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'War on Terror' Allies Form Information Consortium
Wowsers writes us with a story from The Guardian about FBI interest in connectivity between its own database resources and those abroad. It's spearheading a program labeled 'Server in the Sky', meant to coordinate the police forces of the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand to better fight international crime/terrorist groups. The group is calling itself the International Information Consortium. "Britain's National Policing Improvement Agency has been the lead body for the FBI project because it is responsible for IDENT1, the UK database holding 7m sets of fingerprints and other biometric details used by police forces to search for matches from scenes of crimes. Many of the prints are either from a person with no criminal record, or have yet to be matched to a named individual. IDENT1 was built by the computer technology arm of the US defence company Northrop Grumman. In future it is expected to hold palm prints, facial images and video sequences."
Honestly. Wtf? Server in the Sky? That cannot be serious.
:-)
I can't think of a name more likely to inspire fear/conspiracy theories. Why not call it the Big Brother Server? Or the Stalin Server? Or the Anal Rapist server?
'night all - enough scotchx for me
The United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand make up the "UKUSA Community", which has been sharing information and intelligence in cooperative programs since World War II.
;-) (General Dynamics now holds the Grants.gov contract.)
There are three categories of individuals proposed for this initiative:
- internationally recognised terrorists and felons
- major felons and suspected terrorists
- subjects of terrorist investigations or criminals with international links
Categorization makes sense, and information sharing between allies for individuals suspected to travel internationally and who may want to actively target Western nations makes sense.
Every new database or mechanism for tracking or identifying individuals has privacy implications. Those implications must be managed by the laws of each respective nation. But increased information sharing will, by nature, almost always decrease "privacy".
As a DNI official recently noted, "We have a saying in this business: 'Privacy and security are a zero-sum game.'"
Keep in mind, though, that this data is data that the respective nations already gather via law enforcement and investigative means. It is in databases that are already maintained. The proposal is to collectively share the information in these databases. Any argument that there might be privacy implications to voluntarily sharing data between allies, or that simply building the infrastructure and capability to do so creates an opportunity for abuse (with the implication that it should therefore not be done) are very weak arguments. The merits or drawbacks of the proposed program itself are what is at issue; not the technology. Arguing that technology shouldn't be used for the purpose is the same as arguing that law enforcement shouldn't be able to use, say, computers, databases, telephones, cameras, or vehicles because they "enhance" their abilities, and "could be abused". So, when arguing for or against this initiative, please concentrate on the actual initiative itself, not the unsurprising fact that long-time allies are cooperating with one another electronically.
If Northrop Grumman did as well with IDENT1 as it did on Grants.gov in the early stages, we can expect it to not be very functional.
Oh i see see they want to officially send our private information to others. How nice of them.
I grant the US and Japan cough cough an official link so they can trade information on biometric data belonging to us citizens, Australians, UK citizens etc.
... the coalition of predominantly caucasian countries.
Go figure, right?
There is a war going on for your mind.
Let's let the paranoia party make more decisions please.
The problem with these schemes will be false positives, each of which will tie up a couple of staff for a few hours. Fingerprint matching in the real world is not like CSI.
A brownshirt! I thought you guys disappeared with WW2.
Bikers.....The only people that understand why a dog hangs his head out a car window.
Great. Now I can't get the Norman Greenbaum "Spirit in the Sky" out of my head.
Surely somebody with talent can whip up some War on Terror lyrics for it...
Server in the Sky....or perhaps a "Sky-Net"? Hmmmmm???
Doesnt the DPA expressly forbid transferring data to roganisations whose data protection laws are not as least as stringent as the DPA?
Or does that not count because of the terrorismisticals?
War on drugs, war on terror. Come on, let's have a war on crime and a war on war. What's next? War on poverty?
Given that this is really crime rather than military intelligence and the like, I wonder why this isn't done through Interpol. It seems especially silly as most (all!?) of the nations that contain the source of the current generation of terrorists are excluded.
Great minds think alike; fools seldom differ.
Seriously, the UK doesn't exactly have the best record on keeping databases safe.
Not that I care. I'd be willing to bet that 99.9 percent of the contents of any anti terror database is crap kept in there to make it seem important. Or stuff they think is important, but when it comes down to it is worthless.
Really, if sending huge armies to stampede across the middle east didn't work, how is a database going to help? Are we going to send sql queries at them or something?
It's 'anglospheric'. All they have to do is add a few boxes to every Echolon relay station.
Religion is what happens when nature strikes and groupthink goes wrong.
Their last major IT projects were spectacular failures that never went anywhere, and I don't see how this is going to end up much different. This will probably go the way of Virtual Case File, among others.
The U.S. government has often used its "cooperation" with the governments of other countries to corrupt those governments. See, for example, Coups Arranged or Backed by the USA. Most or all of that corruption happened for profit, such as kickbacks of U.S. government foreign aid. When the governments of Israel or Pakistan buy weapons from U.S. manufacturers using money from "foreign aid", that is embezzlement of taxpayer money.
The Cooperative Research History Commons is very valuable for those wanting to do their own research.
