DARPA Funds Internet Tracking Scheme 256
Lifewish writes "The BBC is reporting that company MetaCarta is receiving DARPA cash to design a new system for tracking individuals based on their electronic presence. One company official is quoted as saying that 'The government and international security agencies have a desire to find, track and sometimes arrest people. Our system can be used to find them across the globe.' If you ever wondered where all that information the U.S. is collecting ended up..."
Ugly choices (Score:5, Interesting)
Happy Trails,
Erick
Re:Ugly choices (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Ugly choices (Score:5, Insightful)
And only stupid terrorists are likewise going to leave a trail of electronic crumbs to track. Yeah, you could argue that stupid terrorists are worth nabbing, but clearly whomever was responsible for 9/11 wasn't stupid, nor will the individual(s) responsible for the first nuclear detonation on American soil be stupid.
No, if anything, this system will actually increase the amount of criminal activity, whether terrorism or kidnapping, or crimes in between. It only serves to aggregrate power from the many onto the very few, which means more corruption and less representative government, which in turn means more disillusionment, apathy and frustration.
Re:Ugly choices (Score:3, Insightful)
Indeed, and the detonations in the desert in the American west were conducted by the best and brightest of their time...
Oh, you meant the first one in a place the government DIDN'T select....
Re:Ugly choices (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, they were stupid, or at least sloppy. Nearly one-third of the terrorists had visas or travel documents with obvious forgeries [philly.com]. While sophisticated in some respects, they clearly weren't James Bond supergenius villian types. In addition, more than half of them were flagged [msn.com] by the airlines computer system as a threat, but were never checked because the system was designed for luggage, not people. So, obviously these people had something in their history/profile that indicated they could be trouble.
Perhaps a better system could have stopped or blunted the events of 9/11. who knows...
Re:Ugly choices (Score:3, Interesting)
Not only that, a good number of the suspected 19 are still alive.
The only evidence we really have is that video tape upon which Osama is purported to have confessed to the whole affair, but a closer examination reveals that a) he may not have confessed at all, and b) it almost certainly wan't Osama b
Re:Ugly choices (Score:5, Informative)
Actually you point out a curious fact and you didn't even know it. The enforcement mechanisms were present. The enforcers were busy chasing other objectives.
The point is that such data is NEVER used for the stated purposes. It always gets used for other things. The stated purpose gets ignored indefinitely. I remember the USA on 2000 (New Years Eve) was worried to death about Al Qaeda terrorists. It demanded a 5 Billion supplemental to track them down and deal with them.
On 9/11/2001 according to official testimony only 42 persons in FBI and CIA were even tracking the Al Qaeda types. $5 Billion leaves a slightly larger footprint than that. Bluntly they went on to something else with the money.
Suspicion of the Government by the Citizens should be Axiomatic. It isn't Paranoia it is rational. Insane behavior would be to trust them. This isn't hostile it is just the nature of the beast.
The DARPA work isn't hardly as advanced as might be thought. It is none-the-less a system which is engineered to do anything but deal with the terrorists. This is an excuse to avoid HUMINT and avoid listening to actual problems.
The instances we see on TV of Children being recovered etc via Video Cameras etc are not Government Cameras. They are private Cameras. They were only used after a problem was discovered which is the only way such data should be used. The intrinsic problem with the Government maintaining this data is that it will be searched for "problems" rather than simply supporting the handling of a Known Problem. This goes to the heart of the US Constitution which says "No warrant shall issue without Probable Cause." To look mechanically and automatically for all "violations" finds accidents it does not find injuries. Such have no "Probable Cause" in them.
The EU guys will not understand this as they have always lived in a society where you had to get permission to do anything. You had no real rights only permits. The founders of the USA so opposed such a concept that they ran it out of our land on a rail. The return of it is the return to what brought on the Dark Ages. (Something the EU guys might know a about)
The actual failures in the 9/11 incidents involve the 20 or so times that the US Citizens confronted these guys and said here is a problem only to have the US Government Types ignore them. This is like the guy at the Crop Dusting Service calling the FBI about Arabic guys who wanted to know what was obviously terrorist uses for such aircraft. He reported it. They guys should by law have been busted and deported as "Undesirable Aliens." But then we had "Probable Cause" on them by this time and naturally the FBI doesn't pay attention to that. It isn't a Sting! It isn't High Tech. It isn't sexy. It is just doing your job! (Hint to the the FBI)
DARPA is full of some really bright nice people but there are some of them who view technology as a substitute for actually dealing with PEOPLE. This is the problem. But then its a lot more fun to shoot people by remote control or catch them by computer than to admit somebody aught to pay attention and be expected to do their job. DARPA is generally a pretty good team.
