Slashdot Mirror
The Evil in E-Mail
Frenchy in Ontario writes "An Ontario university researcher is devising ways to help law enforcement agencies better pinpoint likely criminal behavior in e-mails. His theory is that people who are "up to something" are more likely to write differently than people who aren't - either by avoiding using certain words at all that could be flagged for possible criminal context (like "bombed) or to examine patterns that might indicate criminal activity - like several people e-mailing one person but not each other, which is how some criminal networks operate. There's also an interesting paragraph on why Enron's emails aren't as valuable as you might think for this sort of work."
Don't they just need to grep for >:-) ?
This line in the lead jumped out at me: We have an addresses "techsupport@internaldomain" which matches this pattern to a T.
--MarkusQ
P.S. Back when we were on MS-Windows, it would have been OK, because the people asking for TechSupport were often sending each other worms at the same time.
You don't watch enough TV. Terrorists, just like aliens, always speak English to themselves.
That should keep me safe for a few days.
--
Registered .sig quotient : 1337
Everytime I hear one of these stories about how they can catch criminals from their email messages, I'm like, "OMG! They made a fast factoring algorithm!" But then I read the article and discover it only works for unencrypted messages. Gee.
Everyone knows that you just have to check the evil bit. (Some terrorists may be sophisticated enough to tamper with the evil bit but if they use Windows, the lack of the bit will stick out like a sore thumb.)
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
I dont think so. Strongly enforced u.s. export controls have kept the Al Queada from gaining access to militant grade encryption tools.
In other news, many government email analyzers are reported to be making a killing on the stock market.
Letter from College:
Hi Mom,
I blew it and bombed the final exam. The physics
prof put the gun on my head and told me to work harder.
I could kill him. I feel like having a knife
at my throat. The anger feels like poison in my
blood but I know it is my fault and the all is
blamed to that virus, I had been laboring with
for quite a while. I'm working on it mom! I promise
to make you proud. I can not wait to be on the subway
home to work on my final project on weapons of
mass destruction in my political science class. Its
mental terror.
Love
Your son
P.S. The powder you sent me works well for my
skin infection. Strong agent.
This email doesn't contain the words r0lexx, v!/\gr4 or c14ll4s. It sticks out like a sore thumb from 99% of the email traffic we've intercepted, he must be up to no good!!!!
*Splort*
terrorist bomb al qaeda bin laden firebomb death destruction chaos terror plane WMD nuclear weapons
Yes the people who are "up to something" actually write differently. Most of the time they use phrases like "validate your bank account",
"please verify your credit card information", etc.
--- Eat my sig.
w#3n vvil1 7h3y Re4l1ze t|-|i5 15 i/\/\p0s5i13lE?
idiots...
What's wrong with drinking milk? It's creepy...suckling another mammal at adult age. but I can promise you that I have enough calcium in me that when punched in a fight, they hit bone, I laugh, they curse me and walk away.
I'm like a superhero... overcalcified man.