History has proven that once data exists, people will use it any way they want to.
I think you've hit the biggest danger right there. The police have databases to look up the names and addresses for license plates. Abuse of that system is chronic. Everyone seems to know a friend who can look up license plates.
Access to this phone record database will develop the same way. First one government organization will really need access, then another, and so on . . .
. . . and fairly soon a lot of folks will be able to get a list of who their ex-wives, business partners, etc. are talking with on the phone.
Yeah, Edmund Scientific used to sell DIY biofeedback kits back then. They also sold plastic pyramids that were supposed to keep your razor blades sharp.
It's as if there's something genetic in MBA types that makes them abuse English so awfully as this summary exemplifies.
Never fear! See this "software-defined" craving as an opportunity . . . replace your MBAs with "software-defined management!"
Re:How long until the NSA sends a FISC Order?
on
A Database of Brains
·
· Score: 1
The NSA is not just satisfied with reading our mail . . . now they want to read our minds!
Actually, maybe they could determine that certain brain patterns indicate that someone might think about committing an act of terrorism in the future . . . it would be better to lock them up before they think about committing the act . . . predictive law enforcement . . .
Well, obviously, it would seem that the NSA folks think that their enemies are hiding out in Germany. Note that the USA is also yellow, so the NSA folks think that their enemies are hiding out in the USA.
Maybe the NSA hired a bunch of Stasi officers who forced into early retirement? They were the best in the business at collecting information, but they lacked the unlimited resources of the NSA to analyze it all. And they were trained by the Spy Grandmaster Markus Wolk, the infamous "Man Without a Face", who frustrated western intelligence services for years, because they did not have a photo of him.
On the more wacky bat-shit crazy conspiracy theory end of the spectrum, I can offer you this:
The NSA collaborates with the German Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) and Militärischer Abschirmdienst (MAD). You can try to translate those words into English with Google Translate, but the BND and MAD have used the secret Google APIs to ensure that they will be translated into something innocuous. The main source of information is a company called SAP, which collects data from its Enterprise Resource Planning systems at customer sites throughout the world, and stores it in a jointly operated underground data center near the SAP headquarters in Walldorf, Germany. To cover the construction of the underground center, the authorities faked construction of a new Autobahn improvement project there. Since the traffic did not improve after the construction, it was a dead giveaway that it was all a cover up.
At the same time, oh, what a coincidence, the IKEA right next to SAP also closed for "renovation". What is there to renovate at an IKEA? It's just a big warehouse full of Björns, Märtas, and Götas? Well, that is now the secret entrance to the spy facility. A bunch of cars parked outside of IKEA draws no attention. And in the evening, the BND and MAD employees carry out useless kitchen gadgets that they don't need, for further cover. And then the junk is returned in the morning, to complete the cover.
So why do terrorists use SAP? Just look at SAP's own marketing literature, and replace "business" with "terror":
In today's challenging business (terror!) environment, best-run companies have clarity across all aspects of their business (terror!), which allows them to act quickly with increased insight, efficiency, and flexibility. This is particularly true if your business (terror) includes SAP.
This manual exercise is what advanced NSA AI software can do automatically. It replaces "business" with "terror" in recorded telephone messages, and flags these for intelligence officers to investigate. So why are they spying on all US citizens? Take this harmless looking sample from a phone call from a middle-aged fat white guy to his WASPy Methodist mother in Ohio that has been processed:
"Why don't you come visit me?"
"Aw, Mom, I'm really busy with my business (terror!) right now."
"Business (terror!), business (terror!), business (terror!)! Your father ran a business (terror!), and still had plenty of time for his mother!
Terrorist are now using sophisticated method and techniques, like underwear bombs now. If the NSA was not monitoring this potential activity in the US, someone you love could show up at your next barbeque with an underwear bomb!
So what do you want to do, check the underwear of all your barbeque guests, or let the NSA do it for you . . . ?
