Fighting Terrorists Through Software, Anonymously?

detector by Rosco+P.+Coltrane · 2004-03-17 22:46 · Score: 5, Funny

then tries to determine who that person may be connected with.

Does this software detect siamese twins?

--
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash

Re:detector by kfg · 2004-03-17 23:32 · Score: 5, Funny

Does this software detect siamese twins?

No. It detects Kevin Bacon.

KFG

Stealth Snooping by R.Caley · 2004-03-17 22:47 · Score: 4, Insightful

[...]so the government can share this information with the private sector to look for hits, without the private sector seeing the specific data.

I.e. so the state can put people it doesn't like on the list of people to be tracked with less risk that that person, or the rest of us, can know who is on the list.

Yeah, that's really reassuring.

Big brother may be watching you, but you have no way of knowing...

--
_O_ .|< The named which can be named is not the true named

Re:Stealth Snooping by Hektor_Troy · 2004-03-17 23:00 · Score: 5, Insightful

Big brother may be watching you, but you have no way of knowing...

Which is far more scary ... to me at least.

Personally I'd feel more comfortable travelling in China, as I know for a fact what will happen to me, if I were to air my oppinions about their government. In the USA however ... well - I'm a foreign citizen, so hey presto - enemy combatant.

--
We do not live in the 21st century. We live in the 20 second century.
Re:Stealth Snooping by Anonymous Coward · 2004-03-17 23:11 · Score: 5, Insightful

What's really wonderful is that, since this is a static system, this is still subject to the Carnival Booth terrorist screeing attack which was documented not so long ago and which guarantees that this will reduce and not increase security by allowing terrorists to identify which people they can use to carry out attacks.

Idiots.
Re:Stealth Snooping by kfg · 2004-03-17 23:38 · Score: 4, Insightful

This would be a valid criticism if any of these "antiterrorist" technologies had anything to do with security.

They're about the DEA and tracking potential "politcal radicals." i.e. people who are likely to oppose you politically.

KFG
Re:Stealth Snooping by R.Caley · 2004-03-18 00:04 · Score: 5, Interesting

Also, see the Schnier's discussion in Beyond Fear of the effects of the massive number of false positives such systems must throw up (because actual terrorists are so very rare in the population).
BTW, definitely a book everyone should read, worth it just for the anecdote of the guy who has been flying around the US using a photo ID which says he is the martian ambassador, and only had a problem when they started checking for an expiration date. Wouldn't want the Ex-martian ambassador on your plane!

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_O_ .|< The named which can be named is not the true named
Re:Stealth Snooping by jtwJGuevara · 2004-03-18 00:49 · Score: 5, Interesting

So we've recreated the 2nd Red Scare, and this system, or one like it, is the one that is going to find and convict our next Sacco and Vinzetti(sp?).
Basically, we have another instance of the current government administration taking advantage of the fact that our "freedoms are threatened" by terrorism to implement some sort of control and monitoring device on the entire population. I'm almost immune to the talk of it by now though, as we've had countless instances of things like this being proposed.
Re:Stealth Snooping by johnjay · 2004-03-18 01:45 · Score: 2, Insightful

The point of protecting the list from the private sector is because the people on the list are suspicious, but not guilty. Human nature is such that, if a person showed up on a public list of suspected terrorists their life would be ruined.

It's a question of degree. Many people on the government's list of 'suspicous characters' are going to be innocent. Their lives will be somewhat effected by police attention, but (if the system works) they will be shown to be innocent, and removed from the list after whatever inconveniences they have endured. The point is that this is relatively minor harm compared to the alternative of making the list publicly available. If the list was publicly available it would become a true blacklist, and the people put on the list would be in much worse shape. They would be shunned by the fearful, attacked by vigilantes, and taken advantage of by criminals.

Although they are susceptible to abuse, these lists of 'suspicious characters' exist, and have always existed. It's the only way the law can be efficient in protecting the innocent public. The recent changes like the Patriot Act attempt to make these lists available to people who need them (like other law enforcement agencies), while keeping them from the public eye for the reasons explained above.

There are many reasons why government lists of suspicious characters are bad. But, I do not see a practical way to avoid such lists.

There are many reasons that making the FBI and CIA lists of suspicous characters more accessible to outside inquiries is bad. But (I think) these would be technical flaws that could be handled by improving the rules of access. (This post explains why one-way hashing alone isn't the answer). I don't think that there is a fundamental reason why better (but not public) access to such lists would be bad.
Re:Stealth Snooping by kfg · 2004-03-18 02:14 · Score: 4, Insightful

So we've recreated the 2nd Red Scare

Second? Hell, we've been down this road so many times the cobbles are worn to little nubs. We've had the French scare, the Loyalist scare, the Mexican scare, the Spanish scare, the Nez Perce scare, the bootlegger scare and the British scare alone was milked for 100 years. The Alien and Sedition acts were passed in 1798.

Christ almighty, if you want to get an idea of how far back this goes just read the Bible.

KFG
Re:Stealth Snooping by R.Caley · 2004-03-18 02:26 · Score: 3, Insightful

Unless you're operating under the assumption that the people they watch never, EVER turn out to be actual terrorists, I would think the reasons why that's an absolute necessity would be obvious.
I'm sure the East German secret police occasionaly caught someone who was an actual danger to people (rather than to the state). Would that justify their networks of secret informers etc?
I think we are well into ``those who would give up...'' terretory here.

