EU Funding "Orwellian" Artificial Intelligence Snooping System

leonbenjamin writes "Britain's Telegraph reports on a five-year research programme, called Project Indect, which aims to develop computer programmes which act as 'agents' to monitor and process information from web sites, discussion forums, file servers, peer-to-peer networks and even individual computers. Its main objectives include the 'automatic detection of threats and abnormal behaviour or violence.' Shami Chakrabarti, head of the UK's Liberty human-rights NGO, said: 'Profiling whole populations instead of monitoring individual suspects is a sinister step in any society. ... It's dangerous enough at national level, but on a Europe-wide scale the idea becomes positively chilling.'"

Comments

Re:Abnormal behavior

[Jurily]

"Abnormal behavior"... You know, like disagreeing with the government about what the definition of that may be.

Not to mention this is the EU we're talking about: a place with 23 different official languages. With this kind of diversity, there's probably nothing that can be classified as "abnormal".

Non-EU example: In the Netherlands, the Gay Pride is a cultural event. In Serbia, protesters beat the shit out of them. In Moscow, the police did. Which one of these is normal, and to whom?

It won't take that long to embarrass somebody

[Proteus]

At some point, some government official will either be exposed to be pervert or some such, or will be wrongfully and horribly flagged as some sort of terrorist.

In fact, I'm willing to bet the European hacker community will take steps to ensure that such a thing happens. As soon as it does, there will be all sorts of running about to cripple the system to the point that it's inert, but oddly still very expensive.

Re:It won't take that long to embarrass somebody

[R2.0]

At some point, some government official will either be exposed to be pervert or some such, or will be wrongfully and horribly flagged as some sort of terrorist.

In fact, I'm willing to bet the European hacker community will take steps to ensure that such a thing happens. As soon as it does, there will be all sorts of running about to cripple the system to the point that it's inert, but oddly still very expensive.

You mean like when Teddy Kennedy, a US Senator, was put on the no-fly list in the US? The only thing that changed was the addition of a note under the entry that says "The fat drunk claiming to be a US Senator is good to go."

When politicians and "important" people run afoul of the law, they don't change the law - they just make sure that it doesn't apply to THEM.

Re:It won't take that long to embarrass somebody

[R2.0]

"When "foolproof" systems make a lot of noise on prominent people, those systems are "put under review", which basically results in crippling them to the point of uselessness to the tune of millions of dollars (or GBP, in this case). "

You missed my point entirely. When prominent people get fingered by an automated system, they are not going to "put it under review" or cripple it - they simply get the maintainers of the system to slip in an exception list and a conditional that says "If one of these people's names show up, ignore it and flush associated data." The only way the system gets crippled is if the exception list becomes so big as to be meaningless.

Let's take the Soviet Union for example. At the start, if one was a member of the Party, one got special treatment. Certain restrictions, etc. didn't apply to you because you were a party member and had special status. Fast forward, and the populace clues in, so now almost EVERYONE joins the Party to get special treatment, which dwindles to very little. But the powerful members of the party certainly don't want to be included with the hoi polloi, so they create a list of party members who get EXTRA special treatment. The people on the list were called the nomenklatura, which means "list of names". And you couldn't just apply for a position - you had to be chosen. So when membership in the Communist Party stopped working for the powerful, they didn't change the system of rewards and privileges for Party members, they just carved an exception out for themselves.

So shortly after being flagged on the No Fly list, Kennedy's status was straightened out. But the unfairness and arbitrary nature of the procedures weren't changed - Abdul still gets flagged every single time - what changed is that Kennedy was allowed to travel outside of those rules and procedures. Why? Because he was Teddy Fucking Kennedy, for chrissake.

Teabaggers and such are abnormal too

[Shivetya]

because no one is unhappy enough with Government to protest it.

Face it, those in power are loathe to give it up or admit abuse, it is far easier through the use of courts and the press to label those who do disagree as having mental issues, whether it is anger or the expected and currently in vogue "racism".

I thought eight years under Bush were bad with fear mongering, but the new gang has improved on it. The sad part is, both sides of the Atlantic seem adept at adapting the very worse privacy rights violation the other side comes up with.

The US is getting Britain's camera system and you get our Intellectual rights system... who came up with this new one?

Re:A litiginous society leads to 1984

[Anonymous Coward]

Your use of the word "panopticon" has been noted. Whilst your usage implies you're unaware of the successful, ongoing nature of the programme since it's Benthamian inception, we would like to thank you for promulgating awareness of the programme and instilling the necessary respect in the citizenry. On a more pejorative note we'd like to take this occasion to caution you against your flagrant usage of enjambment when group disparate ideas separated by slash marks. Such usage can't be helped but seen as an unhealthy tendency not to think in discrete, sanctioned thought parcels and, unfortunately, may lead to novel, hierarchical thought processes facilitating questioning of the current beneficent hierarchy.

Regards

Echelon

Updated for The New America

[RobotRunAmok]

Ignorance is Strength.
War is Peace.
Freedom is Slavery.
Religion is Science.
Government is Industry.
Poverty is Wealth.
Morality is Relative.

Re:Absurd Reasoning

[Jurily]

And are you serious? People don't get that upset about traffic problems!

You clearly never lived in Budapest.

And who is forcing them to watch it? Your claims are absurd! I don't want to see gay people dance, and I haven't because I DON'T go to the parade in Oslo!

You're still judging out of context. For you, it's gay people dancing, and if you don't go, you don't really need to acknowledge their existence. Here, it instantly became a political event, with pressure from the liberals to push it through and threats from the far-right. It was all over the news for four days straight. You went to work and people talked about it. You went to the pub and people talked about it. There was literally no way you could avoid the topic without retreating from society until the hype is over.

It's also a question of external cultural influence. Ever heard the phrase "Hungarians celebrate crying"? There are no Hungarian holidays where we dance around on the street. We have no reason for it: from 1526 to 1989 our country has been either torn apart or under occupation. Our national holidays are about failed revolutions, failed fights for our freedom, and the execution of our leaders. Any public celebration that involves dancing around is basically a slap in the face to those of us who value our cultural identity.

I don't expect you to understand it, but please, try to look at the context before jumping to conclusions.

Re:A litiginous society leads to 1984

[sincewhen]

Yes, but don't you think that this unhealthy focus on protecting everyone from anything which can be labelled terrorism, and spending billions in the process, is just the military industrial complex finding its feet again after being blindsided by the end on the cold war?

Re:Sounds perfect to me...

[Stuarticus]

This is something that has been discussed here (UK) due to the fact that the public shouldn't get to know the details of how much the government knows about other terrorists or the extent of their investigations. All very disturbing.