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Homeland Security Mining Social Media For Signs of Bio Attacks
jjp9999 writes "Nextgov reports, 'The Homeland Security Department has commissioned Accenture to test technology that mines open social networks for indications of pandemics, according to the vendor.' This will kick off a year-long biosurveillance program, costing $3 million, that will log trends in public health by looking through public posts. This ties back to White House guidelines released in July that ask federal agencies to 'Consider social media as a force multiplier that can empower individuals and communities to provide early warning and global situational awareness.'"
As annoying as social media may be, it does provide sources of information... And people that use social media, appear so willing to disclose anything and everything regarding their personal life. So, why wouldn't DHS or health departments not want to use this type and source of information?
Congratulations. I thought twice before saying anything outloud which could be overheard by authorities during the communism era. I was born in communism and I'm going to die in communism. Thank you. (I know it's not technically communism but you know)
Some sort of brain affliction that makes people distrust and hate the dept. of Homeland Security. I hear it's spreading fast...
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Now they will see pandemics of hangovers and butt hurt...
...Biological attack....
No wonder we are in such huge debt...
I'm glad they are monitoring for this stuff. At least it will help people. But _why_ does it cost $15 million per year?
Probably because Homeland Security has been given almost unlimited rights to detain you forever for no reason whatsoever, often without a warrant or any other documentation.
As if millions of voices suddenly cried out against state control of the internet and its data, and were suddenly silenced.
... I don't go to restaurants staffed exclusively by illegals.
Out of interest, how do you determine this - do you require ID, base it only on looks, or on how much English they can speak? Other than the fact that you appear to be confusing illegal immigrants with immegrants, you've got a valid point.
That used to be Arthur Andersen. I first 'met' them in about 1975 when they were messing up something in Woolworths UK. Since then they've been involved in messing up a great many things in gov.uk and some of our bigger companies. I'm not sure what their record is like elsewhere. Also, remember they 'audited' Enron, hence the name change. So, I don't expect that much from this, either way. $3 million they'll be through that in a couple of days, too...
On y va, qui mal y pense!
No way, Obama would never do that.
No good deed goes unpunished.
Then again, it wouldn't surprise me in the least if there was a "I have Herpes an proud of it!" group on Facebook - considering how narcissistic and self-entitled people are these days.
That would probably be a much more accurate predictor of people with stupidly easily guessed passwords, or people who don't lock their phone, or people who leave their PC logged in and walk away... More of a computer security predictor than a bio security predictor.
Now "I survived the H1N1 flu" MIGHT be actually useful because I'm not seeing it turned into a joke prop. Maybe flu researchers would play tricks on each other or something but 99% of the population would use it seriously, probably.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
And it would have a lot of members, considering that you can force other people into FB groups. "LOL, I signed billybob up for the EverySocialDisease group and he won't see a computer until after he gets back from his hunting trip!"
Also from Accenture (it's believed) -- http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/election-2012
Hope it doesn't crash on "day zero", but I suppose from an internal profit-margin perspective, why not?
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
Smivs goes off to his Farcebook page to post "Won't be coming out to play tonight - gone down with Bubonic Plague".
Smivs on the intertubes!
... about my recent big farts on facebook!
Or one of my friends, oh my, I guess I'm doomed!
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
If there was some sort of pandemic that reduced population below the current unsustainable levels, how could that be considered a bad thing? It is believed that the Black Death in Europe was a net gain. It produced all sorts of positive outcomes due to the population reduction. The 1% had to share more of their wealth with the 99% as there were simply too few workers for the land. Unsustainable agricultural practices were abandoned (marginal land was no longer cultivated and ecological disaster was averted). Faith in religion was shattered. Imagine if America's carbon footprint was cut by two-thirds due to the decline in polluting gasoline engines. It would be a win for the entire world.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
After the smashing success of the ORCA project for the Romney election, I'm sure Accenture will be equally successful with this new project.
When people start dropping like flies, chances are that something like a pandemic is at work...
This seems like a waste of money - If people are really sick, chances are they won't be posting about it. And if they aren't really sick, it isn't worth writing home about and any pandemic of it is likely to be utter uninteresting and trivial.
