Slashdot Mirror
NSA To Datamine Social Networking Sites
An anonymous reader writes "New Scientist has discovered that the NSA is funding research into the mass harvesting of the information that people post about themselves on social networks. And it could harness advances in Internet technology -- specifically the forthcoming 'semantic web' championed by the Web standards organisation W3C -- to combine data from social networking websites with details such as banking, retail and property records, allowing the NSA to build extensive, all-embracing personal profiles of individuals."
NSA Researcher: "Herr Direktor, the results from mining Slashdot have just come in!" ... also that ..." ... he's gay.
NSA Director Alexander: "Well, what have you found, son?"
NSA Researcher: "Well, sir, according to the report, this multi-billion dollar project has revealed that TripMaster Monkey is insightful, informative & interesting
NSA Director Alexander: "Yes, what else?"
NSA Researcher: "It's about Commander Taco, sir
NSA Director Alexander: "My GOD! Get me the president! And make sure he's dishonerably discharged immediately!"
NSA Researcher: "Yes SIR!"
How are they certain that the rules derived from these sites like MySpace or even Slashdot are even accurate? People post mis-information all the time & you can hardly call MySpace a reliable source for even seeding a semantic web. You can build a social network but even then it's hard because you're linking mostly aliases. Nowhere will you find my real name associated with my slashdot or myspace account--though you may be able to link them.
My work here is dung.
.. 1984. George was right, just off by 22 years.
To Terminate, or not to Terminate, that's the question - SCSIROB
You know, as much as I'd like to get all worked up about this issue and fire off another foamy-mouthed diatribe about the pervasiveness of government surveillance, Big Brother, etc., etc., I'm having difficulty justifying it. After all, this information is being posted out there, specifically for others to view. If you put a sign in your front yard declaring how much you hate the government, you shouldn't act too surprised when the government reads it.
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
Evil NSA Spying
Kiteboarding Gear Mention slashdot and get 10% off!
First Post!
And what has the NSA learned from this?
That I'm a lazy, self-aggrandizing slashdot reader with way too much time on my hands.
The Secret of Life: Proteins fold up and bind things.
It's good to see such huge advances in domestic spying instead of things like stem cell research.
http://religiousfreaks.com/Fuck the NSA!
-Anon
If that can help reduce the false positives, I am all for it.
Hey! Those people aren't in my school network! Seriously, though... Would sites like Facebook open access to the NSA or can they just go in there, bypassing the usual requirement of being in the school network? I'd hate to have to see the NSA set up fake school e-mails at EVERY school on Facebook.
I may *want* to be data-mined...think about the promise of a genuine advancement in online-speed-dating. Or maybe they could start a service that datea-mines, hmm, the possibilities. Although, does that include or not include those my tier? I don't date anyone outside my tier; there's principalities.
Maybe they'll pass the info they glean from this off to high schools, since they seem so interested in digging through every detail of their students' personal lives looking for anything incriminating. If we teach the children to live in a police state it will seem normal to them when they grow up and there will be no complaints!
It's about time they do it. It should help decrease real, potential threats like school shootings and child molesters.
How many times have you heard myspace on the news in a negative way? (except for "on the money", where they talk about how much it's worth) I don't mind it (NSA doing the datamining), being that you voluntarily post your information.
I have no issue with data analysis of personal information available on the web (assuming it got there legally).
:).
But this does absolutely nothing for national security - which is the namesake of the agency. If a hate site goes up and government starts watching it to see if they're promoting violence, then fine. But creating profiles of everyone online is pointless. I'm sure they already have systems that scour the web and raise red flags. But putting my name and profile into a database at the NSA does nothing to aid security (I promise
Developers: We can use your help.
So, all I have to do is pretend to be someone else and go create accounts and blogs all over the place as the person I am spoofing and the NSA would add all the bogus information I create to my targets permanent record.
or am I missing something?
How well do these ideologies match up with our current Regime?
Chapter 1 - Ignorance is Strength
Chapter 2 - Freedom is Slavery
Chapter 3 - War is Peace
They've sworn up and down how they won't create a central database, but this sort of datamining is exactly what they have in mind...
Add in RFID chipped drivers licenses (not to mention the new passports which DO use RFID), and you have the making of a complete "We know who you are, who you hang out with, and where you were last night" totalitarian tracking system.
This is why many of us are moving to New Hampshire, joining the http://freestateproject.org/, and working against these things. We nearly stopped New Hampshire from participating in REALID (the Republican Senators are selling out the state for a mere $3 million...) and we're not done yet.
Help achieve Liberty in your lifetime - join the Free State Project - http://www.freestateproject.org
What a great source for the NSA to rely on!
Because, you know, I certainly do know all 628 people on my myspace.com "friends list"! And I'm sure it won't be confused by the fact that Lance Bass has 9 "profiles" on there (all of which say he's a different age, by the way), or the fact that Harry Potter and Malfoy are "friends" with one another in their profiles. I'm sure the NSA is keeping a full dossier on them.
Why don't all researchers rely on online profiles for their data about people? I can see the headlines now: New Study Reveals: All men have 8 inch d!cks, and all women are D-cups!
... Than corps doing basically the same thing? We encourage people to make public details about themselves, what do they expect? People allow "non evil" companies like Google to mine their personal data for the profit of Google, why is anyone shocked that the govt would be interested in the same information?
I still don't get how NSA workers as American citizens can justify this kind of BS in their heads. They seriously must be the most sociopathic, mean-spirited, fascist-minded people in the country.
Seriously, as a citizen of this great country, I couldn't sleep at night if I were personally responsible in some way for collecting and aggregating this information.
We can either panic, or realize that moves like this are the last desperate cries, by those who hate Freedom and Liberty, before they are thrown into the dustbin of History.
Gird thy loins, and guard thy lions, for the battle for freedom is ne'er won by faint of heart.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
I'm now all for a tiered Internet...
as long as the NSA is on the bottom tier.
Thanks to MySpace, the NSA now knows that there are far more 18-year-old bisexual cheerleaders named Tiffany out there than anyone ever realized, there is a very good reason so many musicians never get record deals, and everyone in the entire world is in your extended social network (especially that creepy mutant Tom.)
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
I think there needs to be an intelligence meter along the lines of one of those rollercoaster "you must be this tall to get on the ride" signs for democratic participation. Anyone who seriously believes that this sort of thing exists to fight terrorism rather than monitor the public for potential signs of rebellious behavior or personalities that might one day become political rebels would fall well below the level of participating. I don't know how they could make it more obvious that their goal is social control, not bonafide anti-terrorist.
Disagree? When was the last time that you saw a terrorist on a social network like MySpace, posting hints about their desire to terrorize others? What are the odds that they would even join, since terrorism is more difficult the more exposed you are on "the grid?"
Just wanted you to know that your sig is much less obnoxious under the new format. Now there is nothing standing in the way of you becoming a /. editor!
You will be tracked, data mined, cross referenced and subjectively profiled
by goonsquads.
You will have RFID passports.
You will have a national id which may also be RFID.
You will obey our new world order.
You will.
No-one wants to be snooped on but this information is volunteered and as such is fair game. I'll fight to the death to keep my details private but if people are putting that information up there it's fair game. Not sure they are going to catch too many terrorists that way (Likes: Sport, hanging out, overthrowing decadent and secular regimes...).
I mean, the NSA is only going to target those goofy social networking sites, right? I mean, I can't think of a reason they'd want to data mine and cross reference the membership of a technology site where the average user is not only technically skilled, but also tends to lean toward non-standard politics. I mean, all we talk about here are things like encryption, the NSA, military hardware, robotics, and...okay, Wii. But don't think for a second that NOBODY can link you back to who you really are from here, and a body like the NSA would find /. a place of interest.
