Slashdot Mirror
GAO Studies U.S. Government Data Mining
securitas writes "Total Information Awareness is alive and thriving. eWEEK's Caron Carlson reports on a new General Accounting Office study that says TIA-style data mining programs are rampant in federal agencies with 199 projects at 52 of 128 agencies. The Defense Intelligence Agency/DoD is the single largest user of these data mining projects (eg. Verity K2 Enterprise). The story was first reported by Reuters' Andy Sullivan (ZDNet UK mirror) and the NYT's Robert Pear, who wrote that at least 122 projects used personally identifying information like names, e-mail addresses, Social Security and driver's license numbers. The 'actual numbers are likely to be much higher' because the report excludes classified projects. Wired News' Kim Zetter writes that, in addition to government databases, federal agencies mine private databases of credit rating agencies, bank account numbers, student loan applications, etc. This week the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) released a report with privacy guidelines for data mining technology (PDF) development and use. Guidelines include data anonymization, government data access authorization and audit trails. Cynthia (Cindy) Webb's 'Total Information Dilemma' at the Washington Post is an excellent survey of media coverage of TIA, MATRIX and the GAO report 'Data Mining: Federal Efforts Cover a Wide Range of Uses' (mirror, both in PDF format). More at GCN, GovExec and the Guardian/AP."
NOT for mercatur
*_g_o_a_t_s_e_x_*_g_o_a_t_s_e_x_*_g_o_a_t_s_e_x_*_ _ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __
g_______________________________________________g
o_/_____\_____________\____________/____\_______o
a|_______|_____________\__________|______|______a
t|_______`._____________|_________|_______:_____t
s`________|_____________|________\|_______|_____s
e_\_______|_/_______/__\\\___--___\\_______:____e
x__\______\/____--~~__________~--__|_\_____|____x
*___\______\_-~____________________~-_\____|____*
g____\______\_________.--------.______\|___|____g
o______\_____\______//_________(_(__>__\___|____o
a_______\___.__C____)_________(_(____>__|__/____a
t_______/\_|___C_____)/_SUCK_\_(_____>__|_/_____t
s______/_/\|___C_____)___IT__|__(___>___/__\____s
e_____|___(____C_____)\BYATCH/__//__/_/_____\___e
x_____|____\__|_____\\_________//_(__/_______|__x
*____|_\____\____)___`----___--'_____________|__*
g____|__\______________\_______/____________/_|_g
o___|______________/____|_____|__\____________|_o
a___|_____________|____/_______\__\___________|_a
t___|__________/_/____|_________|__\___________|t
s___|_________/_/______\__/\___/____|__________|s
e__|_________/_/________|____|_______|_________|e
x__|__________|_________|____|_______|_________|x
*_g_o_a_t_s_e_x_*_g_o_a_t_s_e_x_*_g_o_a_t_s_e_x_*
Important Stuff: Please try to keep posts on topic. Try to reply to other people's comments instead of starting new threads. Read other people's messages before posting your own to avoid simply duplicating what has already been said. Use a clear subject that describes what your message is about. Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal, or Offensive comments might be moderated. (You can read everything, even moderated posts, by adjusting your threshold on the User Preferences Page) If you want replies to your comments sent to you, consider logging in or creating an account.
Important Stuff: Please try to keep posts on topic. Try to reply to other people's comments instead of starting new threads. Read other people's messages before posting your own to avoid simply duplicating what has already been said. Use a clear subject that describes what your message is about. Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal, or Offensive comments might be moderated. (You can read everything, even moderated posts, by adjusting your threshold on the User Preferences Page) If you want replies to your comments sent to you, consider logging in or creating an account.
Important Stuff: Please try to keep posts on topic. Try to reply to other people's comments instead of starting new threads. Read other people's messages before posting your own to avoid simply duplicating what has already been said. Use a clear subject that describes what your message is about. Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal, or Offensive comments might be moderated. (You can read everything, even moderated posts, by adjusting your threshold on the User Preferences Page) If you want replies to your comments sent to you, consider logging in or creating an account.
