is internet anonymity a right?

[lysium]

Shouldn't law enforcement be able to track criminals on the internet?

Sure they should. Now define 'criminal' for me. Before you do, I can confidently state that what you consider criminal and what I consider criminal are going to be different; which one of us gets to make the determination?

Would you consider Dr. Martin Luther King & associates criminal? He was viewed as one by people in law enforcement, and was closely monitored. Do you see what the real problem is, yet?

================

Re:Is internet anonymity a right?

[mjh]

A suspected criminal is someone who law enforcement has reasonable cause to believe has broken the law.

And, no, I don't see the problem yet. MLK is a really bad example. He was trying to draw attention to bad laws by intentional, non-violant disobediance to the law. The *entire* point was to get thrown in jail for stupid things, in order to gain support for changing stupid laws.

But let's imagine someone who law enforcement was illegally tracking. We'll call him Bob. That law enforcement is tracking Bob is a failure of law enforcement. Our reaction to that should be to put stronger controls on law enforcement. It isn't to completely take away law enforcement's ability to track suspected criminals. What you're suggesting is that since law enforcement made a mistake with Bob, that they should be prohibited from tracking Ted Kaczynski.

Why should the failure of law enforcement in the Bob example prevent all law enforcement from tracking suspected criminals over the internet? Let's put controls on law enforcement that prevents them from abusing their ability to track people. Let's put those controls in place without regard to whether the tracking takes place in the real world or in the cyber world. In other words, lets keep the rules the same. If you break laws it shouldn't matter whether or not you did it in the real world or the cyber world.

I hear a lot of slahdotters saying that, in the name of "privacy", we should prevent all law enforcement from tracking all people at all times on the internet. That doesn't seem sensible to me. Law enforcement should have controls to prevent abuse, but legitimate law enforcement should be allowed to conduct tracking over the internet. I don't see how people on the internet should be subject to less scrutiny than people in the real world.

Re:Is internet anonymity a right?

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe it is a question of Freedom of Speech.

Censorship is the enemy of freedom of speech.

The Government watching what you do is not Censorship BUT when you know someone is watching there is a tendency to self-sensor.

There are things people don't say or do out of a sense of shame.

There are things that even grown adults won't talk about in front of their parents.

Maybe it is good that people have a sense of shame and don't do things for fear of what other people might think. There would probably be a lot less porn on the Internet if all the porn sights had to post the name address and telephone numbers of all the visitors to the site.

But there are times and places when people do not speak out of fear of the government or law enforcement. Again, maybe it would be good if the police could track every move of a child pornographer but there are times when anonymity is necessary:

A woman trying to find information about how to escape a wife-beating husband.

A woman seeking information about having abortion in a anti-abortion country/state/town/family.

Someone in a country like Iran that has "liberal" views.

Someone in America that is against the Patriot Act.
If I advocated the idea that even terrorists should be allowed to communicate completely anonymously over the Internet, I might be afraid to express that idea because I might be labelled as a supporter of terrorism.

If SCO had their way, all Linux users would be labelled as terrorists ( look how Daryl is trying to pin MyDoom on Linux users and then equating them with terrorists).

It might go so far that posting source code becomes a subversive act in the eyes of the government (maybe PGP,SSH code or code to embed messages in pictures a la the GIMP plugin available. All of these could be construed as aid to terrorists).
What if I wrote this and then deleted it because I thought maybe the FBI or NSA is monitoring Slashdot and I could get in trouble. If I decided not to post it out of fear that would be self censorship even if it was unfounded.

Fortunately Slashdot has this anonymous option. So I will post it even though I am a paranoid nut case.

Thats ok.

[Anonymous Coward]

Because in that case, the police can shoot people with guns and there can be a reason to take guns away from traffic cops, who are pretty stupid and shoot people who dont obey their "orders". So, shooting people would be the job of a special force and calling it into scene would put more scrutiny into the decision of shooting, not just some random cop who thinks the black guy running away or taking a wallet out of his pocket is carrying a gun and shoot to kill him. These killings btw are no more humane than 'stoning to death' sentences in saudi arabia.

Re:fp!

[Anonymous Coward]

Man, DARPA so unfashionable, they can't even spell PRADA right, an' junk.

Finally!

[rm -rf /etc/*]

Now Bill Gates really will give me $100 for forwarding the email!

I hear a snarling laugh from hell

[Catbeller]

Somewhere L. Ron Hubbard screams with laughter in the bowels of Heck.

Scientology rejoices today. There will be no way they do not obtain access to this tracking system.

I'm sure Reverend Moon (R-God on Earth), good friend of Bush, and owner of the Washington Times, will also receive his TrackYourEnemiesOnline! account userid and password at the same time the Doublecrossers will.

How would this system have stopped 40 men with boxcutters from crashing those planes?

This is a dream system for crushing dissidents. That's all it is.

The Internet Must Free Itself!