"You know why you do not see me styling wit my homies? Because I have no homies!!" -Mojo Jojo
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Im so glad the government is allocating billions of dollars to find the enemy, that is, citizens of the United States. This administration has consistently used disinformation and propaganda, social divisions in society and class warfare combined with xenophobia and hate to continually drive apart Americans so a common cause against these facistst is never produced. Combine bad policy with "get out there and shop so the terrorists wont win" distractions and Im sorry, We The People are just becoming people, chattel for a New World Order of serfdom and domination.
Now, NSA, please come lock me up before I really get outta hand...
When the state, in the interest of "National security", monitors the movement and activities of citizens on an individual basis irrespetive of their criminal status, all are effectively being treated with suspicion until proven innocent. This is how a police state begins.
Anyway, how exactly is this system expected to collate info ONLY on US citizens? Obviously, it won't.
Meta will eat itself
Imagine a world where unless you go to a lot of trouble to avoid it:
* Thanks to Trusted Computing, every web access is traced to a particular PC.
* Every blog, isp, and what-not in America is required to keep logs to "prevent terrorism" and "catch pedophiles."
* The feds mine blogs
* The FISA court freely hands out subpeonas
Put those together and the non-technically savvy will have zero privacy. Only stupid terrorists will get caught and a lot of non-savvy non-terrorists will get investigated, possibly to their detriment.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
I do not see one slightest bit of useful information, except for who smokes dope, that could be gained from this stupid idea. Please, someone, tell there is a valid reason for this stupidity. Not too mention, this is questionable under Constitutional terms.
With this particular administration, it's troublesome because I just KNOW they are going to use it to serve their interests, not ours in general.
I got worked up about this a while ago and the hard truth is that free speech is just that --free! We all are big kids and have spoken on the Internet. If what we have written is defensible, then we can expect to live by it. Those of us older school netizens are very likely to understand this and post accordingly. I honestly worry about the current generation however. It's difficult to differentiate casual speech where feelings are expressed in less than flattering ways from more serious speech with some measure of intent behind it.
Which again brings me back to some worry where this administration is concerned. The fact that they are looking to do this because they can suggests to me the motivation is less than pure. Honestly, why bother unless there is some benefit to all of us for doing it. Afterall we are the ones paying the bill.
We, as a people, are reaching a general state of unrest --and we've got reasons for that. The Internet empowers us to trancend the ordinary media channels and exercize our role in ways that make established power channels nervous. Real change brings with it some accountability for those gaming the system toward their own ends. Given their position, this is a perfectly logical reaction.
A government doing the right things, that has the high ground where justifying it's actions is concerned, has little reason for efforts like this. Take this as strong evidence this is not the case with our current leadership.
So, even though we have all spoken on the net and technically should not worry because it's all legal, I say there is some cause for worry for the accountability factor. (Not us, our leadership.)
Here's the takeaway: If you want to speak, in this connected day and age, on matters of government, you had better make sure what you write is defensible and that you have the high ground in your convictions. If not, you will be marginalized at some time in the future if your activities merit the effort. That sucks, but that's gonna be the way it is until such time as we elect a solid government that will modify existing legislation to keep such activities in check. Trust me, this particular one is just not ever going to do that.
The good news, IMHO, is that this same connected power that puts us in an exposed position also permits us to work together toward solid reform that is in our best interests! Best to take serious advantage of that now, before the advantage is lost, or legislated away. Is there no longer any doubt about the true intent of net neutrality? Sure, money is the big driver here, but so is speech! The blogs, for better or worse, have made complete fools of the established media channels and a growing number of people grok that now. (Why the hell did it take so long?)
We see our attorney general saying he is open to the idea of prosecution for whistle blowers, our President and Vice have claimed to be above the law and cloak pretty much everything in secrecy, our global actions are more self-serving than ever, recent court appointees are screened for their deference to established power channels, and our expectation of privacy is being marginalized under the ruse of greater security. (God damm it, a whole lotta people have no fucking backbone!) --And there is more, but hey --I've gotta work you know?
Show me some benefit and I'll ignore this whole thing. Until then, it's probably safe to say this will be used to marginalize any potential challengers to the current status quo politically.
Despite this, I personally will continue to speak. Our speech lies at the core of our freedom. Stay quiet and all is lost. Join me, put aside your fear they cultivate and speak your mind --just be sure it's true and just. --eventually we all will be better for it, IMHO.
Blogging because I can...
The NSA can have all the data they want, but if there is not a useful, fast, accurate and automated way for them to search through it (which I doubt they do) then the only use it has is to assert power.
If Google weren't such an idealist company, I wouldn't be surprised to see "Google NSA" on their labs page.
Finally something that might actually kill off all those lame bebo sites.
About who can fake the NSA out. Using webrings, postings, blog articles, code words, etc.
I want it all to point to some abandoned house that's supposedly a terrorist cell.
I want a webcam and computer to snap a picture of NSA agents busting in, and then print
them out a little message :
"Stop domestic spying. Stop hurting America with your un-American actions. Stand up. Do
something. Speak out."
Yes it's me, Jack Bauer. Now, I want you to turn yourself in. Don't be afraid, we'll just need you to spend some time with me in the friendly interrogation room. I just want answers. Nevermind that the last five people I interrogated were beaten & yelled at until they gave me answers they didn't know--it's standard CTU procedure.
My work here is dung.
I mean, seriously, you are posting all of your dirty laundry out in public, where anyone can read it - don't even pretend you have any thinking whatsoever that you have any privacy when you post there.
;-) )
So, don't be too upset when your grandma (or the NSA) finds your risque pictures of yourself that you posted for only your "friends" to see on a public website (unless you really think you are friends with the potential billions of people who are reading it - then you have even bigger issues.
If they want information, they're going to have to work for it. We have to stand up for our rights and show the government that we're not just goint to sit by while this happens. Make fake accounts, post anonymously, and more than anything else, get the information out that this is happening. People have to be told -- if you're a big MySpace person, send out announcements to all your friends. Tell everyone, send letters, and create new communities that stress encryption and privacy.
They can kill the revolutionary but not the revolution.
If we stand on the side and allow this to happen in ten years the internet will be controlled by the political leaders. We have to fight to stop this. There is no other choice.
It's stupid to keep acting suprised about this stuff. You still want a free country? It's pretty clear that the us govt. is going to know everything it can about all of us, no matter what the constitutional ramifications. Some folk may abuse it less than others, but with that much consolidated power human nature dictates that things will gradually get more and more corrupt to the detriment of all our freedom. We really need to push for a government that has no more privacy or secrets than we do.
This is scary. Just because this information is out there doesn't mean the government should datamine it or act on it. Even in public, one has a reasonable assumption that one won't be stalked or spied upon. Besides, this is a complete waste of resources that could go to doing soemthign effective to fight terrorism. But the powers that be honestly don't want that. If you are selling security, you have to make sure people feel insecure.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
How do you think they found Zarqawi?
Little known fact: he posted a bulletin on his Myspace page inviting his friends over for a barbeque.
Even provided a link to google maps so they could find his place.
Next they're going to look at his top 8 to crack down on the rest of Al Quaeda.
It's only a matter of time before the war on terror is over, thanks to this datamining of Myspace.
The libertarian solution to the failures of capitalism is to apply more capitalism til the failures are fixed.
Every time you hear some news about what the NSA is "thinking about doing", you can rest assured that they already did it, last year.
First Internet Neutrality gets the boot, and now we learn the folks from the NSA are doing their level best to psychologically profile anyone and everyone who makes any information public or exchanges any information online... This just doesn't sound good at all. This makes an encrypted public mesh network seem that much more appealing now. Say, why don't we all snag some $100 Laptops? Only $130 each, wireless mesh capability included.
I have to wonder what having a massive databank of emo kid profiles is going to do for the security of this country, though. I mean, come on. MySpace? Livejournal? Xanga? The whole system is going to become so bogged down with emo kids and goth-tards it'll hang itself out of spite. What are these kids going to do, anyway? Cause a rash of suicides from viral depression caused by their own overblown self-loathing in an attempt to garner attention? Wait, shit, that really is scary. Now I'm almost glad the NSA is doing this. Not only would all the emo kids vanish, depriving me of a massive source of entertainment, but they'd take half the world with them - either because they'd make everyone else feel as bad as they do, or through their incessant bitching compell their unfortunate victims to slay themselves to escape the whining, terrifying hair-dos, and crappy punk music.