All we will get out of their infinite data system after the next attack is a really good record of what happened. Remember we have video of the 9/11 guys buying the box cutters. We have video of them getting on the plane. We have nearly a perfect record already. We even had a record of their trade and movements before hand. So when they bury you in your grave after the terrorist attack we will have billions of bits of data telling exactly how you died.... Nothing will have been done about the systematic disrespect of Citizens or Citizenship which had either been respected the attack would never have happened.
The better system you talk about would consist of a respect of Citizenship and a demand for it. If we had done so at least 20 times prior to 9/11 the guys would have been out of here. Thinking that it is anythi
Re:Ugly choices (Score:5, Insightful)
Why the snide comments about the EU? And what on earth makes you think that we don't understand the concepts of rights and freedoms?
I find it deeply ironic that the United States, a country that prides itself on its Constitution and the rights of its citizens, is also the place where: you have giant corporations controlling your government and laughing at your legal system; you have the right to free speech, as long as you can afford the lawyers to defend it; the constitutional safeguards over copyright are being trampled by the aforementioned big corps; you hold hundreds of people indefinitely and without charge, based on an accusation and a technicality of international law that no-one else recognises; and you have a President of dubious mandate, taking your country to war supported by dubious intelligence, resulting in the deaths of thousands of innocents, the destruction of a whole country's infrastructure, the deaths of numerous American servicemen and women, and did I mention some rather lucrative rebuilding contracts for major corps with whom your senior leadership has intimate ties?
The UK government has become increasingly abusive of its authority, particularly since Tony Blair's lot came to power, with Jack Straw and then David Blunkett as Home Secretary. However, we can't even approach your level of legal impotence and government abuse, and you're busy trying to inflict it on the rest of the world! And at least at our general election next year, we'll have candidates to vote for who don't all say the same thing, which is as bad as who we've got at the moment anyway...
You make a lot of good points in your post, and I agree with much of what you say, but with all due respect, you seem to have a serious lack of perspective on the world outside. For all our knowledge of the Dark Ages, as far as rights and responsibilities go, I'd still far prefer to be living in the EU than the US right now.
Re:Ugly choices (Score:5, Insightful)
Things I grew up with that I accepted as being a basic part of America are just no longer true, mainly that the government can't imprison you without a trial, you are always entitled to a lawyer, and the government has to actually charge you to imprison you, and the government cannot torture prisoners. The trend of the US government to detain people they don't like indefinately without charge by calling them Material Witnesses is an abomination in this so-called "Land of the Free".
Don't even get me started on the self-serving legal maneuver of calling people (including US citizens) "enemy combatants" and giving them neither legal rights NOR rights as prisoners of war. Why doesn't this upset more Americans? I live in Manhattan and I really hate terrorsits, but these people need to be tried and punished using the democratic process.
I used to be told that one of the things setting this country apart from dictatorships was that dictatorships could imprison people at will and would not even tell their families they had been taken - they just disappeared. Well, the US has its own "disappeards" now. Two years ago I saw a newscast of family members outside a Washington State Federal Detention facility holding signs with pictures of their son they thought was being held there. It turned out later that the government wanted to hold him but because there was absolutely no evidence he committed any crime he was being held indefinately and secretly under Material Witness laws. There are people in this country that have been in prison cells for years under Material Witness laws without access to the courts or legal counsel. This is AMERICA?
Why did it not cause more alarm when this administration was seriously talking about suspending the Constitution after 9/11? Although cutting your own throat is a sure way to avoid cancer, the cure is worse than the disease. It is the same with the Bush administration and the extreme right-wing Cheney/Wolfowitz/Rumsfeld ultra-nationalistic policies the Republican Party has turned to. What is most worrying is the willingness of the average American to accept this behavior by our government and to actually support it as Patriotic.