[baneblackblade]

People on the internet need to come together and declare the internet a new country! Then, we can make it illegal for any tracking like this to occur and take the US to the International Court for violating our nation's laws. In the Internet's constitution privacy and anonomity should be very important. if we get enough people to shout about it long enough, it might become official somehow. But things are only going to get worse if the internet and it's citizens do not take any action to uphold the safety of their nation.

Re:Law-abiding citizens - Er.. McCarthism?

[innerweb]

Anybody who thinks that this next little step is harmless, has a poor grasp of history. True, in and of itself, it may be mostly useless, but it is not in and of itself. It is a tool that augments a larger collection of tools to provide a "data" or "statistical" picture of a person, their habits and their wanderings.

What happens in the future when a person is in the same location as a terrorist, has a friend with a suspect background, and espouses unpopular (but legal) ideas. You can now arrest them. Circumstantial evidence links them to the terrorist (you can not avoid whom you do not know), they are saying "anti-government" ideals (not necessarily separatist or violent), and through enough weeding, the rest of the case will be found.

McCarthy destroyed many people who opposed him by using innuendo, circumstantial evidence and (lying) witnesses. Almost no one was able to beat him at his game because he had such an effective information collection and management system. That is where we are slowly headed, good intentions or not.

Right now, those in power would benefit immensely from this system. It makes it that much easier to stay in power if your potential enemies' weaknesses are that much easier to find. Do not think that this information system will not be abused. The RIAA has just provided us with many beautiful example of how this is abused by prosecuting minors. Children are not able to enter into legal agreements because it is agreed that they are incapable of understanding what the legal consequences are, let alone to be able to distinguish right from wrong (true, to some degree, most children know basic rights and wrongs, but more complicated ones are hard if not impossible for most children to grasp.) Other forms of this are profiling, poorly managed data at credit reporting agencies (Experian, Equifax and Trans Union required The Fair Credit Reporting Act to get them to do some things better) and so on

Oh, and for those of you who point to the police not being able to find criminals because they did not bother to look at the system, human error will always exist. This system allows a much different use of the data than what the typical police system has. Those tend to be much less complete, and the officers themselves often recieve little training and have even less support and experience doing this kind of research. The people to worry about with the systems being made today are in a different world from "on the street" law enforcement. They thrive on this kind of data mining. Most of the informarion McCarthy had on people was never used. He had it there just in case. It was how he controlled votes in the government and kept even his dark secrets out of the light. I am not worried that this will be used to arrest some innocent people nearly as much as I am worried that a smart person with a "bad" bent will learn how to gather and abuse this information to further corrupt the process in their favor. I do not think this is an if thing, but a when thing. Every tool gets abused. The more powerful the tool, the more powerful the abuse and the abuser.

The problems with my arguments are things like this abduction at Fox News. You would have to be a heartless bastard to not want a safer world for our children, our parents and our friends. With crime against innocents and defenseless individuals so rampant, it is very difficult to argue against this type of tool. It is a very similar to what McCarthy had with the Soviets and Cuba when he was in power.

This will be for finding the "innocent"

[NtroP]

It will start with being able to "find the guilty", people who already have a warrant for their arrest out for "crimes" discovered via other means.

But soon it will be used for trolling in general for anyone who "does something bad" online.

Let me ask you this:

• Have you ever read or downloaded any of those "survivalist" texts or "handbooks"?
• Have you, for any reason, ever stumbled accross Pr0n with participants of questionable age?
• Have you ever downloaded a krack or SN generator?
• Have you ever checked out those "virus creation programs"?
• Have you ever been pissed about something the "gubmint" did and perhaps "overstated" what you'd like to do about it online?
• Have you ever gotten a virus or malware on you box that started opening websites you never asked for?
• Have you ever [insert anything, which might become illegal in the future] online?

Although I'm a SysAdmin now, I've spent a good part of my youth "looking under rocks" on the internet out of [morbid?] curiosity. Some of it could be construed as "illegal" behavior - although I have never intentionally broken the law with any of the "knowledge" I've gotten from it.

If the Feds were to troll for my "surfing" habits, I'll bet I could be put on a watch list right now. Currently there are things like court orders limiting what can be gleaned and what can be done with the data once collected, but these checks and balances are quickly drying up.

For those who are quick to reach for their tin-foil hats (mine's right here) check out some fun, time-killin' reading. Errosion of privacy is one of his top points...

a gov't with too much power is a threat

[rbird76]

The Constitution was written to limit the power of a central gov't. The people who wrote it believed that government with a lot of power could very easily be turned to ends which are bad for the people it governs. Checks and balances and the specific limitations on government (the 9th or 10th Amendment to the US Constitution) are written with this in mind - the power from a government comes from the people, and the government can't do certain things even if the people want it to. The threat of bad and overly powerful government (or a gov't that claims power independent of its people) is independent of whether an individual has "something to hide" or whether he is good or bad. Bad governments start when the people running it decide that their power is independent of the people they serve, and the protections for individuals are designed to prevent this.