--
_O_ .|< The named which can be named is not the true named
Re:Stealth Snooping by tom's+a-cold · 2004-03-18 03:45 · Score: 5, Insightful

The false-positive rate should be emphasized far more than it has been. What does it mean? It means that whatever system they have in place, if it's based on statistical indicators rather than someone's hunch, will inevitably identify several innocent people for every terrorist that they find. Depending on the sensitivity of the detection algoritm, the value of "several" could be anywhere from dozens to thousands. And these people are not "borderline" terrorists in any sense. They are no more likely to be real terrorists than anyone else in the population. They're entirely innocent. So the use of such a system is guaranteed to falsely identify, stigmatize and punish large numbers of innocent people. This is not a tradeoff between freedom and security. It's a tradeoff between justice and the false perception of security.

--
Get your teeth into a small slice: the cake of liberty
Re:Stealth Snooping by R.Caley · 2004-03-18 04:10 · Score: 4, Insightful

What happens when a crime is committed? The police round up suspects. How do they get that list of suspects?
One would hope that they start from the crime and compile the list, rather than starting from a list and trying to fit list members to the crime.
Otherwise we end up with Louis:
Realising the importance of the case, my men are rounding up twice the usual number of suspects.
The classic case in the UK is the `Birmingham Six'. Faced with the worst terrorist attack ther had ever been on the UK mainland, the police started with their list and worked really hard to find some suspects who fitted. Needless to say, those convicted were eventually found innocent and set free, and the people who did it were never caught and punished.

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_O_ .|< The named which can be named is not the true named
Re:Stealth Snooping by johnjay · 2004-03-18 10:39 · Score: 2, Insightful

But we aren't...talking about finding people after the crime, but rather tracking people someone thinks may someday commit a crime.

Here is the heart of the issue. The theory of information sharing about crimes isn't all that bad. The advantages seem to outweigh the costs. The secret lists of which we have been speaking are not so terrible and have an obvious, practical value. The real problem concerns this particular type of information: lists of suspected terrorists. You are right: these are not short-term lists of people who might have committed last week's crime; these are lists of people who could be watched and hounded for years in an attempt to disclose whether or not they are some sort of deep-cover sleeper agent.

The criminals being sought are those types: gang-members, gangsters and terrorists, that attempt to game the system. The theory of impartial, innocent-until-proven-guilty law inforcement has many flaws, and these groups attempt to exploit those flaws to gain immunity. In doing so, they can get away with evil or provoke more draconian counter-measures, and either way attempt to ruin the system of law for the innocent.

And that is the basis of your fear. You fear a growing police state more than you fear the threat of terrorism. You believe that the system of law is broken or will break if we attempt to change the rules to handle these gangs of thugs. You believe that, rather than fighting the evil of terrorism in this manner, we should either surrender completely or start from a different position, and come to a more ideal solution for policing the threat.

If you throw out the current system, you have two choices: design a different system or surrender to the marauders. The one thing you cannot do is say that the terrorists don't exist. They are coming soon to a railyard near you. Much nearer you than I, unfortunately for you, since you live closer to Europe.

If you know of a better solution than is currently being designed, than I would be interested to hear it. If you simply cannot abide living under the current one, you are of very little use in the current debate.

Using Hashing by MoonFog · 2004-03-17 22:47 · Score: 4, Insightful

His response was to invent ANNA ("NORA's little sister," he explains), a system that "anonymizes" data by an encryption technique called hashing. Because the data are scrambled, private records can be shared with the government and secret watch lists can be distributed to private entities, all without fear--because they can't be read

Although this is a step in the right direction, hashing algorithms can be brute forced right ?
I mean, this information may be valid for years, a thing you did when you where 18 may still be there when you are 50. I don't think this data should be distributed much at all, even though it's encrypted.

Re:Using Hashing by JosKarith · 2004-03-17 22:50 · Score: 4, Funny

"so the government can share this information with the private sector"
Great, so now we have to worry about cash-strapped government departments selling our personal data to spammers too.

--
'Don't worry' said the trees when they saw the axe coming, 'The handle is one of us.'
Re:Using Hashing by CountBrass · 2004-03-17 23:11 · Score: 4, Informative

Brute forced? Nope. Assuming they picked a decent secure hashing algorithm (ie something like a 3-pass SHA-256 and definately not MD-5) then brute forcing isn't feasible.
The weakness is not in the hash algorithm, it's in the use the hash is being put to. See my other post for an explanation.

--
Bad analogies are like waxing a monkey with a rainbow.
Re:Using Hashing by Laverne · 2004-03-17 23:12 · Score: 2, Informative

Taken from whatis.com.

Hashing is the transformation of a string of characters into a usually shorter fixed-length value or key that represents the original string.
The hash function is used to index the original value or key and then used later each time the data associated with the value or key is to be retrieved. Thus, hashing is always a one-way operation. There's no need to "reverse engineer" the hash function by analyzing the hashed values. In fact, the ideal hash function can't be derived by such analysis.
Re:Using Hashing by Jane_Dozey · 2004-03-18 00:42 · Score: 2, Insightful

You should say that it's _currently_ not feasible. Who knows if it'll still be the case in 10 years time.

--
Silly rabbit
Re:Using Hashing by goatan · 2004-03-18 00:47 · Score: 2, Informative

I mean, this information may be valid for years, a thing you did when you where 18 may still be there when you are 50. I don't think this data should be distributed much at all, even though it's encrypted.
This is an issue in the UK at the moment with the Soham murders in that some data (complaints of rape and indecent assault) on Ian Huntley was deleted because some police departments thought they couldn't keep it with others the information was there but not found
More information here the BBC has a lot on the Soham case

--
Saying Apple is better than MS is like saying Botulism is better than rabies.
Re:Using Hashing by goatan · 2004-03-18 01:59 · Score: 2, Informative

Sould have had this and this

--
Saying Apple is better than MS is like saying Botulism is better than rabies.