To end on a more positive note, it is encouraging to see the Presidential candidates criticizing the current administration for trampling our Constitutional rights. That they are willing to do so indicates that there is a very large segment of the voting population that agrees that the right-wing Bush administration has gone too far.
Re:Ugly choices (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, as you may recall, the 9/11 terrorists were behaving pretty obviously beforehand - learning to take off but not land, etc. - to the point where local FBI field agents were practically begging the home office to follow up. The top dogs in Quantico basically told them to shut the f__k up.
Does this remind you of the Challenger disaster, where top managers repeatedly ignored warnings from the the engineers? The more data dredging they do, the more noise and false-alarms there will be. The top people - mostly political hacks, probably - won't want to be bothered, especially if the warnings distract them from their current pet projects and obsessions, or the particular axes they have to grind.
This info will come in handy, however, when they want to go after particular individuals or groups, whether for legitimate or illegitimate reasons. During the Nixon administration, all it took to attract their emnity was to publicly oppose the Vietnam war or criticize the President. Now that we're being protected against "terrorism", we can expect things to get even worse.
Re:Ugly choices (Score:5, Insightful)
That would be Robert Oppenheimer.
Tax payer's delight? (Score:3, Interesting)
Am I the only one who thinks something went terribly wrong here?...
Re:Tax payer's delight? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Tax payer's delight? (Score:4, Interesting)
No [multied.com]. It's the government elected by Electoral College, an obsolete instutution that hardly any democratic country uses these days. You - the voters - have elected Al Gore, who won the popular vote [bellatlantic.net], but he was turned down by the electors. First such occurence since 1888 and a MAJOR signal that America needs a significant upgrade of its voting system. Electoral College is sooo last century... no, not even that, it's actually sooo last century before the last century!
Re:Tax payer's delight? (Score:3, Insightful)
Sir, with all due respect, across the pond there are some democratic countries that elect their presidents in
Re:Ugly choices (Score:4, Interesting)
I'd like to make one small correction. Technology itself isn't throwing solutions that are ethically and morally questionable... It's the people that use technology in ethically and morally questionable ways that should be examined. In this case, it's Big Brother watching everything you do online to see if you're breaking any laws.
One time, I was in high school, and a friend of mine was scolded for using the word "rape" in a sentence that referred to something besides the obvious definition. In an attempt to support him, I did a search on "rape definition" and one of the sites that came up had ad banners for porn sites. The teacher saw that, and thought I was looking up porn at school, and it took me a long time of explaining to convince her that I wasn't. Imagine if I would have done a search on "kiddie porn" just to verify that it meant individuals under 18, not just individuals under 12 or 16, and the government saw that I looked at a site with ad banners depicting 17-year-olds doing the nasty. I had a hard enough time convincing a teacher in her early 30's that I didn't intend for that site to come up... let alone a judge and jury of my "peers".
As you said, the abuse potential for this technology is almost limitless, especially given the PATRIOT Act, and similar legislation. It is for reasons like this that I don't trust the government... whether it's with my activities on the internet (which are completely legit, except the occasional MP3 download), my tax dollars (how much do you think THIS will cost? $20 billion seem like enough?), or just generally my freedom. I'm not advocating any political stance... I'm just saying that if we're scared of the government abusing a power that we give them, why do we continue to give them such power?
Re:Support the SAFE act (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Ugly choices (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Ugly choices (Score:3, Insightful)
I absolutely agree. My point was that the government is the one that's going to be implementing this, and at the moment, the government seems to take whatever they want from the people they're meant to govern... sometimes to the severe detriment of the concepts and principles that made this country great in the first place. Keep this in mind: The government is the only organization that has the power to use force t
Re:Ugly choices (Score:3, Insightful)
We don't. They're taking it from us, one teeny little reasonable-seeming, "won't somebody think of the chidlren" law at a time.
Law-abiding citizens (Score:3, Insightful)
This will make our country more secure and safer from terrorism.
Furthermore all American pariotic parties are joined in this effort to fight terrorism - even Howard Dean is supporting personal identification schemes.
