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."
I especially liked the part about:
Another, Skillicorn says, is that research shows
people speak and write differently when they feel guilt about a
subject, for instance using fewer first-person pronouns, like I and we.
Because people always use first person pronouns in messages. That's just what's done. And alot of them should be used.
Sounds like a way to track messages with "substance" rather than the "hai h u r? heer are the pictures of my vacation." messages.
Think about that. This man has just come up with a way to measure the relative interest of what the sender has to say to people in the government.
Yet another way to cut down on the messages that the government has to read and be bored with. Yet another way to enable the government to read out communications more effectively
Yet another reason to look into using real encryption.
The previous has been a secret message to my comrades.
-Tacitus
Government is already too invasive. I'm already forced to seek a building permit before I can erect a structure on my own property. The fines for ignoring this, (and say, having the gall to build a solar powered house which is not connected to the AC power grid, or (horrors!) a straw-bale house), are huge and the government's reasons for these laws are utterly ridiculous.
Any professor who suggests that we should be looking to monitor email content is not thinking clearly. The Government already has their nose in everything, and telling us that, "It's For Our Own Good," is NOT a valid excuse.
It's MUCH more important that people be able to make mistakes -and even die through their own faults- than live ensnared in the safe-keeping of a bunch of ignorant civil servants who are trying to build a Starfleet future where everybody dresses the same, and nobody is allowed to think or act outside a bunch of pre-set 'safe' boundaries designed for middle-class suburbanites who exist in eternal ignorance of the real world, who actually believe in the Discovery Channel, who drink milk, and live in absolute terror of anything you can't experience beyond the confines of a nice, respectable department store.
-FL