False Positives and False Negatives by billstewart · 2004-03-17 22:50 · Score: 4, Insightful

Great. While there are definite positive privacy things they _could_ accomplish with this, it's also open to lots of possible problems like "The computer said you matched a terrorist's name, no we don't know why, or where the list came from, we just have to cancel your account and call the police on you" which are as hard to defend against as being on the "No-Fly List" of Americans whose rights to travel are arbitrarily and unconstitutionally limited, or the "Strip-Search-Before-Flying" list, or the "Hollywood Suspected Commies Blacklist".

--

Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks

Re:False Positives and False Negatives by Anonymous Coward · 2004-03-17 22:52 · Score: 3, Funny

..."Strip-Search-Before-Flying" list...

How can I get on that list?
Re:False Positives and False Negatives by CountBrass · 2004-03-17 23:14 · Score: 2, Informative

A real danger as all hashes (unless they are at least as large as the data they are hashing- which makes them a bit pointless) inherently will have collisions (ie two sets of different content will produce the same hash).
In fact secure hashes emphasise the fact that given a hash and the content it would be difficult to modify the content to give the same hash. This is different to "there won't be any collisions".

--
Bad analogies are like waxing a monkey with a rainbow.
Re:False Positives and False Negatives by actiondan · 2004-03-18 08:08 · Score: 2, Insightful

And to catch terrorists you'd think they'd only really need to put people from other countries on this list

Is there no such thing as an American terrorist?

Even if you forget about the cases where US citizens have turned to terror, don't you think it is possible that US citizens could become terrorists?

Dan.

This worries me. by Adolph_Hitler · 2004-03-17 22:50 · Score: 2, Insightful

As much as I am against terrorism, these technologies are going to be used on us, not terrorists! What are we going to do when our government overlords decide to enslave us? The patriot act, operations tips, now this. The war on terrorism can be faught without completely giving up our privacy and freedom. What if we don't want to be in some big government database? What if we don't want to be watched all the time, or put on some list? But you know, when you agree to give your government the power to spy on you, you also agree to give your government even more power over you and for so called conservatives this big government stuff is hypocritical. At least the democrats want to make government big with social programs, this is becoming a facist police state. Thank you Mr. Bush

--
People don't exist to serve systems, systems exist to serve people.

Re:This worries me. by TyrranzzX · 2004-03-17 23:59 · Score: 4, Interesting

It's also kinda sad that the voting public has the feeling that they can't do anything about it. You can say "well, that's what happens when you give up your rights.

I can understand the angle of not wanting to lose your property and thus, being more willing to deal with crap (as most people are, if we got uppity at every turn in the road, the road would be jagged, torn, and probably wouldn't work that well). The past 6 or so presidencies have been really shitty IMO,; with each passing administration corruption increases; money is stolen, rights are taken away, and our country is torn apart brick by brick. Nixon, Bush Sr., Clinton, and now Bush Jr, all slowly taking away our rights accept for Bush Jr, who is putting a new definition to the term of "rocking the boat".

Eventually something's gotta give. My prediction is that people are going to begin losing their incomes, and with those their livings. It was the robber-barons that caused the great depression, and eventually the stock market will collapse. I don't see buisness law becoming regulated any time soon like it was in the 50'a or 60's. Couple this with tremendous debt to other nations, a whole lotta weapons, a whole lotta enemies, devaluing currency, and corruption widespread in the high level goverment and in most lower level goverments and you've got a powder keg waiting to blow.

Simply put, people will lose their patience. And with that loss of patience we'll see a revolution. The guys with the guns are already on the brink of it themselves.

--

Candy-Coated Knowledge

Re:Cost effective anti-terrorism countermeasures by Rosco+P.+Coltrane · 2004-03-17 22:51 · Score: 3, Funny

If you want to end terrorism then end linux.
# /sbin/shutdown -h now
Thanks for the tip, I'm sure glad I could do my part to fight terr

--
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash

NO WAY! by paramecio · 2004-03-17 22:51 · Score: 5, Interesting

Apparently, Jonas has developed a system that can anonymize the data being analyzed through hashing, so the government can share this information with the private sector to look for hits, without the private sector seeing the specific data.

I think we are reaching a point where it would become safer for us all to have the private sector playing freely with our data and sharing the anonymized hashes with the government!

Uh-huh.. by Ketnar · 2004-03-17 22:55 · Score: 5, Interesting

Still don't like it.

Just because they are searching for hash matches instead of plaintext doesn't mean profiling en-mass is right. It just means nosey companys who are being 'asked' won't know WHAT they are being 'asked' about.

Gee, bob the builder knowns mahek alzis. Mahek is a suspected link betwene so and so, and then he works for this manager, and then these people. Hmm, we better start asking alot of questions..see who else matches our '(personal network) search criteria'

What, you think i'm kidding? :)

(And yes, some of you are going to explode that this sort of search-and-peck is not profiling, when it really is. Look it up. Searching through personal *profiles* and *information* to find any people who match enough of the criteria = profiling.)

This sort of thing is bull, It really is. Instead of doing real investigative work, they can just whip up a list of 'possible hits',snatch them all up, and then queston and otherwise probably scare the shit out of all of them - hoping their deeper searches find a hit in the crowd.