And remember we are at war - the war against terrorism. And in a war everybody has do to his share to ensure the victory of the forces of the free world. If that means that I have to give up some privacy, then I'll do my share gladly.
At WWII we had to make much larger sacrifices to save the free world and democracy.
Classic Red Herring (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Law-abiding citizens (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Law-abiding citizens (Score:3, Insightful)
My bet is that you are a troll. Giving up privacy, even incrementally, has nothing to do with an increase in your security. To the contrary, it is to create a state in which the only thing protected is the state.
The funny thing is that the more the state demands from your privacy, the more the state is apt to block access to information on the grounds of state-secrecy.
Re:Law-abiding citizens (Score:3, Insightful)
That is usually all the ammunition a corrupt government ever needs.
As far as terrorism, the terrorist I am m
Re:Law-abiding citizens (Score:2)
We are also at war with freedom. Make no mistake about it, every move against terror that infringes on personal privacy and freedom is also a move against freedom.
They that give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
Re:Law-abiding citizens (Score:2, Insightful)
This will make our country more secure and safer from terrorism.
Furthermore all American pariotic parties are joined in this effort to fight terrorism - even Howard Dean is supporting personal identification schemes.
And remember we are at war - the war against terrorism. And in a war everybody has do to his share to ensure the victory of the forces of the free world. If that means that I have to give up some privacy, then I'll do my share gladly.
At WWII we had to make much larg
a gov't with too much power is a threat (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Law-abiding citizens (Score:5, Insightful)
If a government knows everything about any citizen at any time, people in that government can abuse that information. Many people desire power over others, and the more power someone in a government position has, the more people will try to obtain such a position for the sake of power. Law abiding citizens do have something to worry about.
Re:Law-abiding citizens (Score:4, Interesting)
In the end, I believe the terrorists did win. We are now forced to slowly move towards Big Brother. We have to rethink our open, free borders.
Re:Law-abiding citizens (Score:2, Insightful)
You're right, we can't. But do you really think that the government's checking out of everything helps prevent terrorism? The War on Terror might very well be fueling terrorism instead of extinguishing it.
Why the terrorists won. (Score:3, Insightful)
I wonder if that was their plan all the long, or a side-effect fortunate to them. Let's look at it: The big stress point in the middle east is the Israel/Palistine conflict. We stuck our noses in the whole mess, probably because of a large influence of the Jewish-American community. Now, the Muslim world hates us for "aiding the infidels", and of course we can't f
Re:Law-abiding citizens (Score:3, Insightful)
Freedom in America is an illusion, and has been for quite some time. You can choose Coke or Pepsi. You can vote Republicrat or Democan. You can get your news from CNN or Fox News. If you define freedom as being the ability to make legitimate choices there's not really too much left. Back in the day if you didn't feel like paying rent you could just head for the horizon. Now if you head for the horizon you get arrested for trespassing.
All I have to say is thank god you can still smoke marijuana in
Re:Law-abiding citizens (Score:3, Insightful)
Ok, time to feed the trolls.
Your logic that "There have been no other strikes at America since 9/11 and Patriot Act" is like saying "There has been no more World Wars since the 1946 and the invention of digital computing."
That is, how the hell does make sense? First, 9/11 is a date, it's certainly not preventing anything. And second, just because the Patriot Act has been put out doesn't mean it's the reason why any more attacks have been deterred. Mobilization of the army might be a good reason, increased
Re:Law-abiding citizens (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not sure if you're trolling, have your tongue firmly planted in your cheek (as I believe GP post had) or if you're serious. I strongly suspect you're a troll. However, I have heard statements like this presented quite seriously, so I'm going to assume that you're serious as well.
On February 26th, 1993, a bomb went off in the basement of the World Trade Center Trade Tower Number One. It was supposed to bring the building down. It failed. We tracked down, arrested and convicted Ramzi Yousef, Ahmad M. Aja, Mahmud Abouhalima and Nidel Ayyad for the crime, and congratulated ourselves on the success of the prosecution. We did nothing other than lip service to try and identify those who were behind those four, nor did we implement any type of coherent strategic response to prevent future terrorist incidents.