WWII had both a unity of purpose and a rationally perceivable threat that the "war on terror" does not; that isn't to say that there is not a threat, but that it is harder for people to determine where a particular threat exists and what is reasonable to do about it. WWII also had threats that could be mitigated; it isn't clear that terror can ever be gotten rid of. The advertisements by Homeland Security reinforce this - they essentially say, "Prepare, because we can't protect against all of the threats that might be out there". While DHS may be effective, there is no freedom that I can give up to be safe from terror (unless I give all of my freedom up). Giving up freedom (usually of others) to get security in this case is a fool's game.

The problem with the war on terror is that we won't ever be perfectly safe; the goals short of that which are acceptable are fuzzy. Giving up lots of freeedoms (or lots of freedoms for unpopular people) sacrifices the things that it claims to preserve - liberty and democracy. A gov't empowered independently of its people is likely to be worse for its people and for others than even the potential threats of terrorism. Ultimately, the stated job of the "War on Terror" is to preserve democracy and freedom; destroying both of those to attempt to preserve safety seems self-defeating. If we want to fight terrorism, we have to be careful that we don't destroy ourselves doing it.

Paging George Orwell...

[TR0GD0RtheBURNiNAT0R]

Can you say "1984"?

From the people who brought you the internet....

[Darth23]

...comes The End of Privacy and Freedom as We Know It!!!!

We know who you are,

we know where you are,

we know what you've been doing,

we know what you've been thinking

Have a Nice Day

zerg

[Lord Omlette]

This was discussed by George Paine in Your bank account, your liberties.

Hacker Unite

[sadler121]

Sounds simialr to that God-Aweful Movie Hackers. But seirously now, could the goverments in the world really be able to stop a world wide "revolution" on the internet? Especially it the so-called rebel troops where able to cover there tracks as best they could to avoid detection? I am all for revoluion, I afree with Thomas Jefferson that a little revolution is a good thing to keep the goverment in check. ;-) That being said, I was probably just put on the Gestopo's(Home Land Security) list of dangerous Americans for promoting revolution. Damn, wheres that tin foil hat of mine????

Spelling...

[sadler121]

Damn I have to get use to using that preview button. My spelling sucks really bad :-P I'll do better, I promise! **sits in corner with tin foil hat on**

CIA and the drug war

[sadler121]

Not to mention that the CIA is known for trafficing drugs for there black op's. ;-)

Shades of Iran/Contra, again

[Anonymous Coward]

Did people not notice this?!

1980's Iran-Contra

• CIA creates and funds Contra army for national security (anti-communism, Monroe doctine)
• Public uproar over methods, side-effects and open-loop decision to implement
• CIA project gets cancelled by Congress to stop program
• CIA funds project, sub rosa, through arms sale to Iran, to do the same thing
• Plan is discovered and causes big stink as being worse than the Contra plan

2000's TIA

• DARPA creates and funds TIA for national security (anti-terrorism)
• Public uproar over methods, side-effects and open-loop decision to implement
• DARPA TIA project gets cancelled by Congress to stop program.
• DARPA funds project, sub rosa, through another agency, NASA, to do the same thing.
• Plan is discovered and ....???

Common thread: Poindexter is in charge in both cases.

History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme - Twain

Re:Amendment IV The Bill of Rights

[Anonymous Coward]

True, and although IANAL, that term does come up a lot in law and is generally interpreted as a "resonable person" standard. Meaning that it is not up to the person making the claim to define resonable, but up to the courts to define what an average person would consider reasonable.

Your Yugo example would clearly not demonsrate a "reasonable" comparison.

It's what others will do

[truthsearch]

The problem's not what Papa Johns will do, it's what others will do. It now takes very little effort for the federal government to obtain your records from Papa Johns. Let's say you occassionally order pizzas to your secret hang-out spot. The government thinks the place where you just drink and eat pizzas with friends is a terrorist hang-out. You're now implicated with terrorists just for ordering a pizza.

Maybe it's not the government's right to know where I have my pizza delivered.

The Borg

[automaticlarynx]

This reminds me of the episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation where they go up against the Borg for the first time. They shoot at the one Borg guy, it's a direct hit, and he goes down. It they nail the second Borg guy too. The third one, though, generates a shield against the good guy's phasers and the shot just bounces right off. The good guys then realize that the Borg adapt to whatever they'll throw at them after a few shots.

Their solution was to do something that they called something like a "random phase fluctuation" on their phasers. Now, while that's just typical Trek techno-babble, the idea is a neat one.

What happens if a spam filter uses a different randomly generated algorithm every minute? Could that solve this problem?

Re:The Borg

[maxwell demon]

Are you sure you are posting to the right article?