Welcome to the nightmare, please don't choke on the red pill while the door is hitting you in the ass. :)

[/tinfoil-hat]

--
My new top secret key -> C>N|KB

Does not work by Anonymous Coward · 2004-03-17 22:55 · Score: 5, Interesting

There is really nothing new to this technology. It does not do what it claims. Hashing has been around for while, and so have techniques to defeat the attempted security of this type of system. Interestingly, I have seen around five stories from various forums reporting on SRD in the past week or so. It seems like some marketing department is working pretty hard.

Why should we spy on ourselves? by Adolph_Hitler · 2004-03-17 22:56 · Score: 3, Insightful

I understand fighting terrorism, but fighting terrorism has nothing to do with this. This is just outright invasion of privacy to the nth degree. Whats the point of living in America if we are going to throw the constitution into the trash and become a police state like Saddams Iraq once was? This country is supposed to be the most free, now we let some terrorists rob us of our greatest strength? What are people dying for in Iraq?

--
People don't exist to serve systems, systems exist to serve people.

Re:Why should we spy on ourselves? by DigitumDei · 2004-03-18 00:18 · Score: 2, Insightful

Isn't the point of this system so that there is security without the invasion of privacy?

Now I'd assume there would be concerns to the security of the data. I'm sure most of the information this database contains could be found elsewhere (though it'd be spread out between different sources). The point though is that the US is trying to find ways to find the terrorists amongst you, and any method that helps with this while not making all your personal information available to any law enforcement agency that wants it, is a method that should at least be looked at.

--
East Coast Brewers

Who has access to our data? by myownkidney · 2004-03-17 22:56 · Score: 5, Informative

The question is, who exactly has access to our data?

The credit card companies, for example, have access to a LOT of data. People seem to be content with that.

And it is ridiculous how much information about your activities are already out there, though not publicly accessible, accessible to certain organisations.

I think the scariest bit about this article is that casinos have access to your, YES YOUR, data. And if casinos can do that, so can the mafia.

The government having access to all this information is only a part of the problem. The real problem is, how much of it is available to bad guys, like telemarketeers and the Russian Mafia.

--
Indefinitely Detained US Citizen

definition of "war against terrorism"? by fantomas · 2004-03-17 23:04 · Score: 5, Insightful

Can anybody help me and define the limits of the problem "the war against terrorism"?

It strikes much of the issue is defining the problem, hey we're geeks right, give us a spec to build to, yup? This seems to be the chief concern of slashdot posters so far, that the problem has not been bounded and there are varying interpretations being made on what the problem is. How can we define the problem? Or are we accepting that the term is a worthless media and political construct to sell newspapers and justify military/ intelligence spending? Can we frame this fuzzy problem in a more meaningful way?

Re:definition of "war against terrorism"? by kfg · 2004-03-17 23:45 · Score: 2, Insightful

Can anybody help me and define the limits of the problem "the war against terrorism"?

The human world is made up of human beings who exasperatingly insist on exhibiting human nature.

Extrapolate.

Predict what your girlfriend is going to do, as well as where and when.

Now all you have to do is expand that technology to encompass the general populace.

Did that help?

KFG
Re:definition of "war against terrorism"? by Anonymous Coward · 2004-03-18 00:42 · Score: 3, Insightful

No. In fact that's exactly the sort of naive thinking that landed us here in this mess to start with.

Many men far wiser than us have pondered the human mind, and we have discovered its complexity and depth are pretty much beyond comprehension. ( I know PhDs in cognitive science, AI and psychology who all say the same thing so dont even argue the point unless you fall into that category ) Deterministic behaviourism is a childs philosophy, as are the many inadequate and naive tools used by so called 'anti - terrorism' agencies. The field is rife with charlatans and soothsayers peddling thier predictive tools, data miners, pattern matchers, signal processors (voice stress analysis), did you know the utterly discredited 'polygraph' is still used by some dumb government agencies? Most of this technology is snake oil, a comfortable lie at best.

All this adds up to jack, trust me.

It makes jobs for the boys. They get to spend your taxes on black suits, fancy gadgets and have a laugh sitting all day long disecting your telephone calls, emails, laughing at your love affairs and dirty secrets.

Meanwhile, 'terrorists', who do exist, and are far far smarter than you ever would imagine slip in and out at will. They are ethereal, nebulous, unseen. They use cunning methods of communication that are thousands of years old and completely undetectable by the most sophisticated modern equiptment. They have no physical or geographial base. No rules of engagement to hamper them. They can blend in to normal society as your brother, sister, workmates. They have enduring patience and can 'sleep' for decades. They may not even know they are a 'terrorist' - one day some average joe just 'wakes up' and goes postal, that's terrorism, unpredictable, unforseen, unavoidable*.

Every time some prick wastes another tax dollar on some technological snooping scheme my blood boils. Get it into your heads people.. YOU CANNOT WIN A WAR ON TERRORISM, all these measures disguised as fighting terror are big brother control methods, nothing more. The government is using your fear to make you willing slaves.

KFG, I respect you for your normally intelligent and insightful posts, but if you believe that predicting terror is a matter of 'extrapolation' you are living in a dream world my friend.

The best way to stop terror is to stop terrorising people.
Re:definition of "war against terrorism"? by jedidiah · 2004-03-18 04:04 · Score: 2, Informative

The difference between soldiers and terrorists is that the former don't go out of their way to increase civilian casualties.

Go to Parris Island (Marine Corps boot camp), find a recruit and take the notebook that he is likely carrying. Look inside the cover and you will see listed the "Articles of War".

Not going out of your way to inflict civilian damage is one of the rules listed.

This is what makes the difference between a Chechen partisan and a Chechen terrorist.