The terrorist went back to the drawing board. Despite the fact that we did nothing substantial in response to the bomb, they waited eighty years before they implemented their next attack. It occurred on September 11th, 2001, and was more successful than they had any right to hope it would be.
After a failed attempt, with no response from us, it was eight years before they tried again. And now you have the temerity to say that because there have been no new attacks in two and a half years, our response has been a rousing success! Paugh!
Our responses have been knee-jerk, designed more to placate the population than to provide us any real solution. We worry more about political correctness and propriety than we do about catching those who wish us harm. We abandon the principles that made us great, and hassle our own citizens so that our leaders can pound their chests and say "Look what I've done to stop terrorism!" Clueless idiots stand by and cheer while our freedoms are ripped away from us.
You want safety more than you do privacy, but in reality you will have neither. It is fortunate indeed that our forefathers felt differently. Still, this IS America. Batter and bruised though they are, our freedoms are still muchly intact. You have the right to believe and speak as you like. However, please do me one favor. Abandon your hypocrisy. If you have any American flags on your vehicle, go out and remove them. Get yourself a bumper sticker which reads "Freedom: it's a luxury we can no longer afford." or "Give me tyranny but keep me safe!" When the National Anthem plays, just turn your back to the flag. Make your contempt for the ideals and principles which made this country great plain to all. Let everyone know that the America of the past was a failure, that we need a new country and a new government, one devoted to the proposition that all men should be safe and comfy, and no cost is too high in our efforts to achieve that.
Re:Law-abiding citizens (Score:2)
Should be EIGHT years, of course.
And I even previewed.
Re:Law-abiding citizens - Er.. McCarthism? (Score:2, Insightful)
Anybody who thinks that this next little step is harmless, has a poor grasp of history. True, in and of itself, it may be mostly useless, but it is not in and of itself. It is a tool that augments a larger collection of tools to provide a "data" or "statistical" picture of a person, their habits and their wanderings.
What happens in the future when a person is in the same location as a terrorist, has a friend with a suspect background, and espouses unpopular (but legal) ideas. You can now arrest them.
Re:Law-abiding citizens (Score:2, Insightful)
It is essential for people to understand (not just "learn") why privacy is essential to safety.
Sounds neat and all but... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Sounds neat and all but... (Score:3, Interesting)
No it doesn't. It says it extracts references to people and place names and deduces from there. So (making this up as I go along) if Osama blogs "I went to the store today and bought a mess of bacon" This software could theoretically dig through a list of all the stores in the Middle East that sell bacon and look for Osama's CC#. Of course, the article doesn't say that, but that's what I'm understanding.
Try this (Score:5, Insightful)
Put all these things together and you get a spatial picture of me. This is simply another way of looking at the data. From this you can more easily discern patterns. A more powerful example is if in another email I mentioned that I ate lunch with Osama, you could correlate the fact that I was at the burger hut around lunch time, and therefore there was a good possibility that Osama was there too.
Hrmm (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Hrmm (Score:2)
no shit. (Score:5, Interesting)
Right now to be a functional member of some societies (namely the U.S) you need to give up your personal information to various people/companies. If you don't, thats your choice, but you can't do certain things (renting cars, getting a loan, etc).
These companies weren't originally allowed to do this, but people let them as time passed. In places like Germany, privacy invasion is a much harder scheme to run with. People fight it tooth and nail. Both right and left wing parties in the government are avowedly "pro-privacy".
Now this is a sad picture to portray, that people in America have to give up their basic right to privacy to be a part of society.
I don't think its irreversible, and it may be a lot of work, but maybe its time for U.S citizens (not to mention any other privacy beleaguered citizens) to take their privacy back, chunk by chunk?
Re:no shit. (Score:5, Insightful)
People routinely fork over their SSNs, DOB, phone number (especially to pizza outlets, delivery places, etc. I go and pick up my food so that I don't have to have a "call back" number they can store).
How about Papa Johns storing MULTIPLE credit card numbers on file under your phone number? It makes it easy to get your pizza without doing any work but do you trust Papa Johns with that info?
Scary.
Re:no shit. (Score:2)
usually the point of a pizza delivery is that someone comes up to you and hands you a pizza soon after placing your order.
at that point, you can pay with cash just as easily as you can at the restaurant, but without the risk of being seen on CCTV cameras or mugged en route.