My wacky bat-shit crazy conspiracy theories are leaning ever more to the loony side, but this story's developments are quite difficult to keep up with!
Germans are more preoccupied with dike leaks right now, not intelligence leaks, but they will probably be asking the question "Why us?" when the flood waters reside.
Actually, not a bad idea. Why not let the NSA host your email for you? They will have access to it one way or another anyway. Taxpayers have already paid for all those super-duper NSA data centers, so give citizens access to all that computing power via a free NSA cloud.
It will save costs at the NSA, because they won't need a PRISM to refract your email . . . they will have direct access to it. And if you know that the NSA has access to your email, you won't need to worry about if they do have access to your email . . . because you know they do already. It will also be secure, because the NSA are the best professional hackers in the world.
So getting back to iOS 7 features, I'm sure the NSA has already supplied Apple with a long list of their requirements. Let's open up those hidden NSA APIs so that everyone can use them and the NSA's unlimited resources.
Once again, I have to ask myself, "Who's been sleeping in my brain . . . ?"
On the contrary, the NSA has some great minds working for them, and they are probably doing some very interesting and useful analysis with all that data. The problem is, what great minds create, can be misused by others.
All this power is supposed to be used to catch terrorists. But now that this database is out in the open, a lot of other folks will find reasons why they must also have access to it.
Think of a simple police detective at the scene of a murder interviewing potential witnesses and suspects. He could immediately get a topology drawn of who knows who, and which ones have been chatting a lot with each other. Usually the poor policeman needs to do a lot of grunt and foot work to map this out. And get warrants for phone records. This would really help his investigation a lot.
But do we really want data collected this way to be used that way . . . ? What will prevent a slippery slide of more and more agencies and organizations getting access to this data for their own purposes . . . ? Can the DEA escalate their war on drugs to also be a matter of national security? This info could also help the IRS track down money launderers as well . . . how about the IRS . . . ?
Now that the government has this "Critical Tool" at their disposal, the more important question is not how can it be used, but how it should not be used.
The "critical tool" will become the only tool, and every problem will be a nail. Catch a drug dealer? Look at his phone records. Catch a tax cheater? His telephone friends probably cheat as well. Every government agency will want to get their hands on this "critical tool".
Water-boarding and other not-so-squeaky-clean methods of torture can also be a "critical tool" for extracting evidence from suspects. Let's get that practice up and running at every police station in the country. If we are going to shit-can the Constitution, we might as well go all the way, and be open and done with it.
The former East German secret police, the Stasi, had an extensive and effective network of "informal employees", who were basically informants who were threatened and coerced into cooperating. Their alternative would have been jail for "asocial behavior". They had wives spying on their own husbands. Yet another potential "critical tool." Lots of radical Islamic folks living in the US have relatives abroad. Well, they can choose to work with the NSA/FBI/CIA . . . or there might be a terrible "drone accident" where the relatives live.
Sociologists and psychologists like to define "power" in terms of how the behavior affects another. If you do something, and I change my behavior, you have power over me. If you do something, and I don't change my behavior, you have no power over me.
Given that a bunch of wacko Islamist terrorists have caused the US government to stray from the values embodied in the Constitution . . . those terrorists folks have a lot of power over the US government.
Microsoft needs to hire Ballmer a personal chauffeur to drive him around. Hans Reiser would be the perfect man for the job. He's tanned, rested and experienced.
They also should buy him a house . . . right next to John McAfee would be perfect. That seems to have worked before . . .
Asking the military to kill their friends and family and neighbors is not so simple a task as you might think.
Oh, a social psychologist named Stanley Milgram showed in experiments that it is surprisingly simple to do just that.
A good first step is for the government to convince the general population that certain groups of people aren't really citizens. Like, they are "gun nuts", or "anti-tax freaks", or "Jews". Then the government starts harassing them government agencies, like, spying on them, or hassling them about their taxes. This helps convince others that those groups are somehow guilty of something. Why else would the government be investigating them? They must be guilty of something!