The poorly edited but very interesting free movie Zeitgeist explains in three parts that 1) People who believe in myths are easily manipulated. 2) It is common that people are manipulated through fear. 3) The U.S. monetary system is controlled for the profit of a few individuals. (Also see The Creature from Jekyll Island, an excellent but not perfect book about financial corruption.)
The U.S. government has killed directly or indirectly caused the death of an estimated 11,000,000 people since the end of the Second World war, partly by invading or bombing 25 countries.
What the hell has happened to our government? Have they forgotten that they exist to serve us, not to use us. This is another example of how we need to stop our government from intruding so deeply into the privacy of its citizens. What are we fighting for--if we surrender our freedoms in the name of fighting that amorphous all-purpose villain, terrorism?
yeah this is great until some 'low-level clerk' decides it's a good idea to mail the entire database on CDs in response to an agencies request.
where the data is that widely dispersed the security is only as strong as it's weakest link (goodbye!) so let's hope lessons are learned by recent events and agencies implement a good clear and concise security methodology to protect the data.
Well, that's assuming it ever takes place.
As some folk on the net know I come from a political family. My cousin was chairman of the UK Conservative party. Other members of the family have been in pretty much every movement you can imagine. One of my great aunts chained herself to the gates of Greenham common at the age of 80 or so.
When I arrived at University I knew a couple of things. First I distrusted the jingoism of the Tory party, I thought their economic policy sucked but I thought that whatever their intentions might be on the cold war they did at least stand up for freedom.
First week a member of SUCA, Southampton University conservative Association tells me about the blacklist the party ran through an organization called the Economic League. Circulated to employers in the engineering and defense industries. Anyone who signed up for radical politics would be on it.
Fuck you I thought. Joined the Labour party the same day. When you have a political party resorting to Stalinist tactics its time to get rid of them. Lets have denouncement boxes at every corner like they had in East Germany.
I found out later, when the FCS was wound up by the Tory central office, that this particular Stalinist scheme was one of the reasons. I have no way of knowing if my particular complaint made it through but there were many others.
The list became public after Robert Maxwell bought a copy and dumped it at the Labour party conference. I was not on it, which of course I took as an insult. But every member of the SUCA committee was. They had basically been reporting on each other during their perpetual faction fights.
When a government has as much power as the Bush administration has claimed, when it considers the first ammendment and compliance with the Geneva Conventions optional extras rather than the law of the land, when it starts wars on stovepiped intelligence and dismisses real intelligence that does not comply with its opinions, when prosecutors who charge corrupt politicians of the President's party or refuse to bring trumped up charges against the opposition are dismissed, when other prosecutors who do the reverse keep their jobs, when no member of the Cabinet can give a straight definition of torture, when all of these are true and more, it is time to say that this is a government that must have less power and not more. We must fear the Bush administration far more than any of the bogeymen they keep to scare us.
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
I hope you people (especially the ones living in America) see that the so-called war on terror looks like a mere excuse to cut civil liberties. I really wonder how does the average American Joe feel about it. To me, they have made up the perfect enemy to justify spying, war in Iraq and whatever else. What will be next, thought control?
It's not illegal for the US to spy on British citizens, and vice versa. This is a potential conduit for getting around pesky little details like domestic wiretapping laws.
IFF [sic] they keep to their mandate of tracking only international criminal suspects, then this is a good thing and merely links DBs that already exist. It's the potential expansion of sharing all data for any reason that may be cause for worry.
-- I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist. It's not my fault that life sucks so much. --
Skynet??? Is this a promotional for Fox TV?
The people who fought the "war on drugs" were obviously on drugs, since their remedies caused the very behavior they were allegedly fighting against: teenaged drug use, gangs, violence, etc just like alcohol prohibition.
So what are the "warriers" fighting the "war on terror" on? Terror?
War on terror: "Be afraid. Be very afraid!"
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
And here I'd thought Bush was still pissed off at Canada for not joining his war in Iraq. I guess with Harper begging to be next in line to kiss his arse, things are looking rosier again.
Write your MP and express your views.
If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing in your head.
Anyone trotting out the "if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear" line should be forced to use toilets with security cameras installed in the cubicles. (Unless they already are, and it's Stockholm Syndrome speaking.)
Seriously though, isn't there Interpol. This is exactly what they specialize in.
Sorry world, but your generalization so called "terrorism" is a creation.
I am curious world, what do you generally term a grouping of people that insinuate and threaten based on speculation? Further, maim and kill based on that speculation? I know the human shield of buzzword "american" has been tossed around a bit.
What o wordie could you use there??
BTW, what ever happened to North Korea? They have publicly claimed nuclear weapon capacity. Saddam publicly claimed non capacity. Guess North Korea has not got anything of value.
Enjoy world, and go go slashdotters, eat and grind through all the poo and carbide of the aeons.
My trial for indecent exposure is in 2 weeks.