Re:no shit. (Score:4, Insightful)
Like anyone who isn't an idiot, I watch my statements closely, first sign of a false charge, I'd report it to the card issuer and police, and if it was some clerk at Papa Johns, they'd be in cuffs inside of a day.. Lifting customers credit cards is probably the stupidest crime there is, and the easiest to track.
As for caring if Papa Johns "tracks" me, I dont. I really dont care who knows that I like bacon, pineapple and tomato on my pizzas.
As for my address and phone number, there's this crazy database called a phone book that lists all of that information.
Re:no shit. (Score:2)
I CARE.
Perhaps you are one of those people that LIKES getting spam in their mailbox or junk mail from the USPS. Perhaps you even enjoy idle conversation with the telemarketers.
Remember, the DNC lists only work when you haven't had an active relationship with a company. If you let them have your phone number they and their parent companies and their child c
Re:no shit. (Score:5, Insightful)
How about figuring out that such someone usually buy condoms thursday late afternoon at a certain place?
How about figuring out that that person also rents a hotel room in a closeby location every thursday afternoon?
How about figuring out that he leaves work early on tursday afternoons and arrive home late?
How about figuring out that a collegue of him does the same?
How about if someone unscrupulous with access to this information threathens that he will denounce the love affair with the work collegue to said person's wife?
What if that collegue was a man?
Not to mention telling that person's boss?
And all his work collegues?
There's all sorts of socially frowned upon behaviours people don't want their work collegues or their family to know about. Sometimes not even about oneself but about one's family:
Does one really wants that all his work colegues know he has pissed in his bed til 14?
Or that his son was once arrested for drunk driving?
Or that in a period of his life he was an alcoholic?
Or maybe just telling one's cristian studies group exactly what one does on friday evenings (boose, woman and gambling)?
Re:no shit. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:no shit. (Score:2)
Re:no shit. (Score:5, Insightful)
One of the differences between Europe (especially Germany) is that their views on such things as privacy have been formed in the context of direct recent (in terms of living memory of the politically active population of the past 50 years) experience of totalitarian government and/or occupation. Perhaps some Americans are more willing to trade off security for liberty because they can't conceive of what the loss of liberty means. If you let it go a bit at a time, you do not notice it. If it gets take away all at once, you do.
Re:no shit. (Score:5, Insightful)
This is true, but with a small caveat. If you read this book [databasenation.com] (highly recommended), you'll note that US researchers were the first to blow the whistle, in the '60s if I remember well, about the risks of database tracking individuals and collecting way too much info about citizens.
The US governement did nothing about this, but Western European (Eastern Europe is something else) governments did, and created several tough laws designed to protect privacy. Whether this was due to the history of Europe, and, as you mention, to the memories of the Nazi regime is open for debate.
This being said, these European privacy laws are being undermined by the US government as we speak. The first step was, of course, to require European airlines to communicate information about their passengers to US authorities.
Re:no shit. (Score:2)
You are, of course, correct, and it must also be said that there is and remains a strong privacy constituency with memebers from across the political spectrum in the United States. That being said, as you allude to, they are not often listened to. I can't help but speculate that part of the problem is that not only does it never really become a big public issue in the US but also that political participation in the US keeps on decline. A more political
Trade freedom of speech for German privacy? (Score:5, Insightful)
As much as I want privacy, I have a hard time feeling like I'm a victim of lack of privacy. I'm more annoyed on a practical every day basis with the nosy neighbors than I am with US Bank's selling my credit card purchase information or Tivo's aggregation of my viewing habits.
I'm actually much more concerned about the government's ability and willingness to repress political speech than I am whether some database knows I bought a couple of cans of jock itch spray with my credit card.
Re:Trade freedom of speech for German privacy? (Score:2)
What about indirect censorship? (Score:4, Insightful)
If I recall correctly, protesters in the US are corralled into tightly-secured pens, with ranks of riot police on all sides, helicopters\snipers lurking overhead, and undercover agents in the crowd around you. So technically, everyone is allowed to voice their dissent. But the rules are designed to discourage as many people as possible. Do you want to be penned, covertly photographed, and possibly get 'swept up' by being near the wrong people?
