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NSF-Funded "Dark Web" to Battle Terrorists
BuzzSkyline writes "The National Science Foundation has announced a new University of Arizona project, which they call the Dark Web, intended to monitor all terrorist activity on the Internet. The project relies on 'advanced techniques such as Web spidering, link analysis, content analysis, authorship analysis, sentiment analysis and multimedia analysis [to] find, catalog and analyze extremist activities online.' The coolest part of the project is a tool called Writeprint, which 'automatically extracts thousands of multilingual, structural, and semantic features to determine who is creating "anonymous" content' with an accuracy of 95%, according to the release."
The coolest part of the project is a tool called Writeprint, which 'automatically extracts thousands of multilingual, structural, and semantic features to determine who is creating "anonymous" content' with an accuracy of 95%, according to the release."
So when they get it wrong, and the police storm my front door instead of my neighbors, will it still be "cool"?
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
...to out Dan Lyons as "Fake Steve."
Other than that, I'm afraid this is the sort of technology that's only "cool" when it isn't being used on you.
Not to be confused with Darknet http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darknet which is what I immediately thought from this article title.
Attention, NSF: Here's a better, cheaper solution - point all those @#$@#$%ing existing VIAGRA and mortgage spambots out there at these forums you're monitoring.
Either the terra'rists give up after the spamming, or they kill the spammers. Either way, we win.
...is:
Quis custodiet, ipsos custodes
- Juvenal
akad0nric0
This sentence no verb.
Change NSF to NSA, and the summary would make just as much sense...except "terrorist" would be defined as whatever the current politicians in power decide it to mean.
Space race, nuclear power, this kind of technology. Just goes to show, if you have a good idea, find a way to use it to further the war machine and political agendas and prepare to get buried in money. Can someone please figure out a way to weaponize a cure for cancer?
Public use of any portable music system is a virtually guaranteed indicator of sociopathic tendencies. -- Zoso
...that the Bush administration's definition of 'terrorist' includes Democrats, pot smokers, vegetarians, and people with two arms and two legs.
For those of us (like myself) that work closely with the banking industry, the phrase "NSF-Funded" produces quite a bit of cognitive dissonance.
Instead of posting anything anonymously yourself, just tell someone else to post it. There speling errors will not be the smae as your's and their sentence structure will be different.
... but they won't be able to tie it to him unless he also posts a lot of stuff non-anonymously.
Okay, they'll be able to group all of his posting as being posted by him
Since all this information is readily available to anyone one with internet access, I don't think it's reasonable to call it spying. Seriously, if you post information on a message board where anyone in the whole entire fucking wold can read it, maybe you should expect that government officials and corporations can look at it a well!!!
Every TCP/IP packet has a source address and a destination address.
So all that the government would need would be the addresses of the web sites (no matter where they are located) and taps on the pipelines. You can either try to catch the stuff going OUT of your country or going INTO their country (if you can't just tap the line of that website).
That will tell you who, in your country, is going there.
As long as it isn't using encryption, you'll even get what is being read/posted.
If it is using encryption, you still should have the location of the guy reading/posting. Or you can try cracking the encryption.
Once you have the location of the guy, you get a warrant and put a keylogger on his box or whatever.
There's no need for all of this crap about "darkweb". Google can already tell you what is posted on what websites. If these guys are smart enough to beat the basics, they're smart enough to know NOT to use the Internet for point-to-point communications.
Yeah, and I'm a hot 17 year old busty woman looking for a good time.
"The project relies on 'advanced techniques such as Web spidering, link analysis, content analysis, authorship analysis, sentiment analysis and multimedia analysis [to] find, catalog and analyze extremist activities online."
Reminds me of something..."I'm ready, man, check it out. I am the ultimate badass! State of the badass art! You do NOT wanna fuck with me. Check it out!...Independently targeting particle beam phalanx, VWAP! Fry half a city with this puppy! We got tactical smart missiles, phase-plasma pulse rifles, RPGs! We got sonic, electronic ball-breakers! We got nukes, we got knives, sharp sticks..."