This collection of phone records makes identifying these groups much more efficient and simpler. Who has called an NRA, Tea Party or Jewish Temple telephone number . . . ?
If the government can convince the agencies to go after specific groups of people, the military will go along with it, too.
"We must plan for freedom, and not only for security, if for no other reason than only freedom can make security more secure." -- Karl Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies
"To me, social media is the worst menace to society." -- Recep Tayyip Erdoan, Prime Minister of Turkey
Some companies have two track career paths. One, you move up as a techie into the management path, right up to executive. Two, you move up a techie path, where you go to Senior Engineer, right up to Distinguished Engineer, a position that has the same rank as an executive. Those Distinguished Engineers are the ones who advise the senior executives on innovation.
Does really it work? I have no idea. Feel free to post your experience.
Distinguished Engineer? I'd label myself as an Extinguished Can-of-Beer.
Slashdot Mirror
In a regular court, all evidence being used against a person has to be in both the prosecutors and defenses possession.
Well, that shit-cans my defense plans:
Mom: "You never call me on the phone!"
Me: "Sure I do! Just ask the NSA!"
If the policy makers actually traded . . . they wouldn't be taxing it.
What do they actually do?
It's like drugs. You can do drugs, but sometimes, they do you.
You can do SAP, but sometimes, they do you.
Scheiß aufs Privatleben!
But seriously. Reducing the world population would solve SO many problems.
Well, maybe we could solve the population and fuel problem together? My next science fair project will be turning humans into bio-fuel.
Oh, but all you Slashdot know-it-alls will tell me that it's already been done . . .
History has proven that once data exists, people will use it any way they want to.
I think you've hit the biggest danger right there. The police have databases to look up the names and addresses for license plates. Abuse of that system is chronic. Everyone seems to know a friend who can look up license plates.
Access to this phone record database will develop the same way. First one government organization will really need access, then another, and so on . . .
. . . and fairly soon a lot of folks will be able to get a list of who their ex-wives, business partners, etc. are talking with on the phone.
The question remains: how many domestic telephone conversations underwent some form of traffic analysis by NSA systems?
The question remains: how many domestic telephone conversations underwent some form of traffic analysis by Booz Allen Hamilton systems?
That's more my concern. What is preventing them from using all that data for some other dubious business purposes . . . ?
Snowden outed himself. He has no financial gain. But what others are still lurking around inside Booz Allen Hamilton . . . ?
I guess Booz Allen Hamilton is busy shredding documents and disks right now.
"Give kids toys and they're happier for 5 minutes".
"But teach kids how to masturbate, and they'll be happy for a lifetime!"
If Bill Gates is now looking for redemption with his foundation . . . this is one disease that he should eradicate.
Yeah, Edmund Scientific used to sell DIY biofeedback kits back then. They also sold plastic pyramids that were supposed to keep your razor blades sharp.
I think people had better drugs back in the 70's.
It's as if there's something genetic in MBA types that makes them abuse English so awfully as this summary exemplifies.
Never fear! See this "software-defined" craving as an opportunity . . . replace your MBAs with "software-defined management!"
The NSA is not just satisfied with reading our mail . . . now they want to read our minds!
Actually, maybe they could determine that certain brain patterns indicate that someone might think about committing an act of terrorism in the future . . . it would be better to lock them up before they think about committing the act . . . predictive law enforcement . . .
They have ways of knowing who is a US citizens . . . but those ways . . . are, like, secret . . . you know . . . ?
. . . to justify full voice recordings, if an NSA employee feels like it.
Or if a contractor with Booze Acid Ex-Stasi is bored, and wants some live realtime reality show.
Well, obviously, it would seem that the NSA folks think that their enemies are hiding out in Germany. Note that the USA is also yellow, so the NSA folks think that their enemies are hiding out in the USA.
Maybe the NSA hired a bunch of Stasi officers who forced into early retirement? They were the best in the business at collecting information, but they lacked the unlimited resources of the NSA to analyze it all. And they were trained by the Spy Grandmaster Markus Wolk, the infamous "Man Without a Face", who frustrated western intelligence services for years, because they did not have a photo of him.
