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Datamining the NSA

Posted by Zonk on from the turnabout-is-fair-play dept.

elmartinos writes "With official permission from the data protection committee in the Austrian Office of the Federal Chancellor, quintessence (an association for the re-establishment of information civil rights) has data mined an extensive mailing list related to the Biometric Consortium, which is part of the NSA. Heise (Google translation) writes that a quintessenz activist was able to get access to the mailing list through social engineering, and used a PHP script to extract 1GB worth of data. Quintessenz is using the open source tool Weka for data mining, and Kea for text mining. The first chapter of the gathered information is available online."

30 of 236 comments (clear)

  1. Axis of Evil by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny
    Oh, great.

    Now we're going to end up with a hundred thousand troops in Austria. Thanks!

    1. Re:Axis of Evil by harmonica · · Score: 5, Funny

      Oh, great. Now we're going to end up with a hundred thousand troops in Austria. Thanks!

      But the troops will have Strudel and Schnitzel instead of Falafel. That is quite an improvement.

      If you make Ahnuld commander, Austrians will welcome the invasion whole-heartedly. They sure like their Arnold. And if I remember 1938 correctly, they'll welcome anyone anyway.

      Yes, it's a bit flamebait-y, but you can learn something if you follow the Wikipedia link.

    2. Re:Axis of Evil by ghoti · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Most Austrians hate Arnie since he called Austria a "socialist state". Also, his stance on the death penalty isn't very popular over here ...

      --
      EagerEyes.org: Visualization and Visual Communication
    3. Re:Axis of Evil by wolf31o2 · · Score: 5, Funny

      Have you not figured this out yet?

      For Arnold to become the president, an amendment would have to be ratified to the Constitution. This could be avoided pretty easily by invading and annexing Austria. Once Austria becomes a part of the United States, Arnold could become president, all without involving that whole changing the Constitution thing in the way.

  2. Obviously... by BJZQ8 · · Score: 3, Funny

    Obviously then, Open Source Software should be banned for national security reasons!

    1. Re:Obviously... by JadeNB · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Don't give anybody any ideas.

  3. Maybe now... by Drantin · · Score: 3, Insightful

    ...people will stop downplaying social engineering?

    And why does it matter what language the script used was in, unless there was some bug in a script on the webserver related to the script parser...

    --
    Actio personalis moritur cum persona. (Dead men don't sue)
  4. "Through Social Engineering"? by JLavezzo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    But, your honor, I'm not a Con Artist, I'm a professional Social Engineer!

  5. google cache by ilithiiri · · Score: 5, Informative

    http://216.239.59.104/search?q=cache:qosbTf6Ca3gJ: www.quintessenz.org/cgi-bin/index%3Fid%3D000100003 172+&hl=en Google cache.. site's down

    --
    If anyone can hear me, slap some sense into me But you turn your head, and I end up talking to myself
  6. Dear Sir... by gowen · · Score: 3, Funny

    We are the Feds. And as soon as we can game access to your slashdotted server, we're coming after you.

    Yours,
    J. Edgar Hoover (deceased)

    --
    Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
  7. Not smart by SlayerofGods · · Score: 4, Funny

    How smart is it to make a fool of the NSA?
    I mean look how fast they made their server disappear.

    --

    Technology, the cause of and solution to all of life's problems.
    1. Re:Not smart by MathFox · · Score: 4, Funny

      I am pretty sure that the US Navy is attempting to plot a course to the Austrian coast for one if its battleships in an intimidation attempt. ;-)

      --
      extern warranty;
      main()
      {
      (void)warranty;
      }
    2. Re:Not smart by Laur · · Score: 4, Funny
      Since when does Austria have a coast?

      About as long as you've had a sense of humor.

      (That's a joke son)

      --
      When you lose something irreplaceable, you don't mourn for the thing you lost, you mourn for yourself. - Harpo Marx
  8. Re:Was. by fourtyfive · · Score: 4, Informative

    Not Much but here you go: http://www.mirrordot.com/stories/f713a0d2a6af715f4 a3d3292080951e5/index.html

  9. In related news: by zardor · · Score: 4, Funny

    In related news, Austria was today added to the members of the "Axis of Evil"

    --
    -- We don't understand software, and sometimes we don't understand hardware, but we can *see* the blinking lights
  10. Good grief by Otter · · Score: 5, Insightful

    1) The Biometric Consortium is not "part of the NSA"
    2) Somebody lied a bit to get onto a relatively open mailing list
    3) This whole thing is on par with kids grabbing some telephone switch manuals out of a dumpster and bringing them to a 2600 meeting to show off to other losers.

    --
    What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
    1. Re:Good grief by dnxthx · · Score: 5, Informative

      "The Biometric Consortium's Electronic Discussion Group is for federal, state and local government employees and others in industry and academia interested in biometrics. The Electronic Discussion Group is a free electronic mailing list for sharing discussions about all things biometric, ranging from research questions to meeting announcements.
      "

    2. Re:Good grief by barnacle · · Score: 5, Insightful

      sorry, this article is a joke. I doubt if you even have to lie to get on the list (http://www.heise.de/newsticker/foren/go.shtml?rea d=1&msg_id=7544912&forum_id=74857).

      If you can read German (if not use babelfish) here is a guy replying to the original German article (on heise online) complaining about how stupid the whole story is (he was also on the list as a student):
      http://www.heise.de/newsticker/foren/go .shtml?read =1&msg_id=7544912&forum_id=74857

      not only was the list basically an open list but the members were notified in advance that the list's contents would be analyzed by Quintessenz and nobody complained.

      I think the shocking thing here is to see how far Slashdot will go to sensationalize stupid bullshit to get more advertising hits.