We may have more freedom of political expression than, say, China, but that freedom depends upon anonymity -- or do people keep the curtain wide open when they vote? Does everyone make it a point to inform their employer of their political opinions (especially the unpopular ones)?
" I'm more annoyed on a practical every day basis with the nosy neighbors than I am with US Bank's selling my credit card purchase information ..."
You do not see the connection between 'nosy neighbors' and a nosy government? Astounding.
=============
Re:What about indirect censorship? (Score:2)
This only happens at extremely high profile events or events
Re:What about indirect censorship? (Score:3, Insightful)
I wouldn't say that the US doesn't have some infamous moments in crowd control, but I also don't think it represents a pattern of repression of public protest. While America had ra
Re:Trade freedom of speech for German privacy? (Score:5, Informative)
- carry around lots of cash
- use cash to buy everything
- minimize the trail you leave when you get fresh cash
- don't fly
- don't use the Internet
- don't use electonic toll paying devices
- don't use a cell phone
- etc.
Of course, this makes you a Luddite and it makes it vastly harder for you to function and to speak out against your government's evil tendencies. This is, of course one of the goals.
Now, if you still leave an electronic trail, and still exercise your right to free speech and say or do something that pisses off a government with an established tendency to punish critics, like the Bush administration (Remember Wilson and his CIA wife), they can then use your electronic trail to punish you in a variety of ways:
A. Find you to arrest you
B. Detect associations with other people that may be terrorism suspects, rightly or wrongly. As I recall the Canadian programmer that was sent to Syria for a year of torture was mostly guilty of co-signing a lease for someone who was tenuosly linked to terrorism.
C. Study your internet porn viewing habits including those blind links taking you places you really didn't want to go so they can arrest you for child porn.
D. Detecting that you failed to report a little side income on your tax returns so they can arrest you for tax evasion.
E. Find ways to get you fired and make you unemployable. Arresting protesters and tagging them with minor convictions or any other means to put a conviction on your record will work. Since 9/11 a myriad of companies have started doing extensive background checks and a record will make you vastly less employable. Making you unemployable in a capitalist economy is the kinder, gentler counterpart to the gulag's in the totalitarian state. You can end up starving with either approach. Taken to the extreme you end up homeless and you die without so much as a second thought from society.
The U.S. approach is much more clever and subtle than the Chinese approach. The Chinese use heavy handed censorship and arrest people directly for doing things like advocating democracy. It doesn't work real well and it triggers outrage.
The U.S. uses an approach that doesn't look totalitarian on the face of it, but can accomplish many of the same goals in suppressing dissent. They can arrest people for terrorism, child pornography or tax evasion instead of arresting them for exercising free speech and dissenting. The American public will never have a problem with arresting people for the former but would howl if it were for the latter.
Just look at the case of Captain Yee and a couple Muslim friends at Guantanamo.
http://www.counterpunch.org/wright02022004.html
Yee was put in solitary confinement, charged with espionage, and was facing a death penalty case. All indications are their main crime was they were Muslim, spoke Arabic and had some sympathy for the horrible plight of the people thrown in to Camp X-Ray without charges or legal process. The Christian, non arabic speaking soldiers around them apparently decided to crucify them for it.
The DOD eventually realized they had no case and they weren't guilty of anything except being Muslim and being surrounded by a bunch of American soldiers that didn't like the fact they could speak Arabic and wanted to easy the misery of "suspected" terrorists.
Last I heard Yee is now being charged with using a military computer to look at porn and adultery and is still facing a long term in Federal prison. His life is destroyed. If you charge all guilty soldiers for these things half the military would be in the brig.
Yee is in the military which means he has less rights than most, but he is a really good example of what might happen to you too if you let your government run amuck. Of course, its even more likely to happen to you if you try to keep your government from running amuck. This is Catch-23.
More eye-candy to suck up govt bucks (Score:5, Insightful)
But I don't. Why? Because 95% of all government software projects end up either being outright failures or not useful. (You'd be surprised how many contractors know that they're meeting the requirement specification but know that the result won't be useful to anyone.)
