NSA Shopping For Data Mining Tech

prostoalex writes "The National Security Agency paid a visit to Silicon Valley venture capitalists, the New York Times learned, to talk about potentially 'interesting' technologies that the Feds would be interested in purchasing. Data mining technologies that could link arbitrary facts into logical events and find dependencies, technologies for quick voice transcription - all these technologies usually get to market faster if developed by private companies."

Comments

Open source community

[October_30th]

Why didn't they turn to the open source community? They wouldn't have to pay for it and they'd get free support, too.

Re:Open source community

[afaik_ianal]

But how many open source data mining projects can compete (in the features sense) with these commercial systems?

These systems are extremely specialised and targetted at law enforcement and/or large corporations with huge databases.

Seccessful OSS projects tend to be the ones that are used by the people writing them, and are of use to a wide community. If the developers do not have a vested interest in the product, then development will tend to stagnate.

I think it is hard to argue that OSS has been successful in making products that are targetted at such specific (and wealthy) groups.

High Tech Ntional Security

[thedletterman]

I wonder if it hs anything to do with this. To be fair to the government, this isn't actually too bad an idea. I mean if spammers and dvertisers can gleam information to find potential targets, why can't the same technology be utilized by the defense department, who is typically an early pioneer of technology adapted for public use. Then again, a similar project 'Able Danger' identified Mohammed Atta over a dozen times.

Re:High Tech Ntional Security

[klingens]

I mean if spammers and dvertisers can gleam information to find potential targets, why can't the same technology be utilized by the defense department

Cause spammers and advertisers only spam you, government can use the data to imprison or even shoot you. The fact remains that a tool like this is readymade for a dictatorship that isn't even recognizable as one from the outside. Perfect to oppress people, anathema to a democracy

Technician Strike

[carcosa30]

It's getting time we put a stop to these people.

I'm hearing more and more about the idea of a national strike.

We technicians bitch and complain about this kind of flagrant privacy violation.
It would be much more difficult for these people, I'd think, if there were some sort of technician union that had technical rights as well as civil rights as part of its platform.

It's real simple:
1) Don't help these fucks in any way.
2) Harm them in any way you can get away with. Small needling, over and over again. Refusal to cooperate. Take their money and do nothing.

Human intel

[Grumpy Wombat]

I can't help thinking the authorities are still way too star-struck by tech and don't value human intel enough. We have seen the shortcomings of a lack of human intel in Afganistan, Iraq, 9/11 and so on. When will improving the human intel get the focus it needs so gov'ts can make informed decisions about our security. Maybe then we can forget about Dept of Homeland Security type fiascos.

Re:I can give them that

[afaik_ianal]

I realise your taking a humourous dig at the (admittedly) bad choice of words there, but arbitrary aslo means:
Determined by chance, whim, or impulse, and not by necessity, reason, or principle: stopped at the first motel we passed, an arbitrary choice.

"Abitrary facts" within its context could also mean "a set of facts chosen from a larger set of facts at random".

I think "seemingly unrelated facts" is what they really meant to say.

Why?

[lheal]

I believe government exists to defend the liberty of its citizens. Got me? I'm a conservative libertarian, no caps. That means that while I more-or-less agree with the Libertarians, I don't march lockstep with anybody.

But I used to. I used to march lockstep with my fellow Marines, wanting only a chance to use my rifle, or its bayonet, on some terrorist bent on destroying all I hold dear.

I value my privacy, too. But there's a difference between what I do in private (or even a semi-public area like a restaurant or pseudonominous posting on a blog) and what I do in public.

If someone stands on the corner shouting "Down with America! We will blow up your orphanages, unholy capitalist swine!", I'd like to know who he is and whether he's actually in contact with anyone else. If there's no "we", then he's just a nutcase and can be told so and otherwise ignored.

But if that fellow is in contact with others doing the same thing, I'd like to know about it. I'd like the government to defend my liberty by infringing his.

Similarly, if he's smart enough just to be in contact with his terrorist buddies, I'd like the government to know it so he doesn't get a chance to blow up Disneyworld or something.