  11. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 3, Funny

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  12. Re:NATO crumbling by barnacle · · Score: 5, Informative

    Austria's not a member of NATO.

    Secondly this mailing list was/is an open list. The magical "hack" here was writing a script to get some historical postings that weren't easily accessed.

    Also Quintessenz apparently notified the list that it was going to be analyzed and nobody complained (probably because it's an open list anyway).

    This, like many other Slashdot stories lately (or is it just me?) is unbelievably overhyped bullshit.

    Or, if prefer another viewpoint, and you too would like to join the ranks of NSA hackers - follow this secret link to the mailing list!
    http://www.biometrics.org/html/listserv.htm l

    (but don't tell anyone I posted this link. I don't have a tinfoil hat... yet)

  13. As if they'd so that. by Nailer · · Score: 4, Funny

    In other news, the US will declare war on Australia in six months time.

    1. Re:As if they'd so that. by Dun+Malg · · Score: 5, Interesting
      Hmmm, what did the Australians do? I know this article was about Austria....

      Yes, that's the joke. It's dismally common among north american* english speakers to [hear|read] "Australia" when someone [says|writes] "Austria", mostly because they've never heard of Austria. My father is from Austria and has a shirt he got there that has:

      -An outline of Austria
      -A kangaroo silhouette inside the outline
      -A "red circle with diagonal line through it" over the kangaroo
      -A caption which reads "There are no kangaroos in AUSTRIA"

      *The English are close enough to europe to know where Austria is, and Australians know the name of their own country well enough to tell the difference; but like 20% of US and Canadian english speakers he meets get it wrong, according to my dad.

      --
      If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
  14. My own datamining experiment by duffbeer703 · · Score: 5, Funny

    I've conducted extensive analysis of a top-secret message board called "Slashdot". Slashdot is known to be regularly visited by employees of many government agencies, including military and espionage organizations.

    Based on my expert analysis of the message traffic, I have determined:

    1998-2000 - Using supercomputing VA-Linux beowulf clusters and drawing upon the grit-making skills of Natalie Portman, the NSA was doing bad things.

    2000-2003 - Mr. Goatse and Tubgirl complete the VA-Linux transition to OSDN and formulate the Slashdot/NSA/CIA business plan:
    1. Take distgusting pictures
    2. Utilize legacy hot grits(tm) technology
    3. ???
    4. Profit!

    2004-present - RIAA sues everyone. The universe is safe.

    --
    Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
  15. Biometrics in the US and M1 by jkitchel · · Score: 4, Informative


    If you want to know what's going on in the US with respect to biometrics, head over to the site for the M1 working group which writes the standards.

  16. What the hell? by mcc · · Score: 5, Funny

    This slashdot blurb is the most dense collection of buzzwords I think I've seen in months. I try to make sense of it and all I can see is "Linux crypto hackers open sourced the BSD Microsoft monopoly!"

    I think it has its own gravitational field

    --
    Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
  17. As a non-US citizen by northcat · · Score: 5, Interesting

    As a non-US citizen, I'm slightly happy to see that someone cares about keeping tabs on US activities. Especially military activities.

  18. NSA not that secret. by BeProf · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Contrary to popular belief most (or at least a lot) of what the NSA does isn't all that secret. They're mostly just concerned with improving I.T. security in general, both for the gub'mint and private corporations. The do research. They publish papers. The typical boring CompSci stuff. This mailing list was probably a bunch of people involved in this sort of low-level work.

    The secret stuff is done by Central Security Services and the Information Assurance Directorate. They're the guys that "certify" trusted networks and systems. They basically do for networks what the FBI does for people when they investigate them for clearance. Of course, as part of their job, they "audit" the security of our critical systems remotely and covertly (i.e. Red Teaming).

    The really secret stuff is done by the SIGINT folks. They're tasked with intercepting and analyzing any "interesting" communications while at the same time keeping our communications secure. They're the codemakers and the codebreakers. Even in this über-secretive area, they're pretty much just a bunch of crypto-geeks who never get their hands dirty (they leave HUMINT to the CIA).

    Heck, the only guys at NSA HQ who even carry guns are the security guards. Well.. them and the several thousand soldiers surrounding them (they are in the middle of an Army base after all).

    That all having been said, whoever "harvested" this information is asking for trouble. They can expect a visit from some counter-intelligence officers who will want to know exactly why these persons are so interested in who's on the NSA's payroll.

    --
    You are attempting to read sigs. Cancel or Allow?
  19. Give me a break... by Granos · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Social engineering? Signing up for the listserv is a matter of going to this website., then filling out such hard hitting forms as "Name" and "Interest in Biometrics", and waiting for an e-mail confirmation stating you've been approved. Since the website says that its a free listserv for anyone interested in Biometrics, I don't think approval would be all that hard to get. After they signed up, they then summarized the most interesting things from each year that were posted to the listserv, and posted the results on the web. Wow! From the summary and translated article make it seem like they pulled a government approved hack of the NSA using cunning wit and unmatched skill or something.

  20. Superhaxxor starter kit by tigeba · · Score: 5, Funny


    1. Sign up for "secret NSA mailing list" at http://www.biometrics.org/html/listserv.html

    2. Read archives

    3. Super haxxor!

  21. Wrong Story by Tom · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The story isn't that they got onto the mailing list.

    The story is that they have sifted through huge amounts of data to extract the interesting parts, and essentially made an analysis of the history of biometric standards, and the respective attempts of NSA people to push it this way or that.

    It's one thing to post "I think the NSA is influencing biometric companies" to /. and it's an entirely different thing to analyse thousands of postings to prove that and how they influence whom and when.

    --
    Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org