If you haven't made a developer cry, you've wasted a day.
that, is, nevermind the philosophical arguments about why privacy should be upheld, or shouldn't: it is simply getting impossible to enforce. much like copyright as a philosophical notion mihg tbe pristine, in the real world it is turning impossible to police and uphold
regardless of how you feel about privacy or copyright, the point is simply that the notions are unenforceable in today's world
and not just from the government, but from your own fellow citizens. forget big brother, little brother destroys your privacy just as much. that is, you can't do much nowdays without someone with a cell phone camera closeby, ready to record
is that good? is that bad?
not my point. good or bad, my point is, it's inevitable: the death of privacy. i'm not cheering, i'm not crying, i'm merely recognizing the inevitable
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
It is just a way for governments to easily manipulate people (everyone wants to win a war and will more easily give up their freedoms to do so). Terrorism is a complex social problem that has been around since the dawn of man and has no easy answers. Stop using the term "war on terror"
The song is already a Jihadi song, you only need to change one word!
"Spirit in the Sky" by Norman bin Greenbaum:
When I die and they lay me to rest
Gonna go to the place that's the best
When I lay me down to die
Goin' up to the spirit in the sky
Goin' up to the spirit in the sky
That's where I'm gonna go when I die
When I die and they lay me to rest
Gonna go to the place that's the best
Prepare yourself you know it's a must
Gotta have a friend in Muhammad
So you know that when you die
He's gonna recommend you
To the spirit in the sky
Gonna recommend you
To the spirit in the sky
That's where you're gonna go when you die
When you die and they lay you to rest
You're gonna go to the place that's the best
Never been a sinner I never sinned
I got a friend in Muhammed
So you know that when I die
He's gonna set me up with
The spirit in the sky
Oh set me up with the spirit in the sky
That's where I'm gonna go when I die
When I die and they lay me to rest
I'm gonna go to the place that's the best
Go to the place that's the best
it's no terror that they are worried about, they cause that themselves.
They are concerned about blowback from their operations abroad. That's why they feel they need this kind of thing.
Maher Arar the Canadian citizen the US grabbed and shipped to Syria for 10 months to be electrocuted? It was because of uncorroborated hunches being shared. Oh this data must be true, we got it from [somewhere else].
BOX
Do you know how long all this will last? Not thirty years... or thirty thousand years... but thirty thousand years... and you'll be part of it. Ages will roll... Ages. And you'll be here... the two of you... eternally frozen... frozen... beautiful.
LOGAN
There must be somebody else up here. I can't believe that he's --
BOX
interrupting; his voice tone changing; very lucid)
Let me sculpt you and I will show you where the others have gone.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
And I suppose they'll refer to it as Skynet for short? Someone from Fox suggest the name, perhaps?
"Server in the Sky"? Will it be connected to SkyNet then?
What is with this schizophrenic copypasta? At least post something original.
Check this out http://www.ncis.navy.mil/linx/national_capital_region.html They will be sharing incident data, finger prints, etc... It is a growing project with a number of states already involved.
I think some dumb-ass is letting emotions get in the way of facts again.
If you look at the way the various governments around the world have reduced the civil liberties of their own citizens then it should be obvous to all thats its not a 'war on terror' its a 'war of terror'
"the prosecution will show that the accused, while a respected and politically active member of the community, was involved in a terrorist scheme that, were it not stopped, would result in the deaths of thousands. His guilt is beyond questions, as the intelligence officers found plenty of fingerprints and DNA samples matching the accused during the course of their investigation."
"Those who would sacrifice freedom for security deserve neither" - Benjamin Franklin.
by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 15, @08:45AM (#22049314)
The Jew has emerged from his well appointed layer, ready for blood...
Yeah, but I'll bet that he at least knows how to spell lair.
Oh, by the way, it really should be "well-appointed".
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
How are people supposed to express themselves through explosions in crowded places if they are under such surveillance? Are we really free if we can't commit a crime in one country and hide in another? Now criminals will have to hide in a non English speaking nation, that's terribly inconsiderate of our governments. How are we supposed to avoid the consequences for our actions and escape punishment if law enforcement agencies share information? How are totalitarian empires supposed to grow with groups like NATO opposing them? How can the Taliban re-establish sharia law with NATO troops always in the way? Oh the humanity! Someone, please, think of the terrorists!
Utilizing the synergization of benchmark e-solutions to pre-workaround action items!
As far as I know, the US almost always used their wars to decrease the privacy of its citizens; so, well, that includes this "War on Terror" although "terror" can't be fought. It's in your brain, not out there in the world, hiding in some Arabian mountains. Terror exists because you accept that there are so called terrorists, who, after the US-governmental-definition, are a bunch of bad guys who can only be fought by reducing everyone's privacy and bombing. From my point of view, the US-governmental-definition is as good as living in Orwell's 1984. A true terrorist, if one exists in reality, is someone you fear. Not only because he endangers your life, but your civil rights as well (radical ideologies). What is done to prevent these "terrorists" from harming people? Reducing your civil rights. Isn't that funny? They take the one thing from you which the "terrorists" also want. (Excluding your life because that's "only" for their cause.) Why not just call yourself a terrorist government? Oh, well that would be too obvious, wouldn't it?
It was SAIC, or as I like to call them, Substandard Architectures and Implementations for the Customer.