On the more wacky bat-shit crazy conspiracy theory end of the spectrum, I can offer you this:
The NSA collaborates with the German Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) and Militärischer Abschirmdienst (MAD). You can try to translate those words into English with Google Translate, but the BND and MAD have used the secret Google APIs to ensure that they will be translated into something innocuous. The main source of information is a company called SAP, which collects data from its Enterprise Resource Planning systems at customer sites throughout the world, and stores it in a jointly operated underground data center near the SAP headquarters in Walldorf, Germany. To cover the construction of the underground center, the authorities faked construction of a new Autobahn improvement project there. Since the traffic did not improve after the construction, it was a dead giveaway that it was all a cover up.
At the same time, oh, what a coincidence, the IKEA right next to SAP also closed for "renovation". What is there to renovate at an IKEA? It's just a big warehouse full of Björns, Märtas, and Götas? Well, that is now the secret entrance to the spy facility. A bunch of cars parked outside of IKEA draws no attention. And in the evening, the BND and MAD employees carry out useless kitchen gadgets that they don't need, for further cover. And then the junk is returned in the morning, to complete the cover.
So why do terrorists use SAP? Just look at SAP's own marketing literature, and replace "business" with "terror":
In today's challenging business (terror!) environment, best-run companies have clarity across all aspects of their business (terror!), which allows them to act quickly with increased insight, efficiency, and flexibility. This is particularly true if your business (terror) includes SAP.
This manual exercise is what advanced NSA AI software can do automatically. It replaces "business" with "terror" in recorded telephone messages, and flags these for intelligence officers to investigate. So why are they spying on all US citizens? Take this harmless looking sample from a phone call from a middle-aged fat white guy to his WASPy Methodist mother in Ohio that has been processed:
"Why don't you come visit me?"
"Aw, Mom, I'm really busy with my business (terror!) right now."
"Business (terror!), business (terror!), business (terror!)! Your father ran a business (terror!), and still had plenty of time for his mother!
Terrorist are now using sophisticated method and techniques, like underwear bombs now. If the NSA was not monitoring this potential activity in the US, someone you love could show up at your next barbeque with an underwear bomb!
So what do you want to do, check the underwear of all your barbeque guests, or let the NSA do it for you . . . ?
My wacky bat-shit crazy conspiracy theories are leaning ever more to the loony side, but this story's developments are quite difficult to keep up with!
Germans are more preoccupied with dike leaks right now, not intelligence leaks, but they will probably be asking the question "Why us?" when the flood waters reside.
"Juveniles" who commit "adult" acts of rape . . . aren't really "juveniles" any more.
So for the average Slashdotter, that would mean:
Mom's basement->Mom's basement->Mom's basement
I don't see the portability value there.
For me, personally, it would mean more like:
My sofa->My sofa->My sofa
It cuts down on my commuting, so it must be good for the Global Carbon Warming Footprint, or something like that.
He's smoking crack in the Mayor's office in Toronto . . .
. . . or so they say . . .
I guess if that video does exist, the NSA will have it. No need to pay $200,000 for it. The CSIS can just ask the NSA to hand it over . . .
Actually, not a bad idea. Why not let the NSA host your email for you? They will have access to it one way or another anyway. Taxpayers have already paid for all those super-duper NSA data centers, so give citizens access to all that computing power via a free NSA cloud.
It will save costs at the NSA, because they won't need a PRISM to refract your email . . . they will have direct access to it. And if you know that the NSA has access to your email, you won't need to worry about if they do have access to your email . . . because you know they do already. It will also be secure, because the NSA are the best professional hackers in the world.
So getting back to iOS 7 features, I'm sure the NSA has already supplied Apple with a long list of their requirements. Let's open up those hidden NSA APIs so that everyone can use them and the NSA's unlimited resources.