Yes, since people voluntarily place their information on these networks, that attenuates the indignation at this government data collection a bit. BUT, what about information that's put up there involuntarily? Ex: I have a facebook account (sorry), but at the least I wanted to keep a picture myself off it. But soon after, Facebook added the feature to tag pictures with the names of the people in it, and given enough data sets, an algorithm to identify myself in newer pictures! Pictures of myself popped up, appropriately tagged, shortly thereafter. I could de-tag myself on every picture, and ask each of my friends to stop, but such palliative measures are futile on the Internet...once the data's out, it's out!
McCarthyism
"We are all geniuses when we dream"
- E.M. Cioran
...welcome our neocon overlords.
People to look at information posted on social networking sites. Well, duh.
Seriously, the issue is not the NSA is doing this. The issue is the NSA appears to be doing this from publically available information. Or, as the first line of the article puts it:
"I AM continually shocked and appalled at the details people voluntarily post online about themselves." So says Jon Callas, chief security officer at PGP, a Silicon Valley-based maker of encryption software.
(Nelson) Haha! (/Nelson)
Its bad enough we have pedos and all sorts of unsavory people browsing myspace looking for people to exploit. Now the government wants in on the action too.
ZING!
"On a scale from 1 to 10, people are stupid"
"On a large pile of money, with many beautiful ladies."
C'mon, these guys figured out a way to get paid to surf MySpace and compile vast amounts of information on (purportedly) attractive women.
Should Slashdotters really be casting stones at them for this?
Here's some video showing the rally against REAL ID here in New Hampshire.
3 976923577
We had a wide range of supporters, Left and Right, Atheist and Christian, all working together to help stop this....
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=830740502
Help achieve Liberty in your lifetime - join the Free State Project - http://www.freestateproject.org
http://www.fromfreedomtofascism.com/
Perhaps they figure the bad guys are going to lay low. You create the master social network database for the whole country and then check if people are actually in it. If you pull a guy over for speeding and he doesn't show up in the NSA database there's probably something fishy about him ;-)
This isn't about data mining, or finding terrorists, child molestors, or anything like that. This is a test to see how much trite the government can push down the throats of the people. They are testing us, they want to know our breaking point, then when the hit that barrier, they'll back off just enough to appease us, then start the process all over in a few years. Just wait, you'll see.
I got nuthin
The information they're collecting here is public as it's on the internet, but my question is why? First of all, it may or may not be accurate. People do lie on the internet. Second of all, do they really think terrorists will post incriminating evidence on MySpace? Honestly? Maybe some criminals are stupid enough to do so, but no one the NSA would be worried about. Lastly, can't they think of anything better to spend their budget on? If this is the best they can come up with, we should probably take some of their money away...
"The fabulous statistics continued to pour out of the telescreen. As compared with last year there was more food, more clothes, more houses, more furniture, more cooking-pots, more fuel, more ships, more helicopters, more books, more babies -- more of everything except disease, crime, and insanity. Year by year and minute by minute, everybody and everything was whizzing rapidly upwards. As Syme had done earlier Winston had taken up his spoon and was dabbling in the pale-coloured gravy that dribbled across the table, drawing a long streak of it out into a pattern. He meditated resentfully on the physical texture of life. Had it always been like this? Had food always tasted like this? He looked round the canteen. A low-ceilinged, crowded room, its walls grimy from the contact of innumerable bodies; battered metal tables and chairs, placed so close together that you sat with elbows touching; bent spoons, dented trays, coarse white mugs; all surfaces greasy, grime in every crack; and a sourish, composite smell of bad gin and bad coffee and metallic stew and dirty clothes. Always in your stomach and in your skin there was a sort of protest, a feeling that you had been cheated of something that you had a right to. It was true that he had no memories of anything greatly different. In any time that he could accurately remember, there had never been quite enough to eat, one had never had socks or underclothes that were not full of holes, furniture had always been battered and rickety, rooms underheated, tube trains crowded, houses falling to pieces, bread dark-coloured, tea a rarity, coffee filthy-tasting, cigarettes insufficient -- nothing cheap and plentiful except synthetic gin. And though, of course, it grew worse as one's body aged, was it not a sign that this was not the natural order of things, if one's heart sickened at the discomfort and dirt and scarcity, the interminable winters, the stickiness of one's socks, the lifts that never worked, the cold water, the gritty soap, the cigarettes that came to pieces, the food with its strange evil tastes? Why should one feel it to be intolerable unless one had some kind of ancestral memory that things had once been different?" - 1984 George Orwell [Eric Blair] Published: 1949
Thanks to eating disorders most chicks are reasonably good looking these days.
The NSA is acting on behalf of our criminal government to launch yet another fishing expedition to find any dissidents and crack down on political protest. People, protesting the Iraq War for instance, will need to not post so many details on MySpace.com about where to meet prior to any protest since now the men in black can gitmo-ize them before any effective protest can be made. The government suppressing freedom of assembly is a clear violation of the 1st ammendment of our Constitution. Burning the Constitution is something this criminal government does every day.
Alternatively, understanding this potential use of the NSA should enable dissident MySpace.com users to post bogus info and confuse the government.
Heck, confusing information was one tool that the government used to attack its own people on 9-11 (http://www.st911.org).
all-embracing personal profiles of individuals.
As-if the federal gov't didn't already have personal information about all of it's citizens and most non-citizens. I mean come on guys - let's not spin another scare tactic. Social Security numbers - the fed has access to your criminal records, financial records, work records, purchase records, etc. This has been the case for many many years - way before the Internet.
This is nothing new. The only thing we need to do is to make sure the gov't does not misuse the information. Yes there are cases where it has been misused, and in instances where it was maliciously done so we should punish the culprits so heavily as to scare the crap out of any would-be evil-doer. In the case of accident, fix the mistake and put in prevantative measures.
I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
I'll tell you a different kind of a "in soviet russia" story, and it's not a joke. I'll tell you what kept those people in line under most totalitarian regimes. Yes, the short story is "the secret police", but that's only a very superficial view of the problem.
The communist block's secret police didn't always have the indiscriminate brutality of Stalin's black cars and summary executions. It eventually evolved into something more "subtle": the widespread idea that somewhere they have a dossier of what you've said and who you've associated with. That even if you don't land in the Gulag (but then again, you might land there anyway) for going drinking again with comrade Piotr who speaks against the government, there'll be a page in your dossier for ever flagging you as sharing Piotr's subversive views. And it someday might bite you in the ass. E.g., maybe some day you won't get a promotion, or the party's approval to go abroad (on business or holyday), or whatever, just because somewhere there's a page in your dossier saying you're a subversive element and associate with traitors.
Now they didn't have the computers or manpower to actually do that on anywhere near the scale NSA is doing it, so the probability was really low, but the chilling effect was thorough anyway. People didn't want to take risks, so they tended to shut up.
But the effect was more perverse than that. Anyone who openly spoke against the government was seen as a potential agent provocateur, trying to bait you into saying something that'll come back to haunt you later. It's the most perverse thing you can do to prevent organized resistance: make sure that people don't trust each other. The guy shouting against the government might be paid by the government, or may be someone who has a petty grudge against you and tries to get you to say something you might regret.
Basically, the the most effective threats don't have to be explicit, but vague and implicit. People don't have to know that the government will swiftly come and send them to Guantanamo for speaking against it. The most effective threat is to just have everyone know that you know everything they did and everyone they associated with, that it's for ever attached to their file somewhere, and they don't know how or when you'll use it. Maybe you'll go for direct retaliation, or maybe their son won't be able to get a government scholarship/job/whatever because of what they said, or whatever. That unknown can pretty chilling while costing very little to maintain. (A lot less than trying to execute everyone who disaggrees, and creates less martyrs.)