To answer your question in the current context: No, spam filters will not stop the government to collect data about you (well, unless you manage them to be installed there and "detecting" all your mails as uninteresting spam not worth of wasting tracking software ressources on :-))

Re:The Borg

[automaticlarynx]

Woah. Wrong article. Whoops!

Re:The Borg

[pentalive]

no, you are correct. The Borg have no privacy as well.

Tracking whom?

[Maljin Jolt]

Almost 1/3 of the planet population are illiterates who are payed less than 1 dollar per year. I doubt internet will be for any good use in tracking THESE people...

Probably, the best tracking results such system will produce for rich americans, making it a perfect tool for, eh, I am afraid to say it...

Hmm...

[Loki_1929]

As an American citizen, a patriot, and a human being, I find this entire concept offensive.

There is a growing effort amoung governments, especially the United States, Brittain, and Australia to reduce the sum of a human being's existence to database entries and reports. Within the context of "databasing" (to 'verb' the word) the human experience, there is an implied range of that which is to be considered "normal". Those falling outside that which is considered normal (as defined by those in power at any given time) are to be subject to additional scrutiny, regardless of whether any criminal acts are even suspected. With this new trend, we also see other fairly new changes occuring. Probably the two most important changes are the loss of the presumption of innocence, and the warped relationship between the people and their government. Ordinary folks no longer feel as though they control their government. Instead, they feel the need to stay out of their government's way to avoid being cast into the dungeons. It is truly miraculous to have transformed this nation from a government actually ruled by ordinary people to a burgeoning police state within a mere two centuries. I spend more time worrying about the actions of John Ashcroft than I do worrying about the actions of Osama bin Laden. The worst bin Laden can do to me is take my life. Ashcroft, and perhaps more frightening, Bush, appear unsatisfied with simply providing the best protection possible under the law and the Constitution. What they could do far outweighs anything bin Laden could ever hope to accomplish. They can, and appear ready to, fundamentally alter the very nature of liberty and how a human being is conceptualized by terrifying the nation and blackmailing the Congress. Their Final Solution appears to be using technology to track every word, action, and thought of every person, every minute of every day, compile it all into a databse, and use that information to glean who is worthy of not spending the rest of their life behind bars. They seem content with removing the judiciary from the entire process, and perhaps the Congress as well should their power ever meet a Congressional check. Somehow or other, they have even managed to get some states thinking that this is in some way, shape, or form a Good Idea. It is not. When you create a system such as this, and you then remove the checks and balances necessary to correct mistakes, you must believe that the system is perfect. When you use a "perfect" system for "law enforcement", you have Minority Report. The side effect of compiling a person's life into a database (or "databasing" them) is that any human dignity or value is lost. The person is no longer a person, but rather a row. The person becomes a series of numbers - of digits - to be moved about, locked away, or "deleted" at the will of the system's resident operator. The end result is a system in which terrorism is no longer a threat because there is nothing left to threaten. Life without liberty is meaningless and without value.

Repeat after me:

I am NOT a database entry.
I am a human being.
I have value and dignity.
I will fight every effort to reduce my God-given value and dignity.
I will win.


Liberty is now, and always will be more important than life. Taking away my liberty to save my life is like removing my head to save my body. In the war against terrorism, George Bush and John Ashcroft are leading us to a whole new level of meaning for the term 'Pyrrhic Victory'. Looking at the damage done in the past two years, I don't know if this country can take another four. As a person with a very deep love for my country, my heart weeps for our nation.

could be a two edge sword

[pinkfalcon]

I don't like the idea of tracking myself, but at least if it's there can we please use it to track and execute all the spammers...Thank you

Where's Osama (Off-Topic)...

[Dr.Dubious DDQ]

Since September 11, US security agencies have increasingly turned to technology to help them process website postings, internet chat and e-mail traffic....and still no sign of Osama Bin Laden.

For some strange reason, whenever I put on my Aluminum Foil Deflector Beanie I find myself wondering if they don't already KNOW where Osama is but they're putting off going in to 'get' him until the most politically advantageous time. Say, a couple of months before the US Presidential election?...

Google

[mr100percent]

Eh, they should just use google. Now the government is going to compete with Microsoft and Yahoo to beat Google? Google already catches Most Wanted criminals.

Re:Amendment IV The Bill of Rights

[Tackhead]

> True, and although IANAL, that term does come up a lot in law and is generally interpreted as a "resonable person" standard. Meaning that it is not up to the person making the claim to define resonable, but up to the courts to define what an average person would consider reasonable.
>
> Your Yugo example would clearly not demonsrate a "reasonable" comparison.

My Yugo example might not. But 90% of automobile advertisements rely on precisely the same tactic.

"Voted best car in its class". "Car of the year in its class". "Safest car in its class". "Most protection against side impact in its class".

These classes have some meaning - in that I'd expect a car in the "SUV" class to be safer in side impact (and more hazardous in rollover) than the "Sport" class. But a lot of the "class" division in the auto world exists so that there are a lot of #1 awards that affiliated organizations can hand out to their advertisers and sponsors.