Once again, I have to ask myself, "Who's been sleeping in my brain . . . ?"
"logging machine"...
On the contrary, the NSA has some great minds working for them, and they are probably doing some very interesting and useful analysis with all that data. The problem is, what great minds create, can be misused by others.
All this power is supposed to be used to catch terrorists. But now that this database is out in the open, a lot of other folks will find reasons why they must also have access to it.
Think of a simple police detective at the scene of a murder interviewing potential witnesses and suspects. He could immediately get a topology drawn of who knows who, and which ones have been chatting a lot with each other. Usually the poor policeman needs to do a lot of grunt and foot work to map this out. And get warrants for phone records. This would really help his investigation a lot.
But do we really want data collected this way to be used that way . . . ? What will prevent a slippery slide of more and more agencies and organizations getting access to this data for their own purposes . . . ? Can the DEA escalate their war on drugs to also be a matter of national security? This info could also help the IRS track down money launderers as well . . . how about the IRS . . . ?
Now that the government has this "Critical Tool" at their disposal, the more important question is not how can it be used, but how it should not be used.
The "critical tool" will become the only tool, and every problem will be a nail. Catch a drug dealer? Look at his phone records. Catch a tax cheater? His telephone friends probably cheat as well. Every government agency will want to get their hands on this "critical tool".
Water-boarding and other not-so-squeaky-clean methods of torture can also be a "critical tool" for extracting evidence from suspects. Let's get that practice up and running at every police station in the country. If we are going to shit-can the Constitution, we might as well go all the way, and be open and done with it.
The former East German secret police, the Stasi, had an extensive and effective network of "informal employees", who were basically informants who were threatened and coerced into cooperating. Their alternative would have been jail for "asocial behavior". They had wives spying on their own husbands. Yet another potential "critical tool." Lots of radical Islamic folks living in the US have relatives abroad. Well, they can choose to work with the NSA/FBI/CIA . . . or there might be a terrible "drone accident" where the relatives live.
Sociologists and psychologists like to define "power" in terms of how the behavior affects another. If you do something, and I change my behavior, you have power over me. If you do something, and I don't change my behavior, you have no power over me.
Given that a bunch of wacko Islamist terrorists have caused the US government to stray from the values embodied in the Constitution . . . those terrorists folks have a lot of power over the US government.
Microsoft needs to hire Ballmer a personal chauffeur to drive him around. Hans Reiser would be the perfect man for the job. He's tanned, rested and experienced.
They also should buy him a house . . . right next to John McAfee would be perfect. That seems to have worked before . . .
Asking the military to kill their friends and family and neighbors is not so simple a task as you might think.
Oh, a social psychologist named Stanley Milgram showed in experiments that it is surprisingly simple to do just that.
A good first step is for the government to convince the general population that certain groups of people aren't really citizens. Like, they are "gun nuts", or "anti-tax freaks", or "Jews". Then the government starts harassing them government agencies, like, spying on them, or hassling them about their taxes. This helps convince others that those groups are somehow guilty of something. Why else would the government be investigating them? They must be guilty of something!
This collection of phone records makes identifying these groups much more efficient and simpler. Who has called an NRA, Tea Party or Jewish Temple telephone number . . . ?
If the government can convince the agencies to go after specific groups of people, the military will go along with it, too.
"We must plan for freedom, and not only for security, if for no other reason than only freedom can make security more secure." -- Karl Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies
"To me, social media is the worst menace to society." -- Recep Tayyip Erdoan, Prime Minister of Turkey
. . . what interesting times we live in . . .
Some companies have two track career paths. One, you move up as a techie into the management path, right up to executive. Two, you move up a techie path, where you go to Senior Engineer, right up to Distinguished Engineer, a position that has the same rank as an executive. Those Distinguished Engineers are the ones who advise the senior executives on innovation.
Does really it work? I have no idea. Feel free to post your experience.
Distinguished Engineer? I'd label myself as an Extinguished Can-of-Beer.