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Spies in the Forests
Adam Jenkins writes "More info on the NSA patent has been reported in The Independent.
Specifically they have been lab-testing software that can sift
through calls and e-mails in search of key phrases." Can you say 'Echelon'? Anyone who still harbors any doubts about whether the network could exist should read this.
I think you may be missing the point here. Just because the vast majority of us "have nothing to worry about" personally, this doesn't mean that we should not worry about the issue generally. It's very similar to the burning down of rain forrests and 10 million other such areas of concern. Is it sensible that we ignore them just because the effect on us is not personal and immediate?
Snooping by three-letter agencies does indeed seem fairly innocuous (as long as you lay undistinguished and hence unseen among the teeming masses), but what if you have larger ambitions than to live and die unwitnessed? Whatever you do, even if it's totally legal, you're bound to annoy somebody sometime, and it's not beyond the bounds of possibility that the snooped info will pop up to haunt you, because *all* information is for sale to someone at some price. You'll feel different about it then than you do now.
And longer term, what about the Terminator, Matrix, or even Borg scenarios? A system that knows everything about what's going on is a system that can kill you in the end, no matter how benign it is at the start. Don't dismiss it as "just SF". It'll be too late to say "Oops, I was wrong" when it happens.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
Now I don't mean to talk about nuclear war with anyone, but Iraq may eventually warrant it. Of course, importing narcotics from Cuba would be wrong, but one needs to avoid the government policies trying to prevent illegal action. I suggest we reveal our secrets to the chinese while purchasing arms for a mighty uprising against Democracy.
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THIS IS PRE-ALPHA PRIVATE RELEASE CODE!!!
DO NOT USE IT UNLESS YOU ARE A DEVELOPER.
ALL IT DOES IS CRASH!
THIS IS PRE-ALPHA PRIVATE RELEASE CODE!!!
DO NOT USE IT UNLESS YOU ARE A DEVELOPER.
ALL IT DOES IS CRAS
The NSA (DoD) paper on Semantic Forrests is available at: http://trec.nist.gov/pubs/trec7/papers/nsa-rev.pdf
I've already seen several posts implying that you can fool NSA technology by simply including key phrases in your documents. Thus the "spook" command in emacs, etc.
But NSA technology is far more sophisticated than this. In fact, if you've used a variety of search engines, you've seen such such technology in use. The better search engines do a good job of rejecting key-phrase laden documents and returning only good hits.
Of course, eveybody who's used a search engine and gotten some bogus site hit knows that the technology is far from perfect. But remember, the NSA has been throwing millions of dollars at the problem basically since computers existed. They're likely to be well ahead of current search engine technology.
In other words, you can continue to use spook-mode in emacs (I do, it's fun), but you should be aware that it's probably not fooling anybody. The private sector already has technology that can eliminate that sort of spoofing, and the military is probably years ahead of the game. Trust No One.
I am just amazed at the responses here on /. about any news related to the NSA. I am clinically paranoid, and you all exceed even my exploits.
I will admit, though, it does sound like a blatant disregard for my personal privacy, so I'm going to attack the government back.
It never fails that there is a score of posts containing supposedly keywords that would set of the "Echelon" buzzers deep inside some bunker in the DC area. Then, thugs come and raid your house while you sleep and drag you away hancuffed, naked, and screaming to their torture chambers, where you are given a showtrial and then sentenced to 8 years in a work camp in the frozen north.
Wake up, people.
As anybody with a rational mind can tell you. most people (99.99999%) have nothing to worry about. Just because someone can collect information on just about anything they want to (try it sometime--even use whois and a couple of internet search engines to see what you can come up with about yourself) doesn't mean that they will.
Just about anybody who has experience in the intelligence field or law enforcement can tell you that true, valuable intelligence (or investigation, if you prefer) is the result of long-term collection and analysis. Just scanning traffic for keywords will not work. Pull up your favorite search engine and do a search for bomb. How many results do you get?
If you want to collect intelligence, you need to set a specific goal or target. Usually, this is influenced by political means. It's just like a police investigation. In one very well-documanted book ("Inside the Aquarium") about Soviet intelligence collection, Victor Suvorov (former Spetznaz and GRU Major who defected to the west) talked about picking an area such as the US 7th Fleet in the Mediterranean. They focused on the question, "When and where are the major deployments of the Carrier Battle Groups?" Then, you identify the means to collect on that target. In our case, the spies ran a hotel in a major port town that served as a homebase for several fleet ships. They didn't just walk around town asking people for information, which is fairly comparable to scanning IP packets.
In order for intelligence to be valuable, it has to be correct, timely, and actually useful to the guys who need it. It takes a concerted effort between many different organizations to accomplish this. Just because you "intercepted" an email containing a few keywords, that does not constitute an intelligence lead. Basically, it is as reliable as a rumor that you overheard in a seedy bar downtown. No police investigator would bet his reputation on such a piece of information.
All the so-called 'experts" on Echelon are just speculating. They are conducting a very weak intelligence collection operation on the NSA. Alot of information is easily available, such as purchase contracts with suppliers. So, they collect all this information and then make a good guess. That's all it is. Unless you've been in the bunkers and fences, you have no idea what goes on inside.
As far as invasion of privacy, yes, some intelligence agencies are more invasive in their techniques than other ones. Ever since they got their buttocks burned several decades ago (Vietnam and Mccarthy Eras), they have had to seriously rethink their policy concerning this. I think, just like the police, trying to conduct operations in as unintrusive means as possible is basically the policy. Honestly, I'm more worried about my boss tracking my keystrokes to find out if I'm jerking off at work, or my system administrator forking my mail through a buzzword filter to report me to my boss, and the adolescent who lives in the high-rise next to me who was given a 100x telescope for his birthday.
In short, just because the NSA, FBI, CIA, and others can spy on you doesn't mean that they will, or that they even want to.
I do what the voices on my console tell me to do.