"SCO! #1 UNIX in its class!" (The class of operating systems from companies that are litigious bastards)

That's spacious reasoning

[filmsmith]

There've already been several great replies to your troll, but I felt the need to try to put it in terms you were least likely to misunderstand:

Homer: Not a bear in sight. The Bear Patrol must be working like a
charm.
Lisa: That's spacious reasoning, Dad.
Homer: Thank you, dear.
Lisa: By your logic I could claim that this rock keeps tigers away.
Homer: Oh, how does it work?
Lisa: It doesn't work.
Homer: Uh-huh.
Lisa: It's just a stupid rock.
Homer: Uh-huh.
Lisa: But I don't see any tigers around, do you?
[Homer thinks of this, then pulls out some money]
Homer: Lisa, I want to buy your rock.
[Lisa refuses at first, then takes the exchange]

Dig?

fs

Re:That's spacious reasoning

[Anonymous Coward]

not to be rude, but don't you mean specious ?

Re:That's spacious reasoning

[filmsmith]

Yes, thank you. In my haste, I mistakenly typed an 'a.'

fs

p.s. And it wasn't a bit rude. I honestly appreciated it.

Why the terrorists won.

[Tokerat]

In the end, I believe the terrorists did win. We are now forced to slowly move towards Big Brother. We have to rethink our open, free borders.

I wonder if that was their plan all the long, or a side-effect fortunate to them. Let's look at it: The big stress point in the middle east is the Israel/Palistine conflict. We stuck our noses in the whole mess, probably because of a large influence of the Jewish-American community. Now, the Muslim world hates us for "aiding the infidels", and of course we can't forget all that other fun stuff we've been doing in Iraq...they see foolish, greedy men come to power and decide to play mind games with war... a major terrorist attack on the United States. Once this happens, the foolish men decide to create a "protectionistic" society, with fewer freedoms but "so what, it's safer". Everntually, these foolish men (or others perhaps who succeed them) become abusive of their new power, and attempt more control, using the new rules to not only keep citizens safe from threats, but also to keep citizens from breaking even the most minor of laws, even when they aren't aware their actions where illegal. Of course, they're still doing it "for your own good", but honestly, most people break laws everyday. You don't yield or perhaps you download an MP3, etc...sometimes it's even by accident. Protectionism becomes over-protectionism and now the goal is for a utopian, crime-free scociety. People are imprisoned without trial for longer and longer, both due to a backup in the court system and the evil men's desire to keep things quiet. You could no longer tell which where men and which where pigs.

Eventually, people would start to catch on, and perhaps there will be a similar downfall to the United States as there was to the USSR.

We'd better wake up. Quickly. If all you patriotic Americans who love your country want to keep it, you'd better keep your eyes open, and the eyes of your congressional representatives as well.

"sometimes"

[Doc Ruby]

"...find, track and sometimes arrest people."

The US attracted some of the best people in the world for over 2 centuries, with its promise of "due process", "equal protection under the law", and accountability of government. It rose to supremacy on the tide of talent and integrity that flowed into it. Now it is jettisoning the rule of law as fast as possible, pursuing authority and war at the cost of liberty and justice.

Justice in the US has a rigorous foundation for protecting the rights of the public, even as it protects the minimum rights of the accused (which further protects the rights of the public). Protecting the rights of the accused allows justice to cast a wider net of suspects, by minimizing damage to those suspects not proven guilty. But now it's just a war for power, everywhere and in every way, by those who hold it against those billions of us with little. Find your own life preserver in the rising tide of fascism.

Re:"sometimes"

[ciphertext]

I'm curious as to your thoughts on the following:

If the information is freely available on the web, would it not be inevitable that the information would be used to track individuals (if not by the government then by corporate entites or individuals)? What rights would be violated by a system such as this? There is the obvious right to privacy, but if the information is publicly available on the net then it is doubtful that there is an expectation of privacy. Also, would such a tracking system be the logical extension of a "stake-out" designed to follow the individual? Perhaps it is closer to a "wire-tap" only it doesn't require a court order because there wouldn't be the "tapping" of private conversations.

Finally, I think that the "linch-pin" in the constitutionality of this system (if ever brought to trial) would revolve around the type of data used. In other words, if the data used is merely publicly available, free to all web data, then I don't think it would be possible to show an expectation of privacy. However, if the data used were something on the order of phone records (or other non-public information), I think there would be a strong case for regulation of this technology similar to how "wire-tapping" is regulated.

I'm interested in your thoughts.

Re:"sometimes"

[Doc Ruby]

I think that there's a difference between a person searching unconnected data, even using a text index like Google, and a government team of people using Google, or a more potent search engine. Governments have more actions, many coercive or worse, at their disposal, once they've obtained information, than do people. And people have a right to liberty, while "to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed". People have more rights than do governments, in a just society.

