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.'"

Comments

Are we really that surprised?

[xystren]

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?

Yeah they're probably detecting a strange disease

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

Some sort of brain affliction that makes people distrust and hate the dept. of Homeland Security. I hear it's spreading fast...

Well it's Accenture

[hughbar]

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...

Re:Good but why so expensive?

[vlm]

Not sure what the problem is. Put more explanation into it.

I checked opensecrets and the accenture PAC only paid bribes of about 2/3 mil last year.

http://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/lookup2.php?strID=C00300707

The normal RICO style bribe is somewhat less than 1/10th. So yeah the contract "shoudda" only been about 6 mil. There's a lot of wiggle room, I'm sure this isn't their only contract, and I'm sure that PAC isn't their only bribe paying system. But its not too many orders of magnitude outta line for what tax money they're getting vs what they paid to get it. They don't seem to be getting too much or too little contract for the "donations" they provided, compared to everyone else at the feeding trough.

Re:HIV, Herpes, etc ...

[vlm]

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.