--
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.

Freedom for security by mu-sly · 2004-03-17 23:05 · Score: 4, Insightful

Obligatory quote:

"Those willing to give up a little liberty for a little security deserve neither security nor liberty." - Benjamin Franklin

My personal opinion on the matter is that you can't fight a war against terrorism without looking at what the root causes of that terrorism are. The fact is, that at the moment the west is seemingly willing to just overlook what the causes of terrorism are, and are trying to just blow the terrorists to smithereens.

When will people learn that labelling people "terrorists" and killing them just creates new "terrorists" at an exponential rate? As far as these "terrorists" are concerned, America and the UK are "terrorists" too.

Clever tracking software or not, "terrorists" are not going to go away until we start looking at why they are "terrorists" in the first place.

Just because a government chooses to carry out military activities, doesn't make them any less terroristic or any more legitimate.

Perhaps those doubting the terrorism carried out by the US and allies in Iraq should check this page for help in visualising the numbers.

--
Organic free-range music... yum!

Re:Freedom for security by SQL+Error · 2004-03-18 00:26 · Score: 3, Informative

Except that Benjamin Franklin never said that.
What he did say is this: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Puts it in a different light, doesn't it?
And the bodycount site you link to is, not to put to fine a point on it, a complete lie. Deaths of Iraqi civilians caused by our (and their) enemies is presented as though it was caused by the US and its allies. And even that needs to be contrasted against the thousands of deaths directly caused by the Iraqi government before it was removed from power.
You ask: "When will people learn that labelling people "terrorists" and killing them just creates new "terrorists" at an exponential rate?"
The answer is clearly never, because the latter does not in fact happen.
"As far as these "terrorists" are concerned, America and the UK are "terrorists" too."
The terrorists are the ones deliberately seeking to maximise the civilian death toll. Since US and allied troops are seeking to minimise civilian casualties - at risk of their own lives - they are quite clearly anti-terrorists.
Save your anti-American rhetoric for when America actually does something wrong.
Re:Freedom for security by mu-sly · 2004-03-18 01:20 · Score: 2, Informative

I'm not anti-American. I'm anti the actions of the American government under the banner of "the war against terror", because it is utter bullshit.

The only correct reaction to terrorism is no reaction at all. Give them an inch, and they'll take a mile. By reacting to terrorist attacks in such a knee-jerk frenzy of panic, we have already lost the war against terror, because it has taken the grip on society that the terrorists wanted it to take.

I'm not saying terrorism is right - it's clearly not. But the fact of the matter is that that you're about ten times more likely to get murdered by a fellow American than you are by a terrorist inside America, and you have to keep things in perspective.

Bin Laden and co are insane maniacs who must be stopped, but you can't wipe out terrorists by killing them - it simply doesn't work like that. You have to address the reason they are terrorists in the first place, whether it's an insane reason or not, otherwise the terrorists will never go away.

Large-scale sponsorship of their enemies (eg. Israel) is hardly a good idea.

--
Organic free-range music... yum!
Re:Freedom for security by overunderunderdone · 2004-03-18 02:13 · Score: 4, Interesting

My personal opinion on the matter is that you can't fight a war against terrorism without looking at what the root causes of that terrorism are

True enough, but most people that say so aren't really interested in finding out - they *think* they already know. They'll cite poverty, or income inequality, colonialism and western arrogance. Yet in their own example of patronizing western arrogance they refuse to take the terrorists own statements about motives at face value. Apparently they believe brown people are incapable of self-knowledge and must be deciphered by enlightened western intellectuals to discern their "real" motives. In this regard the conservatives grant the terrorists more dignity as fellow humans - they take the terrorists at their word regarding motives and goals and find no room for compromise.

The islamist terrorists want an end to western colonialism, including not only the withdrawal of U.S. troops and the abolition of Israel (and the withdrawal of Spain from Andalusia) but also to be free from the imposition of western values regarding the status of women in society and quant western notions about "human rights". They want to establish a pure islamic society governed by sharia law as interpreted by the most extreme wahhabi doctrine. Their religion teaches an absolute morality, it teaches that man is not fallen, nor is he good, but that man is weak and needs the help (control) of the theocratic state in order to live a virtuous life. Their doctrine also teaches that those outside of the helpful control of the theocratic state must someday be brought in to it (for their own good of course). Any loss of territory is cause for jihad - holy war to recover land and peoples that had once been under submission to God. The theocratic state must ever expand - never shrink.

The people that believe this and that join al quaeda are NOT the poor and downtrodden but members of the ruling and middle classes. Well educated, reasonably wealthy, even quasi-westernized believers of a triumphalist, extreme Wahabism. They feel humiliated by western success and Islamic failure and by the past and present wrongs of colonialism and the decline of their culture currently and most shockingly represented by westernized women freely going about uncovered against all tradition and religious doctrine.

Which Mafia? by Adolph_Hitler · 2004-03-17 23:06 · Score: 2, Interesting

You act like the Mafia has no competition, this isnt 1931, this is 2004. You have gangs, you have the irish, russian, jewish, spanish mafias, you have the yakuza, the triads, you have business men in the corporate world who are also in the criminal world, and you have gangs which are rich and powerful enough to get this information, the hells angels, the bloods, crips, latin kings, maybe some prison gangs. Basically anyone with money or influence can get this information. The casinos are run by the mafia, native americans, gang members, etc. Any of the people running these operations would likely sell your information to any other other organized crime group who has the cash. I'm not too concerned with the criminals having our information, generally they are out to profit and would sell guns to terrorists and drugs to our kids to profit before selling your credit history.

