Twitter Blocks Feds From Data Mining Service (usatoday.com)

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Twitter Blocks Feds From Data Mining Service (usatoday.com)

Posted by msmash on Monday May 9, 2016 @04:50AM from the get-off-my-lawn dept.

An anonymous reader cites a report on USA Today: Online social media company Twitter has reportedly blocked U.S. intelligence agencies from access to a widely used data mining service it partly owns. Twitter told Dataminr, the business partner that sifts through and provides access to the full output of the San Francisco-based firm's social media postings known as tweets, that it didn't want the service provided to government investigators, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday. Twitter made the decision because the company did not like the "optics" of appearing too close to U.S. spy agencies, the Journal reported, citing an unidentified intelligence official. The issue could further escalate the public privacy vs. government security tensions between high tech firms and the federal government as investigators seek access to social media and other electronic data in an effort to detect and avert suspected terrorist plots. Newsweek's Kenneth Li said: "This makes no sense. So, dataminr's hedge fund customers are ok, but not the government?"

35 of 60 comments (clear)

Min score:

Reason:

Sort:

Hmmm.... What to believe? by KGIII · 2016-05-09 04:55 · Score: 4, Insightful

Do they really mean what they say or did they "block them" from this service while giving them an all you can drink tap right at the source? What's to stop the Feds from accessing the service under a fictitious name or via a legitimate company?
I really am turning into a conspiracy theorist. :/
It's hard to tell these days.

--
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
1. Re:Hmmm.... What to believe? by ArylAkamov · 2016-05-09 05:00 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  What's to stop the Feds from accessing the service under a fictitious name or via a legitimate company?
  Nothing, it's just a PR stunt. Like the summary said:
  "Twitter made the decision because the company did not like the "optics" of appearing too close to U.S. spy agencies"
  It's all about appearances.
2. Re:Hmmm.... What to believe? by Anonymous Coward · 2016-05-09 05:05 · Score: 1
  
  Do they really mean what they say or did they "block them" from this service while giving them an all you can drink tap right at the source? What's to stop the Feds from accessing the service under a fictitious name or via a legitimate company?
  I really am turning into a conspiracy theorist. :/
  It's hard to tell these days.
  Anybody worried about "the Feds" snooping on their Twitter account is doing it wrong.
  "I want to publish information publicly, but I only want people who I want to have the information to be able find it. Also, I don't want to answer queries about if person X or person Y should have it, the computer should just know if I want them to have it or not. And, it should also figure out if I don't want that person to have that information in the future, and refuse to give it to them in the present."
  Yeah, neither The Internet nor The World works that way.
3. Re:Hmmm.... What to believe? by Locke2005 · 2016-05-09 05:36 · Score: 1
  
  Pretty much my thought... they claim they are "blocking" the Feds, when the Feds can just start up a "private" company and let it access the database for them (as if they don't already have plenty of fake companies they use to provide spies with resumes). Twitter keeps positive deniability about protecting users privacy, despite the fact that they are effectively allowing ANYONE to access the data! The only question is, does twitter know about the 3rd party company the Feds are going through for access or not?
  
  --
  I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
4. Re:Hmmm.... What to believe? by Flavianoep · 2016-05-09 05:37 · Score: 1
  
  They are completely right. The only acceptable use of data analysis is to serve tailored ads to costumers. Way to go, Twitter, Inc.! Keep our data safe from the boogeyman government of evil.
  
  --
  Linux is for people who don't mind RTFM.
5. Re:Hmmm.... What to believe? by TheCarp · 2016-05-09 05:58 · Score: 1
  
  > Do they really mean what they say or did they "block them" from
  Right there is where the doublespeak starts.
  The thing is, everybody knows the intelligence agencies use front companies. So, if the data sharing is available to everyone else, they can easily get it by just....not disclosing who they really are. They just, get access through a front. Problem solved.
  This is 100% CYA and misdirection. The only barrier they want to create is one around the truth of what they share and wan to keep sharing with "businesses" which may or may not just happen to contain fronts for intelligence services.... but....not them directly....because that may provoke scrutiny.
  