Hey guys, sorry for the repost! I know this is bad, no TERRIBLE netiquette. But it was attached to a story that only garnered 9 comments, but I really think that more people should know and think about this stuff. I hope the same thing doesn't happen to this story, or my name'll really be mud! :D
A couple of years ago at the last "HOPE" conference was the first time I heard of this idea of the "deep web". This year's shindig is happening July 9th through the 11th. I wonder if chosing those those dates was merely a coincidence this...
The topic was something called "Hacking National Security" in wchich the speaker, Robert Steele, first brought up this concept and mentioned what he described as a "deep web search engine" called Copernic. However, I've found that product (there is a free variant) basically queries a list of different search engines. This is not what I would consider a "deep web search" now that I have learned a little more about the term. But that was the first I'd heard of it.
Robert Steele can be forgiven for being a bit technically naive. Because his specialty is National Security and not technology. But he had a lot to say that was of salient interest to technology minded folks. Why else would he have had a panel discussion at a hacker conference?
What I learned from him is that search engines like google and others only are able to skim roughly 5% of the total content of the web. Everything underneath that 5% is the "Deep Web". This is what he claimed the global terror networks are using to communicate with each other. And, most alarmingly, that the NSA - Amerca's Information Processing branch of the government was COMPLETELY ill equiped, even ignorant of terror groups freely trafficking their plans on the web. Talk about our most "advanced" information processing governmental body! Note the lack of a CNAME entry in their DNS record! Don't forget the "www" now! yeesh! At any rate I read an interesting book about them way back in the 80s called The Puzzle Palace. But I'm sure it's way dated by now. I read it way back in 87. Did you know that they are roughly 3 times the size and girth of the CIA...and yet hardly any of the lay populace seems to have heard of them! I once dated a "know it all" (how do you ever learn anything if you already "know it all"?) bad-poetry, arty farty girlfriend who claimed that I was "making the whole thing up" when I tried explaining to her about the NSA! May I say again, "yeesh"? Literally COULD NOT convince her otherwise...I digress...
Now hold on a minute here! Just how dated would you suppose that book to have been? One of Robert Steele's pet peeves was the extreme datedness of NSA tecnology. Being a government agency (FLAGSHIP of intelligence agencies!) a good hunk of their computer technology dated back to the 70s. This was still the case as of 2002, mind you, and if I understood him correctly.
Now, another of his compaints was the lack of native speakers hired by the agency. That is, instead of hiring a native Pashto speaker, they will instead almost unerringly hire the "blond haired, blue eyed, cocky midwestern jock" (his words not mine)
Quod scripsi, scripsi.
I tell you all! We were right! Tin foil hats will protect you!
Candy-Coated Knowledge
dying. Everyone
Slashdot does that nospam automatically in user preferences.
I actually get very little spam in my inbox for hotmail. Their spam filters work very well. I even added support@hotmail.com to my filter so I stop getting emails to "upgrade" for 19.95 and so far they have honored it.
Post: Sigged, for your pleasure.
I think he was implying that no matter what name you have in front of @hotmail, you're gonna get spammed. It's a big enough target that any combination of names, numbers can be sent.
Hmmm.
"idea of democratizing Iraq"
rant...
It hasn't been fully completed yet.. I'm tired of reading about how all of this was a bad idea when it's not even completed yet. That's like telling a construction company constructing a 100 story building it looks like shit when they only have 75 floors done so far.
Hmmm.
and maybe the middle man could be cut out and artists (not record companies that can afford to deal with piracy) could publish their music and recoup the costs to create it? Maybe even motivate them to make more great music and give the "industry" the boot? Honestly, the ONLY reason the "industry" exists is because of the overhead to publishing. DRM solves that and allows for the internet, etc, to be used to distribute content.
I'd gladly give up a bit of "fair use" of backing up my Avirl collection, etc, to actually get some music worth listening to.
[ama2ingkReskin.com] I won't bore you