--
People don't exist to serve systems, systems exist to serve people.

Hashing & Privacy by PingKing · 2004-03-17 23:09 · Score: 5, Interesting

I thought the whole point of hash encryption was that it's not able to ever be unencrypted, even by the legitimate users?

In order to check if there is a matching telephone number, you would first have to run the encryption algorithm on the number and then match this against every encrypted number you have in your data store. So if the two encrypted strings are equal, you have a match. But there is no way to know what the encrypted number is unless you have something to test for in the first place.

But I'm not sure how much use that is. Wouldn't you then need to be able to see who's number that is, i.e. decrypt the person's personal data?

Also, it would be interesting to see what the reaction to this software would be in the EU what with its Data Protection directive. Storing personal details about someone is prohibited except for certain circumstances... long term storage of someone's personal data for distribution to companies is not one of them. Whether the encryption of the data would make this acceptable or not would make for an interesting argument.

--

Patriotism - the last resort of scoundrels.

So by six degrees of seperation.... by hplasm · 2004-03-17 23:09 · Score: 4, Funny

..then tries to determine who that person may be connected with.

everyone will be connected with Bush andBin Laden....

--
...and he grinned, like a fox eating shit out of a wire brush.

Re:So by six degrees of seperation.... by drooling-dog · 2004-03-18 02:15 · Score: 2, Interesting

everyone will be connected with Bush andBin Laden....
It doesn't take "six degrees" to separate W and Bin Laden. The Bin Laden family was a major investor in W's first company, Harkin Energy (of which he was CEO). That doesn't necessarily mean anything, but it does show what a small world we live in...
Re:So by six degrees of seperation.... by Imperator · 2004-03-18 02:36 · Score: 4, Interesting

Yeah, especially given that Bush and bin Laden are connected by much fewer than six degrees...

Consider how nicely the bin Laden family was treated in the days immediately following 9/11, when the government allowed a plane to fly around and pick them up to take them out of the country after only the most cursory FBI screening. (No one else was allowed to fly at the time except the military.) I mean, normally the relatives of a suspect in a murder will be questioned to see if they can lead you to the suspect or provide any evidence that he either did or didn't do the crime. But Bushes and the bin Ladens go way back, and they got off the hook. Way to be "strong on terrorism", Bush.

--

Gates' Law: Every 18 months, the speed of software halves.

Brute-forcing hashes and Spelling by billstewart · 2004-03-17 23:13 · Score: 5, Interesting

It's possible to do things with salt or cryptography that at least mean that each recipient of the list of hashes gets a different list, and that hashes take a little while to calculate, though Moore's Law makes that a short-term advantage only (like Unix password hashes.) But sure, you can run the names of a Million Usual Suspects through any standard hashing program pretty fast, and one name through extremely fast. If it takes a second per hash, then running those million names through it is two weeks of background load, and if the hash isn't artificially slowed down, it's more like 20 minutes for your Million Usual Suspects and under a week for All Living Americans.

And then there's the problem of extra data hidden in the hashes - some of the signature algorithms, for instance, can carry a bunch of hidden "subliminal" bits, like the one that says you're a Jew or black or Dues-Paying Republican or a Federal Agent or a Known Troublemaker.

Spelling is a real problem. I have enough trouble because my ancestors or their relatives were either illiterate or at least using names like "Stewart" "Stuart" "Steward" and "Steuart" before English spelling became relatively standardized. But Americans munging the names of people who use other alphabets, like Arabs, or who don't use alphabets at all, like Chinese, can't just use simple hashes, because any misspelling can either let somebody whose name is the same as a Real Suspect not get flagged, or let some non-suspect whose name is close to a Real Suspect get flagged, and any terrorist smarter than the Shoe-Bomber knows to use an alternative spelling of his name or get some fake ID. You probably know Chinese people who use different names in English and Chinese, either as immigrants or kids of immigrants; I knew a Hakka Chinese family from Vietnam who also had Vietnamese names, and in at least one of their languages, they had an alternate set of names for use within the family (approximately "Number One Son" etc.) And then there's the problem of exactly which name parts to use if you've got more than three, and nicknames, etc.

And then there's the problem of people whose names are the same as Real Suspects' names, and people who ever had their wallet stolen. Just spend a day in traffic court listening to DMV-screwed-up-and-I-got-arrested-by-mistake cases some time if you weren't already worried, or read any news article about identity theft.

--

Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks

Re:Brute-forcing hashes and Spelling by SYRanger · 2004-03-18 00:00 · Score: 2, Informative

The Soundex-algorithm can be used for English names, but of I guess no such algorithms exist (or are even appliccable) for Ararb or Chinese names).

We have zero problems by irikar · 2004-03-17 23:15 · Score: 5, Interesting

...a scheme that races through oodles of data to figure out if people are connected with unsavory characters. And it does all this in mere seconds. The casinos were delighted. "The record speaks for itself," says Mirage spokesman Alan Feldman. "We have zero problems.

Zero problems, but how many innocent people wrongly flagged as being unsavory?

How does this SRD system measure the accuracy of its conclusions?

This is getting absurd by hardcode57 · 2004-03-17 23:26 · Score: 5, Insightful

The peoples of democratic countries need to wake up to the fact that terrorism represents less of a threat than their own governments' response to it. Even 9/11, the worst terrorist attack in history, did not do much to increase the annual rate of homicides in the US. It remains much more dangerous to cross the street, drive to the supermarket, walk in the hills, or go for a drink on a weekend night (let alone smoking or eating burgers). We need to accept, and insist our governments accept, that there are risks involved in the world, of which terrorism is by no means the greatest, and that these cannot be eliminated while maintining a reasonable quality of life.