And all this mining phone calls and social sites (a lot do have personal information, e.g., dating sites) has the potential to create a chilling effect of epic proportions. Is John speaking out against the new fascist government? Well, then better make sure you're not on his friends list or calling him every week. You don't want to have _that_ on your file, now do you? If you're an employer, better get rid of him on your own, because otherwise, you know, that relationship goes on your file too. Plus, you know they'll make a connection every time he calls you to take a sick day, or you call him to ask why the server isn't up. Better not risk losing a fat government contract just because you're associating with and employing undesirables.
Does that have to be accurate and filtered clean of character assassination bullshit? No, it's probably better if it isn't. Might get some people thinking they already have plenty of bogus or inaccurate stuff on their file anyway, so all the more reason not to add real stuff to it too. Better keep low and try not to trip their radar, than have to explain which stuff is bogus and which isn't
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
Excellent post.
Of course it runs NetBSD. BTC: 1NT7QvbetmANwaMzhpVL6
When was the last time that you saw a terrorist on a social network like MySpace, posting hints about their desire to terrorize others?
;-)
Why, just today, in fact. See?
My blog
I've seen this one coming from a mile away. Anyone with a high speed internet connection and a couple of computers (or a botnet) can data mine the entire MySpace directory. You'll get a whole lot of information from MySpace, since people are so willing to spend rediculous amounts of time looking for "friends". The real value of MySpace is in the consumer profiles they build from all your friends and the keywords you guys are into. When miss teen bopper picks that crappy song to play in her MySpace, you can be sure a record company somewhere is making a note of that. MySpace is a goldmine for marketers.
Also, what about Google Analytics? Think about that one. Google already has access to most of the world's search habits. Their search cookie expires in 2038, and that means anyone who doesn't have a clue about clearing cookies (everyone not a geek) will have a record of their searches traceable to their common ip adressess. Now with the inclusion of Analytics, Google has access to which pages people visit through sites. This is extremely dangerous. A rogue government could steal this database or force google to release it, and then they'd have a really worthwhile database. Think about it.
My $0.02? Do a search for "DemocraKey" while you still can.
Maybe a better poll question for slashdot is...how many people have actually read 1984? And yes one of the answers is "CowboyNeal reads it for me".
The article takes this totally on the wrong tangent: the only fact at the basis of this claim is that ARDA, a government funding agency linked to the NSA, funded a couple of University professors with a grant, and those professors did a study on gleaning information from social networking sites.
Let me explain: The government gives these people money because they want to advance the state of the art in this field. These professors look around for a dataset to use, and think, "hey! stuff on MySpace is publically available, and there's lots of data. Why don't we do a study on that, and publish it in a scientific journal?"
This is like DARPA funding robotics researchers who build robots that play soccer -- followed by a headline, "US Army Building Massive Force Of Killer Soccer Robots!!!!" No, they're not; they just want robotics to be advanced, so they can take advantage of the smart stuff that these researchers dream up.
To put it plainly: These researchers are not feeding this data directly to the NSA, nor is the NSA interested in reading MySpace.
four nine eighteen twenty-7 thirty-nine forty-7 fiftyeight sixty-nine seventy-9 eighty-8 one-hundred-and-nine one-twenty
-Eric
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
It's all about the 72 virgins. Who would commit jihad to get 72 virgins if he could get 72 virgins right here on Earth? Why go to another world to get your reward if you can get the same reward here, and not have to give up ties to your mother and buddies who are still living?
(Shit, I just Googled "jihad virgins" 'cause I couldn't remember the number. Am I in trouble now?)
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
http://www.imeem.com/ lets you change the privacy levels on every link to friends, groups, blogs and even individual pieces of info in your profile. So, you can certainly lock down your information if you're worried about NSA data mining.
It seems like such a simple feature I'm surprised that nobody else does it (or at least does it without sucking)
Someone I know was interviewing for a federal job. He was asked if he had sold his gun. A year earlier he had asked for pricing advice on a forum. Don't submit anything that you wouldn't want to see in the newspaper.
The misinformation that is out there will need to be dealt with; statistical analysis can not yield to-the-person accurate data 100% of the time, but it can yield a wealth of other information.
To deny our own government permission to look at (or even examine in detail) anything that is by definition public is tantamount to insisting that our government conduct all of its affairs blindfolded.
(Oh, I feel the flames rising already . . .)
I wish I hadn't used all of my mod points today. Parent is insightful and scary and everyone should see it.
Social Bookmarking A Threat To Privacy
http://www.aviransplace.com
How are they certain that the rules derived from these sites like MySpace or even Slashdot are even accurate?
Answer: The same way they do at the moment.
Um, but I don't have a social networking account or a personal webpage! One of these days I'm going to have to make a list of things that I'd put up on a personal webpage or blog.
The NSA is out of control and should be stopped. Hear that, NSA?
The thing is, most people find the internet large, strange, and confusing. They don't understand how it works. And because they don't understand it, this program makes perfect sense to them; terrorists use the internet, right? So monitoring the internet is a good way to catch terrorists.
You and I understand that what they perceive as the big, monolithic entity called "The Internet" is actually a huge conglomeration of disparate networks and hosts. They're interconnected with one another, but managed separately. With that understanding, it's easy to see why a terrorist organization would never, ever host a website on MySpace or any other social network site. But without that understanding, this is a sure-fire way to protect us from the terrorists.
And that's what scares me.
"you go datamine with the data you have, not the data you may wish or want to have"
;(
(deep sigh)
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Don't usually comment...but mod parent up. Definitely insightful and _worth_ reading
This rather paranoid-looking but, in my opinion, believeable web page has been documenting the NSA's relationship to Orkut for 2 years now. http://www.infiltrated.net/orkut.php
w ww.infiltrated.net/orkut.php+orkut+sil+nsa&hl=en&c t=clnk&cd=10
It lives only in Google's Cache:
http://66.249.93.104/search?q=cache:JMyVq6wjWSYJ:
And yes people lie on web pages, but they also use social networking pages to socially network. Therefore the core data (who talks to whom) is fairly reliable and rather scary to give to the NSA.
The point of the NSA datamining personal sites is not to gain some particularly important piece of information. Rather, its purpose is to add information to its already vast collection of government and financial information(information which is for sale from companies like Experian & Choicepoint, etc). The question which this of course poses is of what use is this information to the government. The answer is straigtforward. First, as more and more information becomes available, it becomes very easy to create psychological profiles, which profiles can then be compared to benchmarks for certain abberant behavior (pedophilia, terrorism, an excessive fondness for college chemistry). Second, and perhaps most importantly, the government is facing data encryption technology which is becomming extremely difficult to brute-force. As a result, cracking passwords becomes a very important government pasttime. Thus the information serves to help with the creation of possible passwords. Remember the story about the detective in LA who encrypted his audio files. It took the FBI a year, but they eventually were able to access them. I am guessing that they did not brute-force them. Having a full profile which includes all of your hobbies, friends, favorite movies and quotes is probably an incredible boon in a situation where cracking becomes "a priority." Finally, the notion that simply parsing myspace will not tell you who its users are is simply absurd. It is not difficult to determine who is accessing a myspace page and then check that IP against ATT's database of released dynamic IP's to it's dsl users. (Of course I am sure that AT&T would not release that info to the government) Then, cross reference against the number of dependants claimed on your 1040, and you can pretty easily guess who is accessing a given page. Ultimately, with the tremendous advances in technology, psychological profiling, and artificial intelligence/predicitive analysis, I am surprised that people on Slashdot who are more aware of these ideas have failed to grasp the fundamental dangers posed by this threat.
Is he your friend or something?
Let's start calling this "SpySpam". For spyspam to be most effective, you have to hide it away where normal people won't find it. Ideally, you'd get other spyspammers to link to you and you'd just link to them, making self contained universes. One author could easily run several "people".
Someone should quietly introduce this at the next large gathering of Science Fiction writers. I'll bet Spider Robinson could pull it off.