  --
  "I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
6. Re:Hmmm.... What to believe? by JustAnotherOldGuy · 2016-05-09 06:01 · Score: 1
  
  Lol, they think they've blocked the Feds, but that's like blocking an unpopular opinion or winning the War On Drugs (or Terror, or Knitting, or whatever).
  This sounds like a little kid hiding under a blanket and going, "You can't see me!"
  
  --
  Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
7. Re: Hmmm.... What to believe? by KGIII · 2016-05-09 06:38 · Score: 1
  
  LOL I *know* who you are Mr. AC... :P
  
  --
  "So long and thanks for all the fish."
8. Re:Hmmm.... What to believe? by KGIII · 2016-05-09 06:45 · Score: 2
  
  I wonder if they even believe it themselves? Seriously, I'm turning into quite a conspiracy kook or something. I mean, yeah, I fully expected what Snowden released but what more is there?
  As for this? It's well known that the Three Letter Agencies use front companies. So, a company called New Standard Aggregates INC is now just buying the data. They get the PR boost and they people actually believe that the feds are having to revert to scraping the site with scripts. Or, maybe, they have no idea that the Feds can just scrape the site - seeing as it's public. Hell, I can scrape the site - though I might need to use multiple connections to keep up with it. Okay, so I'd need lots of fat pipes to keep up with all the data going to them but I can order that and just use VPNs. I wouldn't even have to leave my house. I doubt I'd even have to script it - I'd just use HTTrack and a bunch of VPNs and scoop until my heart's content.
  No, I won't get GEO IP location and things like that but I can probably do something to automate locating the posters. More so if I were the NSA and had access to the pipes.
  
  --
  "So long and thanks for all the fish."
9. Re:Hmmm.... What to believe? by KGIII · 2016-05-09 06:48 · Score: 1
  
  > The only question is, does twitter know about the 3rd party company the Feds are going through for access or not?
  Plausible deniability. I guess it's a thing for companies too. I was mentioning below, it's public data - posted on a public server. Give me a handful of VPNs so that I can get enough bandwidth into it and I can scrape the site in real time. On top of that, this is the Feds - they've got access to the pipes and probably have more aggregate data than even Twitter has.
  
  --
  "So long and thanks for all the fish."
10. Re:Hmmm.... What to believe? by KGIII · 2016-05-09 07:00 · Score: 1
  
  Yeah, I don't think they can really stop 'em. In a reply below, I indicated a couple of ways to just grab the damned data even if they don't give me permission. Given that the Feds almost certainly have lots of bandwidth and raw access to the pipes via the providers, I'm thinking they don't really need permission. I've got three disparate DSL connections in Maine and one cable connection here in Florida - I could saturate my lines and pull down nothing but text and probably scrape quite a bit of it without even needing to rely on a handful of VPS instances or spinning up something at Amazon. That won't get me IP addresses and other data but it'd get me quite a bit.
  Now that I think about it a bit more - they've got machine learning down pretty well. I'm not familiar with it (but I'm a little interested in learning more about it) but it could probably be set up to just grab certain types of feeds and to ignore those from everyone from Aunt Jenny to the movie theater announcements. It could probably be set to just grab the more juicy feeds and reduce the bandwidth and compute cycles needed. Aggregated with other public information, I could probably pull a bunch of stuff down and narrow things down quite nicely - even if I don't have much else for starting information.
  
  --
  "So long and thanks for all the fish."
11. Re:Hmmm.... What to believe? by s.petry · 2016-05-09 07:58 · Score: 1
  
  I wonder if they even believe it themselves? Seriously, I'm turning into quite a conspiracy kook or something. I mean, yeah, I fully expected what Snowden released but what more is there?
  Evaluation from the perspective of "Government is potentially evil" is not "kook", and does not make you one. There has been a huge amount of propaganda which makes one think that, but it's a psychological war. Go back to the 1970s and read Gary Allen and Milton Friedman, and read what people wrote about them. Or perhaps consider what was not said about them in US media, while other talking heads became main stream.
  Government does not have morality on it's own and can be neither "good" or "evil". The people controlling government however can be good or evil.
  I generally laugh at people who claim "conspiracy" as though such a thing is impossible. Imagine a world where several people wielding power refused to speak to each other and plan to gain more power. It would never happen, but you could imagine it.
  Questioning does not make one a kook, in fact I'll argue that it takes more sanity to question everything than it does to simply accept what you are told. It's amazing how many people become manic about protecting their belief and try to shut down your questions. That latter part is insanity.
  