I want the government to sift through all publicly available information to find people planning or engaged in activities which would cause me or another 2,966 of my countrymen to be deprived of life, liberty, or pursuit of happiness.

So take your "strike", and your call for people to interfere with government's only legitimate role, and ... keep it to yourself.

NSA is very sharp

[putko]

This isn't like the Dept. of Motor Vehicles pouring a billion down the tubes and getting nothing in return.

The NSA is made up of very smart and capable folks. Give them a budget and incentives, and they can probably do a pretty good job of sticking their noses into the public's affairs.

Sadly for our privacy, the US has no real concept of data privacy. If you've bought something and told someone, they can tell the NSA.

So if the data is available, the NSA can just go out and but it. That's perfectly fine, but it means the NSA can easily acquire mind-bogglingly large amounts of data. Also, the phone company (AT&T) has no qualms cooperating with the govt. It isn't like Google, willing to fight it out in court. Just about nobody is -- so the NSA has an easy time, if it wants to get the goods on you.

A few principles for thinking about corruption:

[Futurepower(R)]

Principles for thinking about U.S. government corruption:

1. Don't think you know the names of all the U.S. government secret agencies.
2. Those who want corruption often have a sense of entitlement that is stronger than any other drive. They cannot be understood using normal considerations of morality. They are amoral.
3. Those who want corruption often are willing to waste a billion dollars of taxpayer money to steal one million.
4. Adversarial behavior feeds on itself. People who get started being adversarial toward the legitimate interests of other people find it difficult to stop.
5. If you see one cockroach, realize that there must be 50 others. If you see one verified example of corruption, you are almost certainly seeing only a small percentage of the total.
6. Your ability to perceive government corruption is limited by your willingness to consider conflict in other areas of your life. Strong people don't avoid awareness of conflict. Strong people work to resolve conflict, they don't avoid it.
7. There are two kinds of oil business. 1) There are business people who find, pump, refine, and deliver oil. 2) There are people who manipulate the government and government purchases to make a profit.
8. The weapons business is favored by corrupters because it is largely secret. There are numerous hidden opportunities to make deals that make profits easy.
9. A government that takes any action in secrecy is a government that is thereby avoiding democratic oversight. Whoever causes government acts in secret is, in that way, a dictator.
10. The U.S. government corruption is part of a general social breakdown. Don't look for the corruption to be more logical than you would expect of any catastrophic breakdown. If you are having difficulty applying normal logic, try applying the logic of catastrophe.
11. Many people who call themselves religious fundamentalists are in actuality suffering from obsessive thinking. They think they are superior, but they are mentally ill. There are Christians and Muslims and Jews who fit this explanation.
12. Skillful abusers like Karl Rove use many small abuses rather than a few large ones to accomplish their goals. They know is is more difficult to analyze many small abuses. (Karl Rove's nickname is "Bush's Brain"; see the book by that title.)
13. Corrupters often give sensible-sounding names to their efforts to corrupt. Examples: Clear Skies Initiative: A program to gut the Clean Air Act and substitute weaker anti-pollution regulations. Economic Stimulus: Massive tax cuts for corporations and the rich that failed, in theory and practice, to stimulate. Energy Security: The barely lessened dependence on Mideast oil to be achieved by drilling in U.S. national parks and wilderness preserves.
14. Corrupters starve government departments of money, so the government cannot do its work. They have done this to the Patent Office, the SEC, and the IRS, for example.
15. Don't say "we". If you are a U.S. citizen, when you talk about the activities of the U.S. government, don't say "we". You are only paying. You have no control, and you aren't even allowed to know the truth. So, the word "we" does not apply.
16. Much of the nature of government corruption is due to accident or ignorant tinkering. Sometimes an opportunity for corruption arises because of circumstances, without planning, and the corrupters merely take advantage of it. Don't expect to find a careful criminal logic behind every corrupt act.
17. Omission is as important a tool of corruption as commission. After 9/11, the U.S. government reacted intensely and quite adequately to the problems in New York City. On the other hand, many rich people would benefit if the blacks in New Orleans were eliminated from areas near the center of the city, so someh