All ideas^H^H^H^H^Hprocesses in this post are Patent Pending. (as well as the process of patenting all postings)
Do you think that a deliberate attempt to obstruct the NSA's ability to "Protect America from Terrorism" (tm) isn't illegal?
In fact, you probably already broke the law just for posting an article counseling how to obstruct the NSA datamining program.
Someone is here on a visa or is an illegal alien? They should certainly be tracked. Legal citizens? Recognize that they have inalienable essential liberties which are guaranteed by the Constitution, and using the War Powers Act to try to justify your actions is NOT legal, and is certainly not ethical. In fact, encroaching our Constitutionally-protected rights when you have taken an oath to preserve and protect the Constitution actually amounts to treason.
" We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." - Declaration of Independence
hrmm.. where in that do you read that only LEGAL CITIZENS are created equal? Or that only legal citizens are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable Rights.
The legal premise of the nation is that rigts were endowed upon ALL by the Creator. Unless immigrants have a different creator, then they too have those fundamental rights. The Constitution does not guarantee your rights. the Constitution merely acknowledges in writing that certain of them exist and acts as a contract between the Federal Government and the States and the People that the rights will not be infringed. Contracts can be violated, and they often are. The only thing which guarantees the right may be enjoyed is the positive ACTIONS of people in defence of those rights.
Most people are far too scared to act against government action even when it breeches the contract. This would seem to be according to plan.
"Upon this a question arises: whether it be better to be loved than
feared or feared than loved? It may be answered that one should wish to
be both, but, because it is difficult to unite them in one person, is
much safer to be feared than loved, when, of the two, either must be
dispensed with." - THE PRINCE, Nicolo Machiavelli - 1505
"I am altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further. " - Darth Vader, "Star Wars: Episode V"
Those in power can trample whatever rights they please, and if it can frighten people out of resisting then it has successfully achieved its aim.
If the people are scared of their own government, then they are already oppressed.
No one has a right to their *own* opinion. They have a right to the TRUTH.
Uh, hold on a sec...
The voters do a perfectly fine job of that by voting in the same idiots over and over.
Those of us older school netizens are very likely to understand this and post accordingly. I honestly worry about the current generation however.
They may save us yet, especially if we support them. To us a post is for the world to see, but for them it's (often) for their friends to see, and they think it's wrong for others to go read it. They will need to change what society thinks is acceptable. (Is it OK to Google a new boss? How about dig thru their trash? How about chasing down their internet aliases?)
You keep on recruiting like-minded people, and soon there'll be no limit to what you can almost do.
I am not a crackpot.
>Show me some benefit and I'll ignore this whole thing.
Even after we're (hypothetically someday) shown some benefit we'll still have to weigh it against the cost.
>make sure what you write is defensible and that you have the high ground in your convictions. If not, you will be marginalized
John McCain, when runnning against Bush, was not challenged much or at all on truthfulness. But someone in the Republican organization noticed that he had an adopted daughter. She appeared regularly in TV news, many voters knew her face.
Harmless information, you might think, but then most information is harmless in the hands of honest people. But watch what can be done with information far less sensitive than phone records.
His daughter's genetic ancestry is Jamaican. The hate machine commissioned a "polling" firm to call people in Sourth Carolina before the primary and ask "Would you be more likely, or less likely, to vote for John McCain in the primary if you knew he had an illegitimate black daughter?"
Sure, social networking sites are terribly unreliable, but that's the analyst's job to sort it out. The NSA does not expect it all to be true. Intelligence is gathered here and there, often from shady folks. Politics aside, the article basically says the NSA is doing its job. Get as much information as possible, then work out what's true and what's whack:
Ring! Ring!
Terrorist 1 What are you calling me for again and this time on my disposable cell phone? We just talked on my land line for like half an hour! You wanna use up all my minutes?
Terrorist 2 Nah, dude! Check this out - remember when I said all that crazy stuff on the phone a minute ago - I was just Joshin' ya, holmes. We would NEVER do that, that's crazy!
Terrorist 1 Yeah it is!
Terrorist 2 But we gotta make the Americans think we would do that. Hey, I gotta go and put that crazy stuff up on my blog before I forget what I said.
Terrorist 1 Dude! I'm glad you called cuz I was gonna leave a comment on your MySpace page about how you went crazy!
Terrorist 2 Nah, dude - just say I'm a genius and be all like yeah, that stuff I said during that 32 minute phone call at 8:17PM was the best plan you ever heard and you are so down with it! Holy War Out, bro!
Free state? Does this mean they will allow legal brothels, and the state will not be getting involved in saying who can and cannot marry, but will leave it up to the churches since it is a religious concept and should not be a civil matter? Does this mean elimination of property taxes, so that when you buy property, you actually OWN property? Does this mean they will let dumbasses burn out their brains with crystal meth or whatever it is they want to snort, inhale, inject, or eat (e.g., decriminalizing "victimless crimes")? Will people actually be able to picket and say "I hate President Foo! Down with Foo!" without being restricted to "free speech zones" and having to carry regulated-sized signs or risk being arrested for being a dissident? If not, it won't be free.
I'm against drugs, by the way, have not even tried pot, but I do not think choosing to fry your own brain in your own home should be a crime. Also, your employer should have the right to fire you if you're a burnout because you are no longer effective on the job. Addiction is not a disease, it's a personal choice to become a lazy sack of meat.
You've identified 3 traits associated with a psychopathic personality. What else should you be telling us?
No one has a right to their *own* opinion. They have a right to the TRUTH.
Wow, I'm going to add a bunch of pr0n to my web site. Hopefully I can get it blocked in Ft Meade. I'm sure the NSA uses filters to rid themselves of objectionable content.
Along with all the (mostly justified) bytes emitted over privacy concerns, I'd love to see more counter-suggestions.
I get my share of laughs from the DHS's & NSA's seeming ineptness at implementing effective counter-terrorist tactics. But lately, I'm increasingly interested in what folks think the US *ought* to do in terms of discovering terrorist networks and disrupting any plans they might have.
In terms of government usage of data, don't most precedents regarding protecting Americans' privacy place the remedy at the prosecution stage - via denying admissibility - rather than at the evidence gathering stage? I expect anything I put on a social networking site would meet the "in plain sight" criteria, and would thus be admissible in any criminal prosecution.
Can we even differentiate the handling of domestic criminals versus that of enemy combatants, and if so, at what stage of the enforcement effort (data gathering, trial)? For example, what about mass-gathered NSA telephone data usage, in domestic criminal prosecutions versus in civil cases? Does allowing a gov't agency more leeway against terrorists set a course towards the same tactics eventually being permissible against all of us?
I guess my query boils down to finding tactics that meet two criteria: (a) That US citizens' rights are preserved now & in the future, and (b), that the tactic is ultimately effective. I don't know about anyone else, but I'd have a pretty high regard for any original ideas that meet both of these.
Pi Ran Out
The NSA probably doesn't have to mine the data through the web interface. They could tap the network router or obtain a secret warrant to directly access the database. A few years ago, I came into possession of the Orkut user database and wrote a few apps to datamine+visualize users and their links (some of you may remember the brief life of the Orkut Mapper at datawhorehouse.com). It revealed some rather interesting information. Hiding your real name doesn't offer much anonymity since your network of friends is a somewhat unique fingerprint. If you have a profile or several sites such as orkut, myspace, or friendster, the friends network is probably similar so they could be pattern matched to reveal your true identity.
I have no objections to the NSA data mining published information (we might change the line to "publish AND perish"). In fact, I think that they should make it very public that they will study social networks and relationships in just the way that this article describes. To get around the logic, terrorists would need to diversify their social interactions, interacting with more non-terrorists than terrorists in order to escape suspicion. I believe very strongly that building relationships is the best way to achieve cross-cultural understanding and peace. It is very possible that terror supporters could change their lives for the better when they enter into new relationships originally designed to avoid detection. If that results from a project of this nature, it could well be to the benefit of all humanity.