  --
  -The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
12. Re: Hmmm.... What to believe? by KGIII · 2016-05-10 08:10 · Score: 1
  
  I doubt it ever really did. I'm pretty old and the lies seem to be fewer now than they were when I was younger. I'm mixed racially and lived in the American South East at first. I was born in 57.
  
  --
  "So long and thanks for all the fish."
13. Re:Hmmm.... What to believe? by Coren22 · 2016-05-12 02:15 · Score: 1
  
  The National Student Association? The Culinary Institute of America?
  Where does it stop!
  
  --
  APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
14. Re:Hmmm.... What to believe? by cavreader · 2016-05-16 23:53 · Score: 1
  
  " appearing too close to U.S. spy agencies" Are they applying the same rules for non-US spy agencies?
So you get a subpoena... by mlw4428 · 2016-05-09 05:00 · Score: 1

...and hit up the consumers of the data for that information. "Give us all of the information about this Twitter account that you have and tell no one." Meanwhile it'll be 3rd party advertising firms who don't care/have an image to maintain and are incompetent enough to hand the Feds the keys to ALL of the information. Twitter at least could siphon what information it releases.

It's a PR stunt, it literally does nothing to curtail information flow. If you want to be anonymous, quit using the internet.
1. Re:So you get a subpoena... by mlw4428 · 2016-05-09 05:31 · Score: 1
  
  "Hackerspace" is this the millennial term for computer clubs?
2. Re:So you get a subpoena... by Locke2005 · 2016-05-09 05:38 · Score: 1
  
  Hackerspace is the millenial term for the place that the guys that aren't getting laid hang out... (and I should know!)
  
  --
  I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
3. Re:So you get a subpoena... by jeffmflanagan · 2016-05-09 05:47 · Score: 1
  
  It has some aspects of a computer club, but it's more like a shared workshop. A hackerspace has the tools you need to build physical objects.
the real reason... by Lead+Butthead · 2016-05-09 05:02 · Score: 2

"pay us. we're not doing this for free."

--
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
1. Re:the real reason... by i.r.id10t · 2016-05-09 05:19 · Score: 2
  
  Indeed. And just how enforceable are the terms of service for a service like this? IE, if the terms include "using your real business name" - ie, allow folks who are DBA'ing as Foo Corp to use Foo Corp even though ti is really an individual - and "not reselling or allowing access by others" - so Foo Corp can't allow his drinking buddy Bar Corp to use his account "to check on something" - woudl that be enough to prevent the feds from using a corporation, etc? Because the service can certainly say "oh, we won't sell an account/access to any government agency" - after all, that isn't discrimination based on race, religion, etc.
  
  --
  Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
2. Re:the real reason... by JustAnotherOldGuy · 2016-05-09 06:03 · Score: 1
  
  "Without BlueJay, we would not have had the situational awareness to effectively act upon such a time-sensitive situation."
  TRANSLATION:
  "Without BlueJay, we would not have been able to keep tabs on all of these citizens."
  And they bill themselves as a "Law Enforcement Crime Scanner". Yippee.
  
  --
  Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
3. Re:the real reason... by KGIII · 2016-05-09 06:53 · Score: 1
  
  I think you and I should sign up for our free 7 day trial!
  I don't think you need a license to call yourself a private investigator. It's easy enough to incorporate so we can hide our names. I kind of want to see what's on the other side of that site. Where's HumpWumpus? He'd probably be game for this with us.
  
  --
  "So long and thanks for all the fish."
4. Re:the real reason... by JustAnotherOldGuy · 2016-05-09 07:38 · Score: 1
  
  I think you and I should sign up for our free 7 day trial!
  Oh yeah, no way that would get us put on any list. lol
  Just knowing it's out there raises all sorts of evil possibilities, though. Think about it...what would it take to trigger some police agency's button and make them respond. It'd be like swatting, more or less.
  