Re:This is getting absurd by hardcode57 · 2004-03-18 01:13 · Score: 2, Insightful

I don't say that we shouldn't fight terror, any more than we shouldn't fight crime. What I'm saying, albeit poorly, is that in deciding the balance between individual liberty and the fight against terror, we must take a step back and look at what terrorism actually does. Physically, the effects are not statisticly significant. The real effect is, as the word terrorism implies, the emotional impact that it has on society.
If we let our response be governed by that reaction, we lose our liberties, and the terrorists achieve what they set out to do.

The correct response to any terrorist attack, surely, is not to scream and shout and run in circles, nor to pull up the drawbridge and lock ourselves away, but to carry on as usual, and, while we try to catch terrorists, to make it plain by our conduct as free societies that terrorists do not have the power to change one damn thing that matters.

To what degree... by Sciamachy · 2004-03-17 23:33 · Score: 4, Insightful

...does this work? I mean, the theory goes that we're all connected by 6 degrees of seperation. How do they define a connection? Depending on these factors, anyone could be condemned as connected somehow with undesirables.

Err no. by CountBrass · 2004-03-17 23:42 · Score: 4, Informative

Hashing != encryption.

Encryption is intended to be unencrypted.

Hashing is one way because it involves information loss. It is not encryption: there is nothing secret. For example simple hashing algorithm might be "take the ascii value for each character in string and add them all up, rolling over each time you reach 10,000". The result will be a hash. Which is dependent on the data you put in- is impossible to *directly* extract the original data (you could use a lookup table to do it). As I said though, this is NOT encryption.

--
Bad analogies are like waxing a monkey with a rainbow.

Guilt By Association by wfberg · 2004-03-17 23:44 · Score: 3, Insightful

Pure and simple.

--
SCO employee? Check out the bounty

Re:No its not racist. by Adolph_Hitler · 2004-03-17 23:50 · Score: 2, Insightful

If we are having a war on terrorism, why do we accept refugees? Its illogical.

--
People don't exist to serve systems, systems exist to serve people.

If you search deep enough... by MavEtJu · 2004-03-17 23:54 · Score: 3, Insightful

If you search deep enough, you'll find something which will link me to a terrorist group. Just broaden your definition of terrorism wide enough, make the links deep enough and oh my...

It will be cheaper to put a fence around the whole country I'm living in than to build prisons for all of us.

--
bash$ :(){ :|:&};:

Dumb idea... by shic · 2004-03-18 00:09 · Score: 4, Insightful

It is not sensible to publish this data - even in "anonymous form." Use of hashing will only prevent a party with access to the hash from directly reverse engineering the hashed data to arrive at a list of suspect names - however this completely misses the mark.

If I were a terrorist organisation planning something like 9/11 and I knew many of my lemming-recruits would be identified by airport security as risks, I would process my terrorist volunteers myself and only send those who would not raise any eyebrows. This information (anonymous though it is) would be of great value as it would eliminate another uncertainty from the evil plan.

If I were a private individual with interest in knowing the identities of all suspects then I would be able to mount a dictionary attack using, say, the electoral role or census data - with only a few billion people worldwide, a modest cluster of PCs would be able to exhaustively search for matches in reasonable time.

Finally - if this anonymous data were to be available only to authorities to whom the raw information would otherwise have been available then this approach is still a disadvantage. Without access to the reason for someone matching, it will make it much harder for authorities to make appropriate judgement calls based upon a match. The mere possibility that a match might be due to a hashing collision or data- entry errors prior to hashing could result in the wrong decisions being taken. There is certainly a risk that without information on why someone is a suspected risk that related vital clues may be missed - possibly resulting in an otherwise preventable disaster.

Here's one real solution... by precogpunk · 2004-03-18 00:17 · Score: 2, Interesting

This is just an opinion but it seems like the war on terrorism isn't a problem, it's a solution. How so? Politicians use it to much their agenda in the name of the "solution". Re-elect Bush Jr for the war on terrorism! This software is part of the "solution". In truth, the war on terrorism is about effective as the war on drugs. Look at a country with real terrorist problems like Israel -- responding with force just leads to more bloodshed on both sides. Americans write Osama off as being a wacky insane loon but his version of truth isn't so different than ours. Until America wakes up and realizes why people hate us and DOES something about it we're going to lose the war on terrorism. We can't become allies to people one second, train and arm them, and then turn our backs on them when we get what we want. Maybe we need peace with terrorists instead of war against them.

damnit I'm tired of living in fear. by nounderscores · 2004-03-18 01:07 · Score: 4, Funny

About a year ago I came up with this song.

Now I'm going to sing it.

Puff the Nuclear Weapon

Puff the Nuclear Weapon was pointed at Iraq,
and waited in his submarine for the signal to attack.
Little George Bush Junior, he loved that rascal puff,
and all those days, he nightly prayed for the UN to get tough.

oh
Puff the Nuclear Weapon lived in the sea,
protecting all our freedoms to
a brand new SUV.
Puff the Nuclear Weapon lived in the sea,
protecting all our freedoms to
a brand new SUV.

Now Puff he liked to travel, so he wore travelling clothes
While Bush was home and on the phone, from locations undisclosed.
Presidents and Princes, they bowed when'ere he came,
and Nation States lowered their flags when Puff roared out his name.

oh
Puff the Nuclear Weapon defender of the peace,
securing the world's oil supply
and the occasional golden fleece.
Puff the Nuclear Weapon defender of the peace,
securing the world's oil supply
and hte occasional golden fleece.