"For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong." -- H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) --
You never know, perhaps inspection places already do this kind of thing manually, or even have automatic systems in place. It would be a bad idea to make it well known though, otherwise there would also be a healthy industry in Twitter misinformation to kill competitors.. and again, maybe there already are such services in place. I don't really get involved in Twitter myself, but these kind of uses make it sound almost interesting.
which is totally what she said
The Great Panic.
If you're interested on the effects of the internet on (stupid) internet behaviour, Clay Shirky has a few great books. He has an interesting scientific explanation of the John Gabriel Greater Internet Theory, too.
- Nec Impar Pluribus, or so I'm told.
American definition of illegal immigrant: Anyone who entered the country after me.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
He may not have caused the initial widening, but he'd gladly take advantage of sloppy seconds.
In the context of being horsefucked up the ass by an out-of-control government, that's one scary image.
Gee, thanks.
Your doing it wrong. Anyone eating feed lot corn cow burgers and burritos should expect 24 hours on the throne as the norm, not the outlier. There are a lot more issues with fast food then just the building and staff hygiene. The food itself is suspect and lacking in real nutrition.
Eating healthy means eating single source foods that are preferably made from local organically produced ingredients. When you look at a plate of food there should be little mystery about where the food on it came from and how it was made. So many people buy the lie that visual equivalence in food equals nutritional or sanitary equivalence, but they are not and the clearest evidence of this is the sad state of the heavily chemically fertilizer salted, herbicide, insecticide polluted soils they come from.
Real health begins with an active healthy soil food web in soils high in organic matter that is continually replenished, which is then used to raise healthy diverse plant life that can nutritiously feed you, the animals that you depend on for food, AND the larger food web of wildlife that keeps the pathogens and pests in check. In race to the bottom for the cheapest convenience food, you, the mono cropped and feed lot food you are eating, and the polluted soil it is created on are the losers. If you want true "Homeland Security", start by making healthy choices and seeking out responsibly made food.
"A nation that destroys its soils destroys itself." ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt
Sometimes, he acts like he's a republican.
rewriting history since 2109
This approach has some past justification (Accenture being fuckwits and the DHS being scumbags notwithstanding). A year or two ago, some epidemiology people discovered that they could predict the progress of IIRC annual influenza epidemic by tracking the use of search terms such as "sniffles", "aches and pains", "headache" etc. IIRC, they used Google's zeitgeist to access the data.
How effective it is to extend this sort of approach to other media, and other sets of symptoms, is an open question. But it passes my "is this an approach worth evaluating or trialling" threshold.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
A: Yeah, I'm trying to get those anthrax spores reproducing, as just a kilo is not enough for our nasty projects ....
B: Naa, you waste your time. I still have those Ebola viruses in my locker. A few grams and you are done. And cheaper.
A: Well, all right! What about meeting down at Time Square, close to the second oak tree?
B: It's OK. Don't forget to wear your nice white kaftan. I'll wear mine. And bring the money!
A: See you!
B: Inshalla!
Sent as ripples into the electromagnetic field. No single photon has been harmed in the process.
Could they not use this for the good and warn people about e.g. gonorrhea the moment you post that you hooked up with a person who Googled it a few days earlier and then called their doctor for an appointment.
Probably even cross referencing with other people who have been in contact with that person and have been diagnosed positive already.
I mean, they have all the information anyway and it will show that the government is out to protect us from harm. Right?
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
https://www.facebook.com/anthrax
Not only are they spreading biological agents, but they're doing it under the guise of being a heavy metal band.
Summon the drones.
personally i think that the TLAs should see about accessing ANY PUBLIC SOURCE of data they can get hands on.
now of course i think that there should be full disclosure of any sources they are using and it should not be illegal to create "flack clouds" and if you set something in a service to Private then it should be considered NONPUBLIC.
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
look for FB posts/status updates containing the phrase "ate Wendy's chili" or some combination thereof.