  --
  Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
5. Re:the real reason... by KGIII · 2016-05-09 08:21 · Score: 1
  
  Great minds think alike. I mean, we're just raising awareness for a cause, right? Right? Right...
  *whistles innocently*
  We can even get credit cards in the corporation's name. Have it held by lawyers so we get an added degree of protection from disclosure.
  Yeah, we're going on a list. I doubt it's a crime but we're gonna have to fly charter everywhere we go and our stops at customs are going to be extra long and have a few extra questions. But hey, we'll be famous!
  
  --
  "So long and thanks for all the fish."
The "optics" of helping enemies are better? by mi · 2016-05-09 05:15 · Score: 2

Twitter made the decision because the company did not like the "optics" of appearing too close to U.S. spy agencies
So, ISIS using Twitter is tolerable, but US government — no, that's just wrong?
Ah, well, they started to go after "violent extremism" too now, finally. The "optics" must've gotten really bad...
Unfortunately, they don't distinguish between terrorists and, for example, Ukrainians defending their country.

--
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
1. Re:The "optics" of helping enemies are better? by Nutria · 2016-05-09 05:39 · Score: 1
  
  And what's twitter doing to stop China and Russia from using it's APIs?
  
  --
  "I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
Hmmm by Hognoxious · 2016-05-09 05:17 · Score: 3, Funny

I take it the cheque bounced?

--
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Hey by Kierthos · 2016-05-09 05:37 · Score: 2

At least the corporations using this data-mining are being honest about what they're using it for. The government? "Hey, we need to look at this. For reasons. And you can't tell anyone."

--
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
1. Re:Hey by Anonymous Coward · 2016-05-09 13:05 · Score: 1
  
  The US government actually has rules on how they can use and store the data - corporations can do whatever they want with it. It amazes me how people have no problem giving corporations access to everything in their lives, but get upset when the government gets a peak. While it is BS for the government to have access to private data without a warrant, it is idiotic to think it is OK provide corporations with the data to a public service but not the US government. Meanwhile foreign spy agencies have full access to the data...
Re:B-b-but... by Locke2005 · 2016-05-09 05:40 · Score: 1

So, you're a "twitter shitter", then?

--
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
bleeding money, twitter investors respond. by zlives · 2016-05-09 05:59 · Score: 1

hey big gov... pay us like all the other clients for our data.
Re:B-b-but... by JustAnotherOldGuy · 2016-05-09 06:05 · Score: 1

So, you're a "twitter shitter", then?
He really needs to get with the times and buy himself an internet-enabled toilet. Manual poo-alerts are so 2006!

--
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
Black listing like spammers? by Okian+Warrior · 2016-05-09 06:40 · Score: 1

I've often wondered if someone could set up a black-list of government-owned computers.
This could be set up and managed much like the SPAM black lists or the AdBlock lists - managed by an interested party, using information submitted by the public. Execute "sudo apt-get install govblock", and your system automatically sends a 404 response to requests from government computers.
Now, anyone with an inkling of how the net works will realize that this is trivial to get around, but consider it from the point of view of the (for example) FBI: you are the IT director for the building, and you need a way to route these requests through an external computer somewhere not in the building.
That's an enormous amount of work for the FBI, and it could come to naught if someone figures it out and puts the external computers on the black list. It's easy for an individual to do, not so much for an organization.
You could automatically block all access within, say, 35 miles of Pennsylvania Ave in Washington. That would cover the FBI and pretty-much *all* of its employees. This means that an employee can't even browse from their home and send the results to the office.
A handful of 35-mile blocked geolocated areas would put a big damper on government intrusions. The loss in viewership would be minimal.
Just a thought.
It's only a matter of time before the public steps in and solves the surveilance problems once and for all.
1. Re:Black listing like spammers? by KGIII · 2016-05-09 08:26 · Score: 1
  
  They have had block lists for the P2P file systems for ages. i don't know how well they work or anything but they exist. They're supposed to stop you from sharing with people who work for the companies that find people who are violating copyright laws - including some companies that specialize in that.
  I imagine it'd be marginally effective but it's pretty easy for them to get a new IP address and just pretend it's located anywhere in the world.
  Hmm... Do a Google search for:
  "block federal government IP addresses"
  That turns up some interesting results - including a data dump of IP addresses. I guess we could set up a honey pot aimed at attracting the feds. "Free bribes and donuts. Click here!" Then just assume they're all police or government representatives.
  
  --
  "So long and thanks for all the fish."