Plutonium lasts for ever, but not so little boys.
ICBMs and M-16s give way to... other toys.
And one grey day it happened: The traders broke the Dow.
So Puff the Nuclear Weapon's on the open market now.

His warhead packed in plastic, green crates that bore his name.
Poor Puff would not intimidate for the Stars and Stripes again.
Without his life long friend, poor puff could not be brave,
so al-Qaida hid that that weapon in a deep, dark, man-made cave.

oh
Puff the Nuclear Weapon lived in the sea,
but now he's in a backpack
some where close to you and me.
Puff the Nuclear Weapon defender of the free,
and you can blame it all upon
Bush fiscal policy.

Sorry if I've just raised your subversion quotient for having read this. but hey, we're slashdotters so that means we're all pretty much under suspicion of being a little odd anyway.

NO WAY! Stop corporate abuse, now! by SgtChaireBourne · 2004-03-18 01:35 · Score: 2, Insightful

As flawed as the government(s) may be, at least there are mechanisms in place to protect from abuse, at least in theory. In contrast, we have no such mechanisms, such as the Bill of Rights among other things, to protect from corporate abuse. This gets worse when you have a monopoly condition, even a local monopoly. Then it's even harder to vote with your feet or wallet.

Authority without accountability is a recipe for abuse which has been illustrated many times each year. In the U.S. the corporate boards even lack representation from the employees, labor market or relevant union. Laugh at the problems democracy is having now, but how many corporate officers or board members did you have the chance to elect or have the job of representing you or your interests?

--
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.

Re:The terrorists are winning... NOT by cascadingstylesheet · 2004-03-18 01:53 · Score: 3, Informative

The US governments reactions to terrorist threats are exactly what the terrorists wanted.

How so?

They wanted to topple the current government of Saudi Arabia. Hasn't happened.
They wanted the US "out of the Middle East". Er ... maybe you haven't been paying attention, but the opposite has happened.
They wanted to strike at us in our homeland and have us rattle our saber and make "strong statements" in futility. Instead, we flattened their base of operations and replaced the government, flattened one of their allies and replaced the government, and have been rounding them up apace.

Terrorists winning by tehanu · 2004-03-18 02:00 · Score: 2, Insightful

Has anyone in government thought about, if the terrorists stated aims really *are* to "destroy freedom and democracy", if we give up "essential liberties" for a little "temporary safety" or state heading down the path of a police state, or Fortress America, that the terrorists will in fact, have won.

Re:No its not racist. by Anonymous Coward · 2004-03-18 02:54 · Score: 2, Insightful

And didn't most of the terrorist in the 9/11 attack have american or european citizenship ?

We don't know. We know what their fake IDs said, who they claimed to be when the ticket was booked. Several of the people named as the hijackers have turned up, alive and well (and not terrorists). They had the bad luck to have their identities stolen.

On another tangent, I really don't think that it's believable that Mohammed Atta's (sic?) passport could have survived a fireball intense enough to [theoretically] melt steel and land in front of a federal agent on the streets of NYC below the WTC... draw your own conclusions.

There isn't enough tinfoil on earth anymore! by Anonymous Coward · 2004-03-18 04:47 · Score: 2, Insightful

Really, this is all such bullshit.
Nasa with mind reading shit, BB reading my email and watching the websites I visit. WTF?

You don't trust me? Fuck you.

This is NOT the America that I was born into.
America has turned into a third world police state. We are all treated as suspects and potential enemies of the state. You trample my rights? Fuck you too.

Kiss the Bill of Rights goodbye, they've wiped their asses with it and flushed it down the toilet. Anyone in the 40+ age range knows what I'm talking about, you've watched it happen, America is gone, they've already destroyed it.

I'm leaving, I'm moving to an island in the middle of nowhere and live without any modern crap. No computers, no phones, no TV, no electricity, NO BIG BROTHER....

Bye bye Amerika....

(and I have to post AC so I don't get a visit from the AMERSTASI goons)

I have a name for it... by Black+Art · 2004-03-18 06:18 · Score: 3, Funny

They need to call it "Fiendster".

I predict the next technology that will be used to find terrorists will be dowsing rods.

Oh wait...

--
"Trademarks are the heraldry of the new feudalism."

This is a huge threat to civil liberties by Sivaram_Velauthapill · 2004-03-18 09:22 · Score: 3, Insightful

This is a huge threat to civil liberties. Typical citizens will still be safe for a while. This won't have a major impact on citizens until the technology is passed from the spy agencies (eg. CIA) to the police agencies (eg. FBI). Not really sure when this will happen but at the rate the "war" on terrorism is going, it may be tomorrow...

Sivaram Velauthapillai

--
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Seeking the meaning of life... @slashdot of all places ;)

This is the stupidest concept ever. by DavidTC · 2004-03-18 09:33 · Score: 3, Insightful

And it's not stupid because it's a privacy invasion, it's stupid because it makes it more likely terrorists can get past the system.

All they have to do is figure out their position on this 'watch list', which is easy enough to do with the ability to query the list in private hands. Then pick the least suspected one of them to carry the bomb. If they want to be really clever, send a half dozen really suspicious people in in front of the guy with the bomb, so security is busy and they won't get hit with a random search.

Flagging suspicious people in ways they can find out they have been flagged is so mind-bogglingly stupid anyone suggesting it should be utterly shunned by the security community. Hello, terrorists normally operating in groups! In any group, there's going to be a few people we've never suspected, and we must never let the terrorists know which ones those are!

--
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?

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