Slashdot Mirror
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.'"
A lot of the comments on here seem to come from an entity that has not yet achieved true sentience...
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
"Abnormal behavior"... You know, like disagreeing with the government about what the definition of that may be.
) Human Kind Vs Human Creation
) It'd be interesting to see how many humans would survive to serve us.
I'm not always under electronic surveillance, but when I am, I drink Dos Equis.
Stay thirsty my friends.
Sent from your iPad.
This is the single biggest threat to our freedom as individuals: the desire of the state to form a broad security apparatus, in order to protect itself from lawsuits filed by aggrieved citizens.
I don't believe there's some super-secret cabal out to restrict our freedoms and turn us all into mindless meme-spouting "Citizens" living in a modern-day panopticon. What this is, is the result of an ill-informed populace, fearful of terrorists, criminals, and anything/everything that could possibly disrupt their lives demanding that their leadership Do Something . So the government is placed in the impossible position of trying to predict potential future attacks/assaults/cataclysms, because a clear majority of its constituents has told it that this is necessary. And when they fail, the survivors/aggrieved parties file lawsuits because clearly the government has failed in its duties to predict and prevent bad things from happening to its people.
So now we have entities like the TSA in the US, which exists solely as a giant resource-sucking time waster of a stop-gap prevention against class action lawsuits against the government in case another 9/11 type attack occurs. That is all it is: an insurance policy the government has taken out against the possible threat of legal action from its citizens should the unthinkable occurs. We all know that the TSA isn't going to stop terrorists - it's so the government can say "See, we did everything we could to prevent it and it still happened". And in this case, I'm going to step into the blame game and blame US, not the government. I have Karma to burn, so here goes: the vast majority of us citizens, regardless of country, want security and safety - NOT freedom. We want to know that when we get into our cars and go to work, we are insulated from the random elements of chaos that make up the world we live in. And when that protective bubble gets popped, we get angry because by God/FSM/Entropy/Satan, we want our security! And so we sue our government because 'THEY' should have been able to stop it with all their resources and manpower. And our government finds itself having to establish all these 'safeguards' simply so we can regain some measure of belief in the illusion of security we demand the government provide us.
I'm no libertarian, but this is one case in which I agree with their ethos: leave us the hell alone and don't build a nanny/father state to protect us. Yes, it's scary to live in a world in which anything could happen, but the alternative to me is unthinkable: some faceless entity doing everything it can to remove risk from my life and give me the illusion of control/safety, because most of my fellow citizens want that. I'd rather face up to my limitations and fallacies on my own, thank-you-very-much; I don't need my issues with needing control to be enabled.
So before we go into another round of 'how much blame can we heap on the government', let's think for a moment that the government is nothing more than a reflection of its people, and their values.
Here's to hot beer, cold women, and Glaswegian kisses for all.
Remember, remember the Fifth of November,
The Gunpowder Treason and Plot,
I know of no reason
Why the Gunpowder Treason
Should ever be forgot.
Guy Fawkes, Guy Fawkes, t'was his intent
To blow up the King and Parli'ment.
Three-score barrels of powder below
To prove old England's overthrow;
By God's providence he was catch'd (or by God's mercy*)
With a dark lantern and burning match.
Holloa boys, holloa boys, let the bells ring. (Holla*)
Holloa boys, holloa boys, God save the King!
There was a case here a few days ago, where some teenagers who wrote in their diaries some fantasy story about blowing up their school were arrested and held in jail for some months and then tried as terrorists. Luckily they got a jury trial: the jury acquitted them straight away, and then took the trouble to wait outside the court to congratulate them on their release.
The next step for the authorities will have to be to abolish jury trials for terrorist offenses.
...because you know their State Police will have really cool uniforms. They'll be, like, all shiny medals and epaulets and swagger sticks and motorcycle sidecars and they'll put their surveillance cams in hovering dirigibles and what not, all trim ex-military guys. If I'm going to be cracked across the back of the neck for not showing my papers, I want to be cracked by a guy with some style. Obama goons will be all business casual, in new, pressed, grandma jeans and open-collar shirts and sneakers, driving around in non-descript cars, all mouth-breathing ex-IRS guys.
Yup, it's European Fascism for me, for sure.