I'd much rather see restaurant monitoring. You should be able to eat at McD and taco bell w/o spending the next 24 hours on the porcelain throne.
What kind of digestive problem(s) do people like you have??
I have absolutely no problem eating fast food. No one I know has any problems, either.
Exactly like I wrote, it depends on your locale.
Where I live, restaurant A makes everyone sick every time they go there especially if they buy an egg-based breakfast, I assume they're only still in business because of interstate travelers and/or being a corporate franchise the rest of the company is keeping them afloat. Restaurant B upon reflection I'd give 10% to 25% odds you'll get sick, no real pattern. Are you feeling lucky, punk? Its a pity because as fast food goes it actually tastes pretty good. Restaurant C has never, in dozens of visits over the years, ever, gotten anyone in my family sick. I named names for my locale, but its probably all shuffled up in different locales, maybe "C" has the idiot manager somewhere else so they get everyone sick, even though the "C" here has an absolutely perfect reputation. Maybe by some miracle, as you claim, your local health inspector is un-bribable or its just incredible luck of the draw or whatever.
I'm pretty much bulletproof, digestively speaking, if I cook it myself, partially because I'm not an idiot and partially because I care ... I don't like food poisoning and its remarkably easy to avoid, if you want. I visited Mexico and ate at reasonably upscale restaurants, enjoyed it immensely and didn't get sick, despite being told everyone gets sick in Mexico.
Somebody's "cold table" is as warm as 60 degrees or the "hot table" is only 110 and a couple hours later you will barf too. Or the other end explodes. Or both at the same time. Plus or minus some vermin infestation, improper sanitation rules being followed, etc. Despite all the strangely appealing and repetitive stories about fast food workers adding extra protein to the meal, the main problem is infinitely more likely to be the same unwashed knife and unwashed cutting board cut up raw chicken right before it sliced your tomatoes and raw onions. Or the raw egg scramble mix sat at room temperature before partial cooking for the entire breakfast shift midnight to 10 am. Or the salad vegetables were stored underneath the dripping raw chicken boxes in the cooler.
As for the protein additions you'd think this would be a major pr0n problem but I've not heard any discussion of it so I'm thinking as long as the perpetrator is not filthily disgusting its not going to make you sick... Come on, /., think about it, if merely touching a weiner resulted in instant guaranteed painful food poisoning I think teenage pregnancy rates would be a hell of a lot lower, either than or teen girls would be "sick with a tummy ache" a heck of a lot more often. Not to say swapping bodily fluids is safe, merely not insta-death, or (thankfully) not a common health problem.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
I will now start tweeting every time I fart, and I will announce it as a "sudden biological gas release event".
If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that it can't be taken on its own merits
I think I better post this AC, cause truth hurts.
LOL oh spare me before I hurt myself laughing. Very long and complicated and unlikely story vs ... Occams razor suggests that maybe, just maybe, if management feels some laws and regulations WRT to documentation and filling out W-2 forms are optional for them, maybe, just maybe, they might also think some food safety laws and regulations are also optional for them. Simplest solution that makes sense is probably the most likely to be correct.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Available free from Google: http://www.google.org/flutrends/
How do you continuously fetch and process all (public?) messages from Facebook, Twitter and others in near-realtime? Does the US government get special access? Is there a basis in law for this?
Once you get the data, do you just feed it into some data mining system?
Any idea about the storage and CPU requirements for such a system?
Obviously, processing such feeds is interesting for businesses and academia as well. Do you know any such projects?
Why don't they save 3 million and just ask Google?
Didn't Google used to post a flu map?
I must suggest that the only powers capable of bio terrorism are either parties to which weapons have been leaked (on purpose?) or parties who control HLS, so this by default must be nothing more than endless fear mongering seen during the nuclear age of the cold war, and the terrorist age of the early 21st century. Huddle in the corner and eat the grass nearest the fence, all you scared little cattle. Make sure you believe that uncle Sam is the only one who can protect you. Lead you into the slaughter house like good well behaved livestock.
We are a herd.
Sadly, a Libertarian cannot force his views on another, and freedom cannot spread as does the cancer known as religion.