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Airport Monitoring of Travellers via Blackberry
glhturbo writes "According to this article in Mass. High Tech, Massachusetts State Police stationed at Logan Airport will soon have access (via Blackberry handhelds) to "7 billion records" containing information on "nearly 98 percent of the U.S. population, including, for example, a person's prior residence and with whom he or she lived, criminal information, court filings, vehicles owned, and even restricted government data." The database is from a Massachusetts company, LocatePlus, started by a former policeman who was "on the waiting list for the FBI". Seems like a good tool, but major potential for abuse, and hopefully no false identifications."
This is a neat little database, but I have to wonder what the quality of the database is. If it's like other databases, it's sorely out of date. Can't be an easy job to keep tabs on 98% of the population.
And I also wonder about the false positive rate. Extensive databases might just show up how connected we are. Just like studies that show that a huge number of us are related to the Queen of England through some tenuous tie, if we dug deep enough I bet we could find links between millions of average Joes and people who are terrorists. Insignificant links, but how does the database know that? It comes down to the judgement of the officer, and his training. And any security system that shows a false positive rate is weakened by that. False negatives are much less damaging to security.
I get a picture in my head from the movie "A Beautiful Mind" where John Nash is in his shed, putting pictures and strings on the wall, showing all the relationships between them. Except, these relationships are going to be in a database, and will be taken seriously just because a computer said so.
No weapon in the arsenals of the world is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men.-Ronald Reagan
I remember the goverment making profiles of people who where doing war protests and the like. Will this information be included in the profile? I also seem to recall an incident where a protester was flagged at harrased at an airport.
The truck driver is driving 100 pounds of TNT in a delivery crate right into the airport unchecked. What pisses me off most about this loss of privacy, how your personal information including your underwear size and what are the last 3 videos you rented are - is that for all that work, and all that money spent on technology, they don't do shit to actually secure the place. You think you can drive a truck up to an El Al airliner in Tel Aviv unchecked? Not unless you want a .50cal Barrett round in the chest from 5000 meters away before you get anywhere NEAR the airliner.
Read Marcus Ranum's book, the "Myth of Homeland Security." Yay, we paid for a bunch of blackberries that will get lost or stolen and some tech firm pocketed good change with a fat ass Oracle project. Yay.
You, the passenger, aren't one damn bit safer. Tell yourself that while you watch the truck load the pretzels and soda pop out the window while the guys are looking in your toiletry bag at your toothbrush and blackberrying to see if you ever lived in Hoboken, NJ.
Lastly, you know why the terrorists picked Logan to board? As CNN and others reported in the weeks that followed 9/11 - Logan's security was known to be the worst on the eastern seaboard.
I also worked in the insurance industry. We also had the screen actors guild account - for everywhere but CA. My coworkers and me would look up movie stars and gawk at their personal info - most of it just said something like "Joe Berstein talent, NY,NY" or something like that - but the point is ---WE WERE SNOOPING.
I have no excuse nor reason - we were star struck.
My Point Personal information will be abused somehow!
Don't forget folks, it's not only the Republicans who are itching to strip your rights away. Massachusetts is about as Democratic as you can get and they're in on it too.
-S
--- What parts of "shall make no law", "shall not be infringed", and "shall not be violated" don't you understand?
Note: I'm merely throwing out a hypothetical, this is not necessarily my belief. Just a discussion point.
On Slashdot, it is commonly argued and agreed upon that "security thru obscurity" is a falacy and the best way to get yourself into trouble. Obscure facts and details are eventually discovered and exploited. It is better to have all source and algorithms out in the open, have everyone pick at it, find the holes and patch them.
Compare this to the commonly held belief in keeping all personal information "secret". If someone tries hard enough, they can pretty much discover any information about yourself. Private detectives, for example, specialize in "hacking" personal information (arrest record, who you are sleeping with). Would it not be better to "open source" your life and deal with the consequences? Your SSN and Credit Card numbers should be secured with something better than mere obscurity, for example. If you are cheating on your spouse you would assume you are going to be caught and be able to deal with the consequences. With everything out in the open we don't have to worry about blackmail and dirty tricks and you better know people's character and motivations. Kinda like looking inside a program's source and seeing the flaws.
Note, these are NOT my opinions, just things that went through my head at 10pm.
Brian Ellenberger
blackberries have the ability to be wirelessly wiped out of data... the BES admin can lock down a device (with a password the admin sets) wirelessly or send the kill command which wipes all data from the device...
I have one of these devices (I'm a cop), although I do not live in Mass, and it uses a different provider for the information. All of the information is based on collection from three sources: public records, driving records, and criminal history. The public records are fairly accurate, but they are not perfect. The driving and criminal records are more accurate, and reflect the same information that I can collect when running a vehicle tag or a driver's license. That's the key. I need to know who I am searching for in order to get the information. I can't just put in a name, for example, with no other information (such as a date of birth, SSN, city of birth, etc.) and expect to receive any information. It just doesn't work that way. Is it dangerous? Depends on your stance towards records queries, I suppose. I can get all of this information without the Blackberry, but it is more convenient when I'm on foot interacting with a crowd to have the device. Push come to shove, however, and I'll take you back to the patrol car to get the information. It works for both of us, in a sense. I don't have to go back to the car to get the info, and you don't have to waste the time coming with me. Something else to consider: I am required by law (at least in my state) to protect the information that I gather on a person. The law is so protective that I can be held responsible if someone else HEARS the information on my radio, including the person I am checking! This would undoubtedly extend to my control over the Blackberry. If I lost it, I would be in a great deal of civil liability. That doesn't prevent someone from using the device illegally, granted, but it is something to consider none the less.