If a person were to search Google, or any public information, and then do what governments do, like send out police, investigate private documents, invade countries, or any other exercise of power, they would be in a lot of trouble pretty quick, and probably be stopped - hence the deterrent that preempts such actions. But once governments are in motion, it's very difficult to stop them, with tremendous damage done regardless of justice, or even positive benefits, like catching criminals. So limiting the rights of government workers, to less than their civilian rights, is necessary to preserve justice and liberty.

In America, we have lots of immediate problems that are a legacy of complacency in vigilance of the primacy of rights of the individual. People are supposed to all be equal under the law in the US. But corporations are now first-class citizens, primary above people. So their owners have more rights than noncorporate people, when acting through their corporations. As "synthetic legal people", corporations can act the same way as people with the same rights, but have very limited liability. You cannot arrest a corporation, or execute it. Corporations are never "minors", with limited rights while they "learn the ropes". The rights:liabilites ratio of people and corporations (and the people who control them) are completely reversed, and so liberty suffers in every way.

Governments, in turn, have been addled in this hierarchy. It's supposed to be #1: people, #2: government. But introducing corporations at the top, it becomes #1: corporations, #2: government, #3: people. Flipping the priority not only allows government to subjugate people, but also allows corporations to evade government.

What we need is a revolution, not violent, but legal, similar to the legal revolution that threw King George III out of the US. We must enforce suspension of corporate charters as a parallel to human incarceration and execution, but more readily than to people. We must enforce new laws to prevent the shuffling of liability by corporate people, unavailable to people with whom they compete. The biggest problem in this campaign is the international scope of corporate power, now that this American invention roams the globe at will. Until we do, we will be the lowest entity on the food chain.

Re:I support your ideas

[Anonymous Coward]

Moderators call this a flame bait! ok.. now I know no one can save your thought process.

Just disregard the poisonous mail in the corner

[lysium]

There have been no other strikes at America since 9/11

Yeah, those deadly letters that keep showing up in Washington DC are nothing to get upset about. As we can all see, the sender is cowering before the power of the Patriot Act. Those enhanced police powers really solved that mystery, eh?

============

freedom is slavery

[Doc Ruby]

Ironic that DARPA has hired "MetaCarta" for its global surveillance, while the "Magna Carta" is the cornerstone of individual liberty and freedom from tyranny of the state. Never has limited government meant such unlimited government.

"WAR IS PEACE

FREEDOM IS SLAVERY

IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH"
- Karl Rove (just kidding)

USA make shit up

[Burn42]

I was stranded in the desert, just me and Saddam
We met an irate Iraqi who locked our asses up
We found a hunk of uranium and a metal piece of bed
We made a downright dirty bomb and blew off his freaking head

Bust a move, Bin

I was standing in the oval office when Ashcroft came to me
His eyes were full of tears he said "Georgie, can't you see
the trade center is gonna blow we gotta strike them back"
I grabbed a crayon, construction paper and drew the patriot act.

And I say,
Bounce an anti-missile beam off the main satellite dish
That's the way we do things, lad, we're making shit up as we wish
The Al'Qaeda and the Iraqis pose no threat to us
'Cause if we find we're in a bind we just make some shit up

And though he's just a child, and some think him a twit
Georgies the master when it comes to making up some shit
He's the guy you want with you when you go out on the sand
Now if only when we walked along he would let go of Cheney's hand

And if you're at a party in good ol Austin Tex.
And your popular vote seems like a plane wreck
Call Jeb to screw with the voting cards and gibber randomly
Hold tight to the electoral vote, you'll soon rule totally

And I say
Bounce an anti-missile beam off the main satellite dish
That's the way we do things, lad, we're making shit up as we wish
The Al'Qaeda and the Iraqis pose no threat to us
'Cause if we find we're in a bind we just make some shit up

Ashcroft's on a mission to go no bleeding place
He watches from a spy satellite above Iraq's airspace
We sent in our tanks and now they flee in dread
We'll keep the Sunni but please send back ol Bin Laden's head.

What is with the enemy, remember in the day
They looked like clean cut skinflints and wore tight beret's
Now they tend to wear a robe and towel from a dry place
With no loin cloths, hairy legs and rodents on their face

And I say
Bounce an anti-missile beam off the main satellite dish
That's the way we do things, lad, we're making shit up as we wish
The Al'Qaeda and the Iraqis pose no threat to us
'Cause if we find we're in a bind we just make some shit up

I say
Bounce an anti-missile beam off the main satellite dish
That's the way we do things lad, we're making shit up as we wish
The Al'Qaeda and the Iraqis pose no threat to us
'Cause if we find we're in a bind we're totally screwed but nevermind
We'll pull something out of our behinds; we just make some shit up

TIA database reincarnated?