Sure you can crawl any information source and extrapolate anything you want out of it. I'd even be willing to believe the 95% accurate analysis, whatever. That's besides the point.
You can only extrapolate data you've read properly. The simplest of encryption and/or obfuscation schemes applied to this content would effectively protect against extrapolation. Sure, Big Brother can have software scrub the Net looking for suspicious content. But can they have software scrub the Net while applying decryption measures to everything found? While analyzing every image file for obfuscated content (or even something as simple as writing your terrorist plans on a piece of paper and scanning it in as an image)? While applying rot13 to every block of text found?
I would say no. The problem becomes computationally impossible at that point. There are theoretically infinite ways to hide, encrypt, or obfuscate data. To have a system check first for unhidden, unencrypted, un-obfuscated data, then also for each of those, is simply not doable unless one makes radical limitations to the format of the data itself.
I would say instead that this "Dark Web" will be invaluable in identifying characteristics of perfectly law-abiding forum posters, slashdotters, and so forth, and that the data gleaned will fetch a good price from directed marketeers, pharmaceutical companies, spammers, government bureaucracies, and other servants of the Dark Lord.
Am I the only person to google map this address? There is no 1209 Mayburn St in Dallas.
However, I did find the following address:
1209 N Mayburn St
Dearborn, MI 48128
Okay, its official. I'm a dork.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Back around 1776 there were a large number (about 20% of our population) of "Loyalists" who opposed our Independence.
If you had polled England at the time, and those Loyalists, you'd understand that the "terrorists" had control of the "colonies".
If England had won, every one of those "terrorists" who had signed their little "Declaration" would have been hanged. And their would have been rejoicing in the streets of the colonies.
I doubt that any self respecting terrorist is going to
expend resources making a web page that spiders can crawl.
Here's a hint:
Terrorist #1 sets up a WIFI home network with
limited external access and **no connection** to the
internet.
Non of the terrorists really want to know each other
since that would make them easier to find if one got caught.
All the other terrorists require is a GPS location relatively
close to the hot-spot. Not even the street address.
They park, or slow down,the car at the GPS coordinates, get some instructions
via WIFI ssh, and drive on.
How's a web spider going to find that?
The authorities would be better off looking for *extra powerful*
WIFI hot-spots.
Here's another hint:
Facsimile over dual channel FRS radio. Same as above
except the interchange is FAX.
Go get em boys!!!
This Dark Web description sounds good, it even uses "semantic" technology but stop and think how little progress Google has made into the semantic web compared to what they want to do, contrasted with the talent they have hired. Considder the description of this NSF tool again. I predict there will be another /. posting in just over a year talking about how the project didn't quite work out as expected.
They just need to pull up their own employee roster to see who's largely responsible for world terrorism.
Of course, the young recruits are probably still too busy puffing their chests smartly while humming the "Alias" theme music while quietly wishing that the NSA was the one which received the big Hollywood PR/propaganda effort to notice such sticky details as who was responsible for what. But what are a few sticky details? M's and W's all look the same.
-FL
...And the locals would have welcomed the British with open arms...
And I am smart. I was also interested but I am lazy. I knew that there would be a /. poster who would look it up. Thanks a bunch. Have a cookie.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power lost.
Another 'its for the children' type of maneuver.
This should scare anyone that likes their right to free speech. And yes, even terrorists should have the right to *speak*. If you restrict their right to speak, its not much of a stretch to restrict yours too.
Be afraid.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
If only those terms could be so eloquently applied in real life. But, in the real world they are often politicized. In fact the text you quoted uses quote marks around the words terrorist and freedom fighter to imply that it's merely what's said. Dictators will always run propaganda campaigns against rebels labeling them terrorists. Freedom fighters will always be left to achieving their goals through unconventional tactics that will more often than not be labeled "terrorist" tactics. Insurgent armies seeking to take over a country and install their own dictators will often be called "freedom fighters" by the people who back them. I agree that the terms should used with some analysis and discipline. Which is why you take any person or group being labeled as "terrorist" or "freedom fighter" with a good dose of skepticism.