Seriously can they use that claim to track people on sites like these?
Who knows how much information the NSA will be able to obtain using these methods; that's not the issue here.
The important thing to realize is that this, along with the information on phone and internet tapping, signals a change in the mission of the NSA. The NSA has always been a spy organization focused on intercepting <b>foreign</b> communications. From the information that has come out in recent months it is obvious that the mission has changed to include spying on US citizens. I, for one, do not like the idea of having to censor myself in fear of big brother.
It's a libertarian movement, so I'm sure those are all goals of theirs.
Myspace asks for your income data. If you fill that out, I wonder if the IRS ever checks to see if it matches your tax filings...
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
They have my heartiest support.
MySpace, YouTube et al cannot be datamined. These things give an entirely different meaning to "unrelated data". I for one, enjoy knowing that for the next few months NSA will be less occupied with my telephone, and more with their crashing algorithms, overflowing databases, and decreased morale at the Agency due to prolonged exposure to MySpace users.
And since this is a prime opportunity to make fun of myspace users, here's a sample of personal profile data, comments by yours truly.
HI! my name is [-]. I love singning singing is my favoriite
Wow. That's the greatest.
HEY [-] its so great your here i LOVVVEEE your page!!!!!!!!11
I LOVVVEEE your page too.
SUP BABY JUST THOUGHT LIKE I LACE YOUR PAGE WITH SOME DARK LUV GIRL.
Where's ya capslock at, dawg?
Yay!! i popped your cherry!!! nice page!!
OMG!!! LOL
I'm here to meet people who I feel can make me a better person
Take a U-turn, buddy, and push the pedal down hard.
Heroes: my parents, who got me to where i am today (This is my favorite one)
You don't have to rub it in their face, sweetie. I'm sure they like your red undergarments, but..
Is to populate real information with false information, thus making the truth so vague that no one will get any use out of the information.
A database is completely worthless if 50% of the information contained within is wrong.
So go make a few myspace pages about yourself living in guam, married to 5 supermodels sitting on a fat inheritance. Go make some random phonecalls to random places. It doesn't really matter, just make sure there's some reasonable doubt on anything you do.
I've been datamining ./ (slashdot.org) for years. I knew it was just a matter of time before it would pay off.
NSA, if you're reading this, let's make a deal!
Contact: aasj2e2@yahoo.com
Nit pick all you want. These clowns are not doing you any real good. If you are a supporter (and I think you are), then you are most likely a selfish person in that you are an issue voter.
Let's play the nothing else matters game, shall we?
I'll go first:
Nothing else matters but speech. Assuming that's secured (and it isn't), the core American values of freedom, equality and democracy are to be valued above all else.
W sure does not give a rip about speech --that's clear enough from this and many other above the law efforts we are hearing about almost daily now. The whole above the law bit also violates the principle of equality easily enough, so that's out. Democracy? "Either you are with us or against us!" takes care of that one. We've got frigging free speech zones for christ sake! --In America no less! Freedom? You have got to be fucking kidding me. Legislating morality is what the base is all about! Nix that one too.
You do know in a free society, the only reason for law is to address harm. Not moral harm, because that's subjective based on one's belief system, but civil harm where such harm can be tied to cold hard facts and known truths. Not beliefs or matters of faith, but truths we all mutually agree upon.
Tolerance for one another is paramount to a free and democratic society. Sorry, but I just don't see that in our leadership. Oh, and it's supposed to be a representative government, not a dictatorship. That means when we are unhappy, we get to speak our mind as a check on power abuses. Explain to me again how these clowns are encouraging that with their emphasis on strong accountabilty and ethics? Can you spell corruption?
What's that leave that matters? Basically nothing. That's plenty for me and the 'GOP' for a good long time. I'll bet we don't even begin to right these wrongs until I'm pretty old.
Now, your turn?
Nothing else matters but:
Blogging because I can...
This is in many ways just extending traditional techniques to the online world. I can guarantee that if the CIA were trailing a Russian spy in the Cold War, they'd do a quick check on people he saw regularly. If a KGB spymaster and a lance corporal in the US Army were seen to always use the same table one after another at the same coffeehouse, the CIA would take a quick look. If the KGB agent used the same coffeehouse regularly, the CIA might also take a look. And if it noticed that the clerk was a member of the CPUSA, then it might look further, whereas if it discovered that the clerk was a member of the John Birch Society, it might make such an investigation a somewhat lower priority.
This is all pretty standard stuff, and nothing much to worry about.
You should already be engaging in the solution to this...
Just post wildly inaccurate and contradictory information about yourself!!!
(That wasn't too hard was it!)
Heh, heh. You really aren't paying attention, are you?
It seems that the goal of the NSA at the moment is to integrate their databases. Big Brother is watching. But so are the terrorists. Wouldn't you rather have the guiding eye of Big Brother than the malevolent one of the fears of the current decade? Funny how statism has become the outcome of democracy. All it took were some vague warnings and the occasional shout of "9/11!". The sad thing about the use of 'data-mining' is that even if it weren't 'misused' (though I'm not sure what would qualify as misuse anyway, since this is all basically warrantless) now, it will still be passed on to future administrations. And in the next Presidential election, I guarantee that the candidates will not give more than a passing glance to getting rid of (or even disclosing) this monstrosity and the public will be misled for another four years. All it takes to create a totalitarian nightmare is a President who can convince Americans to give up a few more freedoms in the name of security. "He who sacrifices freedom for security deserves neither." I wonder if anyone remembers who said that.
quia potentia mens mentis
Isn't the guise of "protecting you amurkins from turrism" wearing a bit thin?
Imagine Osama logging into his myspace account and writing about his day. Then his pal Ali stops by to read his profile and leaves a message,"OMG ur teh l337 jihadist lol!"
You can run but you can't hide, except, apparently, along the Afghan-Pakistani border.
Hey I'm all for privacy. I even used to whine about savings cards. But then one day I realized what savings cards are really all about.
Suppose you're a company that sells a perishable commodity (e.g. groceries). For years your business model has been to fill your huge warehouse with stuff and sell it as fast as consumers demand it. If something starts getting close to the sell-by date, you put it on sale with a little sticker: "Manager's Special - reduced for quick sale". Any time you have to put a product on sale or throw out expired merchandise, you reduce your order budget for that product.
Over time you get better at ordering just enough to satisfy demand. However, you notice something funny: your sales are down. Why is that? You hire someone to look through your records, and they point out that most of your products have periodic demand, and you've managed to clip the supply to the low point in the demand cycle. You start ordering more to help evaluate the periodic demand, but it's still hit or miss because you don't know how many sales are from regular customers and how many are random buys.
Finally one day you devise a plan to track customer spending: you offer a 'savings card' to all your shoppers. Finally you get the information you need: you know that there are 53 people that buy product X on a weekly basis, and there are 23 people who buy it every other week, and there are also about 5 to 12 random purchases each week. Furthermore, you know that the first group is most likely to come in on Tuesday between 4-6PM, just before your usual weekly delivery for that product. So you modify your order counts accordingly, and you arrange to have the delivery put on the Monday truck instead. Now your overhead cost for the product is minimized because the product sits on the shelf less and you have less waste. You apply this method to the rest of your inventory, and suddenly your warehouse requirements are cut in half.
Granted: Some stores like to print targeted advertisements/coupons on your receipt, but you have to admit that's better than the random advertisements/coupons that we had back before savings cards -- that is unless you have no self control and feel compelled to buy anything that's $1 off.
In short, savings cards are a service to the consumer. When I use the savings card, it benefits not only me but everyone else that uses the store. If I don't use the card, I'm actually contributing to the original problem and raising costs for everyone. "Sure," I used to say, "that's the price of privacy."
Watch out all you 16 year olds posting pictures of yourselves drinking alcohol on myspace, the government is watching...
...for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security - Benjamin Franklin
The continued government quashing of what have long been held as civil liberties will not only continue but accelerate unless the checks and balances that are built into the Constitution are restored.
