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Narus Develops Social Media Sleuth
maximus1 writes "Narus is developing a new technology code-named Hone that can be used to identify anonymous users of social networks and Internet services. Hone can do some pretty 'scary' things, says Antonio Nucci, chief technology officer with Narus. Hone uses artificial intelligence to analyze e-mails and can link mails to different accounts, doing what Nucci calls topical analysis. 'It's going to go through a set of documents and automatically it's going to organize them in topics — I'm not talking about keywords as is done today, I'm talking about topics,' he said. That can't be done with today's technology, he said. 'If you search for fertilizers on Google ... it's going to come back with 6.5 million pages. Enjoy,' he said. 'If you want to search for non-farmers who are discussing fertilizer ... it's not even searchable.' Nucci will discuss Hone at the RSA Conference in San Francisco Friday."
More ridiculous terrorism scare tactics used for attention.
"If you want to search for non-farmers who are discussing fertilizer..." No, I don't. Most likely you'll find a bunch of harmless pot growers and housewives trying to grow pretty flowers. People smart enough to really harm a well run society aren't posting details on the Internet. For the rest of us, these people will just take all the money you can from selling other people's (previously) private data.
No matter how hard we try, we will not stop determined individuals from attacking any society unless we effectively remove all freedoms from the citizens. I choose freedom over safety every time. The solutions to terrorism are NOT more or better surveillance, better technology, or more war. Real solutions include primarily the creation of a society that people don't WANT to attack. The reasons people have for suicide bombing and terrorism are usually pretty damn clear: they have nothing left to lose, and someone took advantage of them to direct their hate toward the easiest, most hated target.
Well, you want to fix terrorism, then address the real reasons for hating your society; it's pretty simple, and the only thing that really works.
Stories like this, about "scary" technology advances, remind me that as technology moves forward, the essential nature of the rights and freedoms that the US used to stand for and defend are more important now than ever before.
Here's what I'd like to find: A non-tax-cheat who is also a congress member. Oh, oh, how about a politician that still has a moral compass at all? A single honest politician? Even one? Let's find non-doctors charging Medicare. Corrupt cops. Meth distributors. Human traffickers. Murderers. People who built technology just to make money using other people's personal data, and try and frame it using terrorism scare tactics. Oh wait...
No, I'm Cowboy Neil!
I'm Spartacus!
People making bombs are hardly going to talk about it on Faceshit or other worthless social sites. They are already using encryption - probably one time pads, steganography, shared secret encryption with infinite-length keys and the like and will always be able to continue doing so.
This will more likely be used to convict people for sharing mp3's, using 'stolen' wifi, people who built a small extension to their house in the middle of nowhere without straight away notifying the local government so they can pay their new and increased rates of property tax. This will be used to implement an ultra-controlled very rigidly regulated society which most people if you talk to them seem to approve of.
Man's greatest addiction is controlling other people's lives
".... should be banned because it didn't work out so well for one person"
".... should not be allowed because it affects the view from my house"
".... should be taxed to death. Put those damn rich people back where they belong."
".... is evil, could lead to any number of bigger problems and should be banned."
".... cannot be installed by anyone other than a highly trained professional because one person died trying"
".... is bad for the environment and should not be allowed."
".... should not be allowed to sit in a playground by himself because he might be a future paedophile"
We have nobody to blame but ourselves for overregulation, we desire control, order and security so much that the government is scrambling to find ways to enforce the presently unenforceable. First the church was used as an excuse for ruining people's enjoyment, now its 'de children', the environment and the notion that 'mere humans' cant handle much freedom without losing the plot
I'm a jungle theme!
I would really, really like to take people who are promoting "security" and who say "the Internet is an easy place to hide", to someplace private and then continuously bitch-slap them until they admit that they are either stupid or dishonest.
If they want to investigate a place where it's "easy to hide", I suggest they try their data-mining tools on the mails, or UPS or Fed-Ex. And good f**ing luck to them.
Dude needs to learn how to use Google before he takes on a task of this magnitude. Or, more aptly, before TALKING about taking on a task of this magnitude, which is all he's doing at the moment.
The eternal struggle of good vs. evil begins within one's self.
You don't need to market to 'the masses' to make (substantial) money off a product. Law enforcement is a big enough market if you get good saturation and Google + other ad networks would be a massive market.
> non-farmers who are discussing fertilizer
That's pretty much the whole internet; a lot of non-farmers talking a bunch of shit.