[Anonymous Coward]

This sounds strangely familiar - how about the Total Information Awareness database. I thought the Senate had shot that one down?

http://news.com.com/2100-1023-981945.html

Maybe they just voted for a "repackaging" to stifle the cries of the people?

please

[Anonymous Coward]

the ability to track you based on IP address is no different from the ability to track you based on the address attached to the front of your house or your telephone number. Even cell phones can have their signal triangulated. It's when proper measures aren't put in place to regulate when a 3 letter organization (FBI, CIA, NSA, AFI, etc.) can read your email or capture your data stream for decryption (both being similar to a wire tap on your run of the mill analog phone line) that we have a problem.

The only thing this article talks about is deducing where you're emailing from based on context clues. If you are not a citizen of the united states, you have no right to think that a transmission you send INTO the united states isn't going to be looked at by any and every organization within the US government. If you are not a citizen of the united states, you do not have the same right to privacy (from the government) that US citizen enjoy. I'm not judging this good or bad, I'm just stating the facts: by definition, non-american citizens do not enjoy the same protections and privileges of american citizens.

keep in mind that the article isn't talking about tracking you based on IP or somesuch. it just talks about determining location based on context clues in your email. I don't think that the government is going to have any more success at finding terrorists this way than corporate america has had with filtering spam. The technology can't be all that different. Consider that there's an entire MARKET for spam filters and the like. How many genius programmers are working on the problem of building a better moustrap for spam? How much success have they had? How many fewer people are working on this new defence project? Isn't this kind of work assigned to the lowest bidder anyways?

This project too shall be mothballed the first time SEAL TEAM 9 storms grandma's house smack dab in the middle of "CSI: Miami" due to terrorist "location spoofing."

IANAL, but I don't think that it's illegal for the government to know where you are at all times. It's illegal for the government to know what you're doing at all times. The latter is called invasion of privacy. The former falls under the classification of "you're going to have to cross a public sidewalk sooner or later...and the government owns THAT."

Put all those spam zombies to good use...

[IrishMist]

...make them send semi-random nonsense to each other and defeat the system.

Oh, they do that already? Never mind. I've left enough clues if the Feds want to come and find me me.

Our cargo transportation is more important

[LuvBunni]

than tracking online payments. Terrorists aren't dumb enough to use their real credit cards. It's all a marketing scam and a tracking tool for the Government. What is more scary is that terrorists can ship uranium without any hassle. http://abcnews.go.com/sections/wnt/Primetime/sept1 1_uranium030910.html

Have you ever: +1, Super-patriotic

[Anonymous Coward]

Posted anything on Slashdot that is critical of the
current "President" George W. Bush?

I have. You should, too.

Regards,
Kilgore Trout

So the government wants to track me?

[Berrik]

Hope they don't complain when I lead them straight to goatse ;)

Berrik

missed the mark on this one!

[Anonymous Coward]

I've used metacarta with Esri software for a while now, and I can safely say that it is a great program, but not at all what the poster of this article has made it out to be, not by a long shot.

It's not tracking software at all. It's actually a rather simplistic yet brilliant system for spatially referencing text. trying to track an individual with it would be totally pointless. Anyhow,you'd still have to get the data, and all you get is a geographic sense of where information about that person is located.

Wake up, Re

[kknapp]

If you do not believe that there IS, and ALWAYS HAVE been, some sort of programs monitoring everyones activities on the Internet you must not have been paying attention to your History lessones.

When the Cold War was at it's highest, computers were already being used by militaries around the world. Do you think that J. Edgar Hoover didn't implement plans. What about the CIA, or NSA. If you can not imagine any of them do it what about the KGB or MI6.

All of these are the people that hide infomatioin from themselves and thier governments for "Security" or any of a handfull of reasons that they only have to justify to themselves.

As any Network Admin can tell you if you can tap into the data stream you can see everything that goes past that point. When you are talking about globle commuications there are only a few places that the data can come into or out of each country. An easy example would be the telephone backbone that connects both North America and Eurpoe.

The US government, i.e. the Military, can without breaking any existing laws tap all those points that come into or out of the US, just by deciding that it is a "Threat to the Security of the United State...". This is without letting anyone know they are doing it.

Even with current encryption, which is trully impressive. They can if they choose, put not only one but as many Super Computers as they wish to breaking it. With the current speeds of PC's and such projects as openMosix and Beowulf eveyone should have one who wants one. I only have 16 nodes and can crack passwords at 20 a day, of course that is only DES64 passwords, but I'm doing it with computers that are too slow to be usefull as desktops.

If We the people of the United States want to have any sort of privacy we need to ensure it for ourself just as our fore fathers wanted us too. If everyone used encrypted connections and encrypted thier email. Along with AIM and such clients allowing for establishing encrypted connections. We would not need to worry about it as much.

When our fore fathers wrote the constitution all we needed to ensure our privacy was a gun. Now we need a Gun and PGP with VPN and encrypted file systems.