As long as our elected representatives continue to make decisions and cast votes based on what is, imho, best for their political party instead of what is best for the country, we will continue to see the rights, liberties, and freedoms that we, as a collective population, have long held dear eroded by the various insidious programs that have been implemented and come to light ever since the tragedy the occurred on 11 Sep 01. I am sure that a vast majority of you who read this have friends or relatives who have fought and died based on the belief they held that those rights, liberties, and freedoms were worth the ultimate sacrifice of laying your life for your beliefs. Those rights, liberties, and freedoms are the reason this country was created.
I acknowledge that as a country we have historically trampled on the very same rights, liberties, and freedoms of other peoples such as Native Americans and those brought to the U.S. as slaves just to name two groups. I no way condone but rather condemn those actions. But I would like to think that those errors were recognized and the appropriate actions were taken by the government to correct those egregious historical mistakes. Societal issues must be dealt with and corrected by society aka you and me.
In the case of encroachment on and erosion of our rights, liberties, and freedoms it is also up to each of us to make our voices heard. Write, email, fax, and/or call your elected representatives. Scream at the leaders of the House and Senate. What is the one thing that our elected representatives fear most? Not being reelected.
I doubt anyone will read this, but I think people are misconstrueing the biggest problem with such mass data mining. The real danger lies in creating an agency that knows way more about human nature than does any part of the scientific community. The New Scientist article talks about finding people that take flying lessons, but no terrorist is that stupid. What this is really about imho: (1) getting a feel for how people relate to each other and pass on information. This can be useful, for example, to create more effective propaganda for democratic movements in foreign countries. (2) getting a feel, more specifically, about what information gets into the mind of the general public and how attitudes develop. Considering that the agency serves the government, that is the kind of information that might be useful to getting the right bills passed and getting reelected. People are scared of being wrongly labelled terrorist supporters. What's far more dangerous is to be tagged *rightfully* as an intelligent person that is liable to work on privacy issues, for example. With sufficiently superior datamining capabilities, you can find the "dangerous elements" in society faster than any possible supporter can. In an increasingly digital world, this could result to a silent overthrow of the democratic process, providing freedom of speech only for the consenting and the dumb.
the person is registered and activly using their personal data on a social site. Personally I have several accounts with social sites and not one contains any info between my online monikers and my birth name, other than a real birth date.
I don't see how this data would be useful to them in this event.
"Chilling effect on terrorists? Hmm, any terrorist who hasn't since 1998 heard of VAI is behind the times. I am sure that the smarter ones recruit online but cull in person, and probably do so after layer upon layer of vetting and looking over the shoulder. I am thinking that a number of these recruits are diversionary sacrificial lambs to weed out the VAI-type shadows..."
Nope, the chilling effect wasn't targetted at terrorists and real traitors in the communist block either. Sure, the average Soviet or Chinese or whatever citizen may have disliked their oppressive government, but basically still didn't dislike their country too much. In fact, I dare say most were probably patriots. So they wouldn't have actually went and sabotaged a factory or sold military secrets to the capitalists anyway.
No, the subtle fear campaign was to keep everyone in line and obeying the oppressor. The banner waved by the party was, of course, that they're doing it to unveil traitors and saboteurs selling their country for a handful of dollars. But in practice it also kept every ordinary Tom, Dick and Harry (or Ivan, Piotr and Evgeniy), who hadn't even _seen_ a dollar or a foreigner in their life, from trusting each other enough to start working together against the communism.
You knew that, although officially they're only doing the witch hunt for spies and saboteurs, they collected the information about _everyone_. Including you. You didn't want to be the person whose dossier says "he got drunk and started shouting 'let's have a demonstration for democracy.'" You didn't even want to be anywhere near Piotr any more if he started saying things like that. In fact, you'd start suspecting that Piotr may be an agent provocateur paid by the secret police. Better not start aggreeing with him now, only to have him interogating you at the NKVD later.
_That_ is the problem with such chilling effects. That they won't really even work against spies and terrorists (it's not like Al Quaeda members will form groups on Orkut or whatever, so such data mining is worthless to that end), but it will keep normal citizens in fear of what their givernment knows about them.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Would you feel better if a corporation were to do this sort of datamining? No doubt, there are some that already are, to various extents. How about an individual? A stalker? A terrorist? Your mother? Your kids?
How long before there's a commercial service that will collect and charge for access to your "internet dossier?" Hasn't it already happened?
How about a service that will intentionally obfuscate your "internet dossier" by posting on your behalf, massive amounts of erroneous information that will dilute your real information into the background noise? Would you pay for such a service?
Perhaps we should all just shut up now because we've already said too much. To paraphrase Adam Ant, "Unplug the internet and do yourself a favor..."
... they dont do this already?
with the wealth of infomation that has been readily available on the internet for years, you'd think someone would have had the idea before now
this is probably just when they felt they could get away with announcing it... y'know with all those nasty terrorists and pedophiles about these days
And if they can't get to the humans directly with RFID, they'll get to 'em through the back way, by starting with all the domesticated animals (http://usda.gov/nais/). Either way, you will be numbered, you will be cataloged, you will be tracked, and you will show your papers. Ineffectiveness notwithstanding, and inevitable ID theft be damned, to say nothing of basic liberty. The Pentagon's been hacked, the VA's been hacked, the credit companies have been hacked, the CIA can't keep track of all their laptops, etc., "But this time, we'll get it right!"
/ 2010-1029_3-6075218.html
t m
Feh. You're welcome to your handbasket, if you like, but leave me out of it, thanks...
http://nonais.org/
http://libertyark.net/
http://newswithviews.com/Stuter/stuter91.htm
This has probably been posted already, but it's good...
http://news.com.com/Do+we+need+a+national+ID+card
Want more? Pay attention to Rep. Ron Paul...
http://www.house.gov/paul/tst/tst2006/tst052906.h
Why can't government just leave me alone? Damn the databases, bring on those FreeStaters. I just hope it's not too late...
As far as public video surveillance goes...as I understand, and IANAL, but it is completely legal to take photographs of anyone, anytime in a public place, with or without their permission, so I would expect video surveillance to become more common here in the U.S. I may not *like* it, but it's not a violation of any privacy laws of which I am aware.
In the USA photos can be taken of people in public spaces without their permission, however said photos can't be sold or used for advertizing if the person is identifiable without a signed release form. This was one of the first things we learned when I first took photography in college. A few years ago a case came before a court on this. A photographer took some photos of some bare breasted coeds during Mardi Gras in New Orleans. S/he then published them on a website and when one or two of the womens found out they sued. Because the photos weren't sold the judge ruled in favor of the photographer.
FalconShould there be a Law?
The time for a fully encrypted network is now. Some people may say: "Well what if the NSA gets on that network?" The answer is simple, good luck to the NSA on tieing a 1.0.0.0/8 IP to a real IP / person.
Seriously folks, wake up. It is time we took the net back and anoNet is how to do it.
Well sir Mary Jane has links to Al Queda through her extensive girlfriend shopping network. She is a immediate and present threat to the safety of America. :|... she also likes the colours green and the singer Madonna.
Considering a lot of the users of such sites are children... how ethical or legal is it to do this?
Isn't there anything protecting children below the age of consent from being spied on 24/7?
They'll have a gig of data on them by the time they're 15... suddenly what they were interested in when they were 12 becomes an issue when they're 30 and looking for a job?
Seriously I don't understand how all these people in government become such fans of big brother type stuff? Did we just happen to elect people who always thought "eh, it's not so bad having no privacy and give government all the power in the world"... or is there some switch that flips in their minds once they actually get in office?
Compared to today's "liberals" and "conservatives" our founding fathers would likely be considered to be libertarians. I'm registered as a Republican because I believe in true conservatism (small government, limited powers and no interference in private lives, etc) but in the last few years that seems to not be the Republican platform any more.