New! Device Legs: These legs will help your poor OEM installed product escape any hamfistedness it may encounter. Ava
Terrorism is about creating fear in a population by attacking targets that have no military significance. When the IRA blows up a grocery store, that's terrorism.
The US wasn't attacked by terrorists. They were attacked by a tight knit military group that went after their critical infrastructure. The world trade center, the center of their economy. The pentagon, center of their military. And the commander in chief.
There have been no grocery stores blown up, no shopping malls, no attacks with Nuclear, Chemical or Biological agents, not even drive by shootings.
So basically, any time you hear the word "Terrorist" used to describe attacks on the US, you're listening to spin and lies, because it's never happened.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
are you aware of any incidents involving colonists in 1776 blowing up markets full of children?
I'm pretty sure nothing of the sort happened, but i'm willing to hear evidence to the contrary.
Those were greatly less "evolved" times, and yet, my impression is that those at the forefront of political dissent were vastly more humane in spreading their message.
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
Back in 1776, the terrorist were organized military fighting organized military. Can you seriously see no difference in fighting a war and blowing up random stranger walking down the streets hoping it is a soldier? Do you seriously think that stocking arms, ammunition, and other supplies or hiding in a church because you know the other side won't go there is comparable to fighting in the open?
I would agree if the insurgents would act in a military manor. but as of yet, they are completely happy with killing innocent people (iraqis, reporters, medical workers, people attempting to just live their lives) to show their "outrage" at the occupying forces. This isn't comparable by any means to a revolution in 1776.
But their "terrorists" as you inaccurately call them where locals, not foreigners. Our terrorists (where terrorists means groups/individuals using terror tactics) are outsiders. Your connection isn't interesting, it's wrong and most likely motivated by sophomoric partisanship.
/. equivalent of "wrong/disagree". OR put on your grown up pants and realize that there is a world outside of Bush (or at least i hope there will be!). /voted for Gore and Kerry, will vote for whichever Dem gets the nom /served my 4 years and would have done more but for a medical problem /despised Bush since 98 when i had the misfortune of living in Texass
There is a difference between a rebel and terrorist, *if* the speaker is using the terms *honestly*. Terrorism, terrorist tactics, have a specific meaning, it doesn't mean "military activity by people we dislike". Rebels generally give a stand up fight, they are a defacto army. Terrorist aim to change policy through inciting fear (terror). 9/11 is a shining example. We were terrified, and we changed our policies.... A rebel army would do things like attack a loyalist munitions depot, seize radio stations, capture real estate etc. Terrorists do things like poisoning water supplies, setting off bombs in places where people usually feel safe (bus stops, market squares, night clubs). This is not to say that rebels and loyalist types won't use terror tactics.
England couldn't have won for the same reason we can't win in Iraq. The enemy is the population, it wasn't initially, but terrorist groups and religious types made it so. Bush didn't read The Prince.
My point is that terrorist and rebel are NOT RELATIVE TERMS. *Our* revolution, *their* rebellion... those are relative. Terrorism is not relative, it has a specific meaning. It has a real and functional, objective meaning. If England called us terrorists, they would have been dishonest. If our revolutionaries were throwing pipe bombs into crowds in London, that would be terrorism. If we misuse the terms we dilute their meaning and effect. That causes ambiguity, ambiguity makes manipulation easier and communication harder.
That's why it grinds my oats when someone says "you can't have a war against terrorism because it's a tactic, not a person". That's a sophomoric claim. Terrorism refers to people in the same way that Catholicism refers to people that are Catholic. AQ is a part of terrorism, just ONE PART. "The War against Terror" (tWAt) is a war against all the groups that use terrorism. "The war against" metaphor is stupid and needs replacing. But efforts to say that terrorism is a tactic and can't be killed/beaten is misleading. Terrorism is not a monolithic unit like a government, but it still consists of people. It might be more precise to say "War against Terrorists".
But be a good little partisan and call me names like neocon, sheeple, chickenhawk or whatever will impress your friends and avoid being objective. Mod me down as troll or flamebait since that is the
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