Slashdot Mirror
Meet PRISM's English Little Brother: Socmint
An anonymous reader writes with a story at Ars Technica, according to which "For the past two years, a secretive unit in the Metropolitan Police has been developing the tools for blanket surveillance of the public's social media conversations. Operating 24 hours a day, seven days a week, a staff of 17 officers in the National Domestic Extremism Unit (NDEU) has been scanning the public's tweets, YouTube videos, Facebook profiles, and anything else UK citizens post in the public online sphere. ... Surveillance operations often require a ministerial sign-off or permission from a superior, but it is unclear whether targeting of public social media data requires the same level of oversight, as head of research at Privacy International Eric King points out."
Because all it does is just scrape public data, whilst Prism targets private data, which is kind of a fundamental difference.
I wonder what kind of spying methods the Netherlands use. We were the best of the world in tapping telephone conversations for a very long time. But our government has a good reputation for fucking up IT projects in catastrophic ways, so I'm curious how they fare in the "spying on your own people" business.
-- Cheers!
As I said of Western governments many years ago, "WE read 1984 and took it as a warning. THEY read 1984 and took it as a blueprint."
Hollywood, Television, has become the dream machine. We need to take that back; each of us is a Dream Machine
I'm blowing the whistle on Facebook. I work for Facebook and support systems that also scour posts and collects personal information and trends. It is my understanding that this data, which is in the 1000's of TB's, is sold to governments and capitalist entities. I complained once, but they told me I was doing my country and the community great favors by what I was doing. Then my cat disappeared that night. Like I sai
Even reading the article, I'm still not clear on wtf the "Metropolitan Police" referred to are. Is that the London police? Sydney? Some other city?
The cow says "Moo." The dog says "Woof." The Timothy says "Thanks, valued customer. We appreciate your input."
This is why I'm not and never have been on Facebook and don't use a real name elsewhere. How stupid are people? Oh gee, I put something out in the public and now people are looking at it. Seriously? Don't use Facebook.
From the article:
"On June 26, The Guardian reported that the very same unit had a "secret database" that had labelled some 9,000 individuals—many from political groups—as "domestic extremists." It adds to the growing number of questionable surveillance tactics used by the police. What is particularly troublesome is that these abuses occurred even with the apparent existence of proper legislation and oversight—something the snooping of social media data currently does not have."
If they're watching 9000 extremists, then probably Slashdot accounts for a good 100 of those. Watch what you say. MET has a history of plotting against its critics.
Sounds like after dinner mints that go well with Victory Coffee.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
Operating 24 hours a day, seven days a week, a staff of 17 officers in the National Domestic Extremism Unit (NDEU) has been scanning the public's tweets, YouTube videos, Facebook profiles, and anything else UK citizens post in the public online sphere.
I agree, that does seem extreme...
Twinstiq, game news
There's only one group responsible for oversight, and we're doing a pretty lousy job of it.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
This is almost a non-story compared to Tempora.
National. Domestic. Extremism. Unit.
*facepalm*
You can't make this stuff up.
Can you imagine the receptionist?
Receptionist: Welcome to the National Domestic Extremism Unit! Please hold!
AC: Okay. (20 minutes later)
Receptionist: Hello, how may I help you today?
AC: Hi I was wondering if you had any spare SCUD missiles? Last ones we've seen so far were lost somewhere in the Middle East.
Receptionist: I'm sorry, you must have the wrong department. We're providing monitoring services, you'll have to talk to MI6 about that.
AC: Ah, I guess I misunderstood. You see I thought that you must have been some sort of aging vestigial extension of Stasi with a name like that. May I be transferred to the operator?
Receptionist: Of course, let me see, wait, Stasi!? It said somewhere in my book that I should be aware of that name. Hold please while I try to find these digital surveillance protocols...
AC: Wait, I'd like to report a critical incident!
Reception: Oh dear, critical incidents take precedent over everything else! Please describe.
AC: I'd like to report a critical incident of a group that identifies itself as an extremist group.
Reception: Okay, continue.
AC: You see, there is this organization that commits espionage on our daily behavior and has even included the word extremism in its own title!
Reception: This is serious! What could it possibly be?
AC: The National Domestic Extremism Unit.
Reception: Of course, this will be recorded immediately. Who.. Wait.. Uhh..
AC: *hears tremendous explosion of contradiction on the other end of the line*
AC: See, I was right! That just proves how dangerous they really are! I say we should smoke out all of these extremism units in our fair city, whether they be National or Domestic.
Doubleplus ungood.
Pretend there is some witty statement here.
...are...do my feet really stink that badly?
I do the best I can... :'(
"I love animals! Some are cute, others are tasty, what's not to like?" - Betsy Schroeder, Jeopardy contestant
But our government has a good reputation for fucking up IT projects in catastrophic ways
I feel the same way... I live in Denmark where the public sector also has a good reputation for "fucking up IT projects in catastrophic ways".
:)
:)
So when it comes to the government spying on me, I feel fairly safe, knowing that at least my government doesn't have the competence to do so
Seriously, we have law specifying that ISPs must log every 20th TCP/IP session, just IP addresses and timestamp.
Everything is stored at the ISPs and they may only release it on court order. Cost 200 million USD to establish, 20 million USD to maintain every year.
Yet, when asked a couple of years after the law as enacted, the police says they haven't used the logs yet, nor do they have any IT system capable of reading the logs. Because all ISPs writes logs in their own format
So fear not, your governments ability to fuckup large IT project most likely also extents to the intelligence services.
Somebody needs to work with the British to help them improve their naming of sinister police-state infrastructure. "SOCMINT" just doesn't have the James Bond supervillain police-state cachet of "PRISM" or even "ESCHELON".
If the program's name doesn't strike fear into peoples' hearts, how do they expect to people to properly cower? They've got a lot of catching up to do if they're going to achieve the US government's level of soul-crushing totalitarianism (though they do get extra points for implementing a smothering level of surveillance). We know they've got the talent to implement a fascistic corporate feudalism, but one has to wonder if they have the will, what with wimpy names like SOCMINT.
They lost out on a great opportunity.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Because we invented police forces, it made sense for us to call our force the Metropolitian, because as the first, it couldn't be confused with anyone else. It's the same with stamps; we still don't put any country identity on our stamps, just the queen's head. Just remember: 'The English the English the English are best,I wouldn't give tuppence for all of the rest' and 'It's not that they're wicked or naturally bad It's just that they're foreign that makes them so mad The English are all that a nation should be And the pride of the English are Chipper and me' for the song properly sung see: www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vh-wEXvdW8 Enjoy!
We call it GCHQ - not National Security Agency. Being British is all about understatement; it lets us creep up on you... ;)
Is public ya know, so no real surprise, shock or anything else here is needed since its all legal and you put it there.. Sure, its not good that a *government* is recording all public data as even if you do publish you should have 'reasonable expectations' of privacy from your government, but you put it there so not much you can really do about it.