Yeap, the definitions of conservative and liberal have changed a lot. Thomas Jefferson for instance as a Democrat Republican was a liberal, which in his day meant liberty and small government. Of course you could only have liberty if you had small government, the more government the more liberty is restricted. Supposedly conservative, especially "Reagan Conservative" meant small government, but really Reagan enlarged government. I don't know where it is now but I had an article I read in the printed edition of "Liberty magazine" a few years ago that showed how government was expanded. As for today's liberals they seem more like socialist.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Some famous person, whose name I don't remember, said that Democracy is, of course, the worst system of government ... except, of course for all the others!
I don't know if he said it first but Winston Churchhill said it. I'd add capitalism, freetrade capitalism not the corporate aristocracy, is the worst economic system, except all the others.
FalconShould there be a Law?
vote!
Instead of having a "none of the above" choice I liked a system a township had I heard about on CNN several days ago. On the ballot you select you first choice then your second choice on down the ballot. Of course if you want you can choose just the first choice. Though I'm not sure how it's done, say out of 5 candidates the first choice gets 5 points, the second 4 and on down the list, once the voting finishes all the votes are tallied up and the person with the highest score wins.
Should there be a Law?
Yes, I've previously paraphrased the Churchill quote to capitalism/economics myself, too.
Equally, I think paraphrasing Ghandi's western civilsation quote for free trade capitalism is quite insightful: good idea, somebody should try it (because sure as s##t nobody is trying it now)
Even Thomas Jefferson warned about the corporate aristocracy, especially banks. John Adams didn't like them either, neither did the other Thomas, Thomas Paine. Simply there were some who thought big businesses would prove to be bad. The USA has come a long way from then, even from the America Alexis de Tocqueville wrote of in "Democracy in America" when he traveled the USA in the 1820-30s.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Dear EmOgOd69,
:Serfur Gurl:. Our advanced algorithms have indicated that she does not "&3" you, a fact that she expressed in her recent bulletin, title "OMG! Josh, please leave me alone!". Besides, after cross-referencing her photographs, we have determined that she is using "the angles" to her maximum advantage, in fact, her Hot or Not rating is an unimpressive 4.7. You can do better. Please consider combing the hair out of you right eye and buying a new T-shirt. Yellowcard is so 2 years ago.
We feel that it is our duty to inform you that you might want to rethink you position regarding
Also, we have noticed that you repeatedly fall for the "OH MY GOD!! IT REALLY WORKS" MySpace tracker scheme. This is only serving to annoy your "friends", approximately 78% of which we have determined have never met in real-life.
Sincerely,
Your new friends at the National Security Agency
PS - Thanks for the add!!
No, this isn't flamebait - bear with me a moment. The information is out there, waiting to be collected and collated. If the government never tried to do this, it still wouldn't be too long before some private company did. Then the info would be available to anyone with some cash, including the government.
It's only a question of time before some marketing company does this exact same thing, no matter what the government does, and there really isn't any way to stop that. In fact, I believe it's coming sooner rather than later. There is real money in this information, and that's a niche that's too tantalizing to go unfulfilled for long in a capitalistic society - which is one of the best ways to run an economy - so it's pretty inevitable.
thermonuclear bombs, anthrax, Democrat, gay marriage, weapons of mass destruction, bomb, smallpox, suicide bomber, gay cowboy Neal, movie pirate, napster, porn, pr0n, liberal, Islam, jihad, Ralph Nader, Star Trek, responsible government, insurgent, attack troops, semtex, Israel, Bin Laden, John Kerry, Al Gore, gun control, sarin gas, Saddam, free, running Imperialist Pig Dogs, torture in Gitmo, HUMAN PAPILLOMAVIRUS VACCINE,Bill Clinton, premarital sex, kiddie porn, gay Cowboy Neal, fnord!
On the ballot you select you first choice then your second choice on down the ballot.
This is one of several voting systems that are alternatives to the USA's obsolete "first past the post" system that has been enhanced with a "winner takes all" electoral college. Most of the democratic world uses one of these other systems, it is time for US to do likewise. Until then, the two viable parties will continue to compaign on the wrong issues. Every once in awhile, a third party or independent candidate can inject issues into the debate, but currently that is about all they can do, since most voters do not want to waste a vote on them.
If you must moderate, please moderate as irrelevent, not something bad, because I'm sure someone will find this interest
On the ballot you select you first choice then your second choice on down the ballot.
This is one of several voting systems that are alternatives to the USA's obsolete "first past the post" system that has been enhanced with a "winner takes all" electoral college. Most of the democratic world uses one of these other systems, it is time for US to do likewise. Until then, the two viable parties will continue to compaign on the wrong issues. Every once in awhile, a third party or independent candidate can inject issues into the debate, but currently that is about all they can do, since most voters do not want to waste a vote on them.
The USA used to have a different, better, system than what's there now. Amendment XII - Choosing the President, Vice-President changed the way the president and vice president are elected. Originally all candidates ran for president and after a process where the candidate with the lowest vote count was dropped until only two were left then the candidate with the highest count was president and the next vp. Amendment 12 changed it so pres and vp ran as a team. The reasoning behind having an Electoral College was because the Founding Fathers were afraid that with a straight vote for president then more populous urban states could dictate to mostly rural states who was going to be president. With how the demographics is now I don't know if it still makes sense.
FalconShould there be a Law?
There are various degrees of boned, ranging from "merely" being at a "This guy thinks too much to ever go abroad. And we better keep an eye on him", to losing any chance of ever having a job better than minimum wage except it's in a mine, all the way to earning a one-way trip to Siberia/Guantanamo/whatever. Just because you're slightly boned doesn't mean you'll be willing to go all the way to ending your life in a concentration camp.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
This is one of several voting systems that are alternatives to the USA's obsolete "first past the post" system that has been enhanced with a "winner takes all" electoral college. Most of the democratic world uses one of these other systems, it is time for US to do likewise.
Plenty of countries use "first past the post" electoral systems. There appear to be other factors at work which make things especially bad in the US, including attaching party membership to voter registration, different nomination rules for different candidates, lack of independence in those conducting elections, lack of transparancy in counting votes, etc.
The USA used to have a different, better, system than what's there now. Amendment XII - Choosing the President, Vice-President changed the way the president and vice president are elected. Originally all candidates ran for president and after a process where the candidate with the lowest vote count was dropped until only two were left then the candidate with the highest count was president and the next vp.
Most likely the reason is that the way political parties operate has changed over time. Even though the US has always had two main political parties their current similarity and domination of all parts of government probably wasn't the case a couple of hundred years ago.
I have no idea what the government plans to do with its citizens MySpace profiles. Would a terrorist actually list Al Qaeda as a friend on their MySpace profile? And what about the 14 year old kid who likes Natahsa Beddingfield and Nicholas Cage movies! He's sure to get a wiretap to monitor all the quality information which is surely being transmitted by mom's cordless phone.
I don't know about the rest of the world, but there's little of importance that you could find about me on the web. You can google me and find my web site... but you'd be lucky to find my house with any information you find - much less my bank account or credit card.
Every time I hear about so-called "big brother" actions, I have to laugh. The IRS already knows my social security number... which means they already know about any business dealings and bank accounts in my name. They can also look up my criminal record, drivers license. My life is not exciting enough for them to even care - but they already have the info they need if they really want it.
The simple fact is that data collection does not mean there is any sane way to process or manage it. Unless someone pins me down and forces a tranceiver into my right hand, I'm not terribly concerned. Aside from the hype of "big brother", I can't imagine who wouldn't agree.
I could go on with the Patriot Act (and how it really didn't hurt anyone - even though it seemed invasive)... but I've lost interest in this topic already. I can't imagine spending another minute stressing about this.
Depending on the savings card, you don't even need to give them your real name / address / whatever. Most of the grocery store cards are instant savings - The card I'm still using today has an address I lived at my first semester in college, and I put some absurd name that was pretty funny to my 18 year old self on it.
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
If it's data we'll mine it
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a sig goes quietly into the night