I think that the government needs to be able to do what ever it needs to do, as long as the results do not harm my way of life. I know that they are spying. I also know that no matter what they say or what we try to do, they cannot take the risk of not doing it.

The problem comes when they let any of that information become anything less than a State Seceret. When that information is only used for the "Safty of the Nation" it should not have an effect on any crime commited inside the US or any other Country. Your local drug dealers or mp3 downloader will not be slowed or stopped.

If you want to have privacy on the net, then install and setup encrypted servers and clients. Tell your friends to do the same, if the refuse then refuse any connections or emails from them. With all the current apps out there you can set most of it up in the background and you never have to do anything more than except new keys. Once you get someone using it they will never stop.

As far as freedom of speech, if you are posting something that is likly to get the attention of Big Brother to the point where they will come after you, then you were stupid it do it from somewhere they can trace you to, it's your own damn fault.

If Osama uses a computer and post to public fourms and he gets caught doing it, go U.S.. If the U.S. doesn't find him but finds 10 other cell leaders because the don't have the resources to hide better, who cares.

I don't do anything that would call the attention of the government to me, the MPAA maybe. It's not the government that I worry about it's the private companies with lawers that worry me.

They are the ones who want these laws, they are the ones who are spending the money to make these laws

Is Heisenberg spinning in his grave? Check!

[uxo]

corebreech:

No, if anything, this system will actually increase the amount of criminal activity, whether terrorism or kidnapping, or crimes in between. It only serves to aggregrate power from the many onto the very few, which means more corruption and less representative government, which in turn means more disillusionment, apathy and frustration.

Does this theory hold water?

Has the Amber Alert System led to more kidnappings?

Or do photo radar vans lead to more speeding?

Maybe the I.R.S.'s heuristics to detect fraud lead to more tax cheats?

No wait, survellience cameras increase shoplifting?

How about dusting for fingerprints causes more murders?

No. Obviously, criminals/terrorists will adapt their modus operandi in response to such a system. (OBL, for example, probably doesn't talk on clear cell phones anymore.) But to suggest a forensic tool like VICAP actually causes the crime it seeks to analyze, through social backlash, is invalid, I think.

Public vs Private

[uxo]

B'Trey:

You want safety more than you do privacy, but in reality you will have neither.

You don't have a "right" to privacy outside the confines of your person, home or automobile. Everything you do in public is legally subject to scrutiny. Wouldn't you say the Internet is every bit as much public as the town square? All you have right now is the illusion of privacy. And things like Carnivore and MetaCarta destroy that pretty little illusion.

Really, I could understand Slashdotters getting their panties in a bunch over the Patriot Act if it defined a terrorist as "a pimply overweight geek who lives in his parents' basement and likes to argue over Star Trek trivia". Then you'd really have something to worry about. ;-)

THE BILL OF RIGHTS:

Amendment IV

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

And another thing: said right does not mean you can commit crimes in the privacy of your home.

Acid Test

[uxo]

Did you oppose the BATF's attempt under the Clinton administration to illegally register firearm sales? Just curious.

I always feel like somebody's watching me...

[uxo]

Ever read Earth by David Brin? It's about a near-future where there is no privacy anymore because everyone is rigged with video cameras and pipes it to the Internet in realtime. I'd say we're almost there with camera cellphones...

Don't hold your breath...

[algf2004]

...this won't likely happen. As important as stopping terrorism is, tracking every internet user is impossible. Too much data to store and sort through, especially once you factor in the resources required in decrypting most communications. If the government wants to waste money and time, why not try tracking every mosquito just in case it carries the West Nile virus?

Besides, do terrorists sell weapons of mass destruction on eBay now?

laws respecting liberty are safe

[Doc Ruby]

Even during WWII, where there was an undeniable threat to the US, the world, and humanity, Americans actually sacrificed much, including our lives. And it was across the American spectrum, with the draft and the immediate threat to our existence drawing the sons of the rich as well as the poor into the military. But even then, with survival in the balance, Americans did not surrender our liberty. We did not submit to surveillance and privacy invasion. It wasn't necessary, and wouldn't have helped.

In the Terror War, surrendering liberty is just as unnecessary, and just as useless - counterproductive. Why don't you enlist in an Afghani Marine detail, rather than try to burn our freedoms at home? Then you can gladly do your share, without frittering away the liberty of the rest of us.

Safety from terrorism will come from media maturity which doesn't amplify the fear from the threat of sabotage. It will come from US intelligence focusing on destroying the networks of criminals it has heretofore trained and financed. It will come from Americans harnessing our unprecedented open society to know each other better, rather than alienate each other, and recognize our interdependence, and the fallacy of the "lone patriot". Safety from terrorism will not be found in a surveillance state - that is rather the basis of a permanent terror state. Ask any of the Soviet or Nazi survivors of WWII, and its aftermath, who were lucky enough to get out of the 20th Century alive.