Now, I do not like the fact that my government is wasting money on software that doesn't help make me any safer. We have to do something about that, this is the real lossage.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:More eye-candy to suck up govt bucks (Score:2)
It may flow back into the economy later, but that doesn't help ME when they take 30% of my paycheck, that I work very hard for. In fact, there's a VERY good chance I'll never see a penny of that money again, since it "flowed back" into someone else's pocket.
Re:More eye-candy to suck up govt bucks (Score:3, Insightful)
A lot of these new programs aren't actually operated by the government. That's because the government isn't allowed to do some of these things by law. They hire private companies because private companies can do whatever the hell they want. This isn't the only company working on projects that are similar to this. Slashdot's headlines since TIA went down in flames are full of them.
The things is, this is nothing new. I had seen proposals for commercial versions of this for a long time. Cell phones th
even if it is successful (Score:2)
We know who you are... (Score:3, Funny)
Go back to work, you slacker. If you post too much on Slashdot, the terrorists will win!
Tinfoil hat time (Score:5, Insightful)
I am curious to see if there will ever be a call to arms from the freedom loving americans that fund the government that creates these programs.
If such a system were implemented (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:If such a system were implemented (Score:3, Insightful)
The first thing I thought of when I saw this is "wow - the Bad Guys could have a field day with this". Imagine - you find yourself on the wrong end of a PI or something, you have skills, you turn the tables and hunt this guy instead. Somebody gaining a level of control with this type of system would pose an unprecendted threat (on the offchance the stupid thing acutally worked).
Better yet, Kevin Mitnick's "two computer" scheme came to mind where he was intentionally leading his pursuers at the FBI around
Re:If such a system were implemented (Score:4, Funny)
It follows that society is safer in general when every individual has the potential to be armed. Criminals don't even need to see the gun -- the fact that a victim MAY be armed is enough to make them think twice. "Tougher" laws and penalites for crime won't change a thing, because the law can't possibly address the need for immediate self-defense.
A similar situation has occurred in Washington, D.C. History has proven, time and time again, that gun "control" (restrictions on the individual's right to self-defense) actually increases, not decreases, the overall crime rate. Of course, if you ask me, that is exactly what government wants. (The higher the crime rate, the more "justification" for expanding the powers of government.)
Refer to this article [thepriceofliberty.org] for a good intro to this issue.
Use of technology (Score:5, Insightful)
Search results appear as points on a map instead of as a list of documents. The company says this information can be used, for example, to track patterns of criminal activity and identify spots of intensity.
Just wait. Businesses will be requiring this data for "demographics". The RIAA can search for those who talk about "downloading music". Police can use it to track those who distribute kiddie porn. (Uh oh! I just used "kiddie porn" with my name! They'll be after me next!)
The point is that anyone can say the data will be used for "tracking criminals", but we all know that will not be the case. Heck, the "Patriot Act" was supposed to combat terrorism, but we all know of the abuses of it. IMHO, this software will do more harm than good (unless you're the one collecting the data).
PS: Since September 11, US security agencies have increasingly turned to technology to help them process website postings, internet chat and e-mail traffic....and still no sign of Osama Bin Laden.
Re:Use of technology (Score:3, Insightful)
I thinks this misses the point. The software is just a visualisation tool. Nobody should be up in arms about this software, because it is not a threat to your civil liberties. The real threat is when government agencies are allowed to accumulate and use the necessary information about private citizens in the first place. Also, for innocent people, the real threat is not that they can be located, it is that they can be picked out of data warehouses using search
Re:Use of technology (Score:2, Interesting)
Exactly!
I dunno who's the more naive of the lot...
Government - for thinking that it can catch the Osamas of this world by developing such softwares...
or the Public - for th
Useful? But for whom? (Score:4, Interesting)
Here is the tracking program (Score:3, Funny)
Hello Everyone, And thank you for signing up for my Beta Email
Tracking Application or (BETA) for short. My name is MetaCarta.
Here at DARPA we have just compiled an e-mail tracing program
that tracks everyone to whom this message is forwarded to. It
does this through an unique IP (Internet Protocol) address log
book database.
We are experimenting with this and need your help. Forward this
to everyone you know and if it reaches 1000 people everyone on
the list you will receive $1000 and a copy of MetaCarta Geographic
Text Search at my expense.
Enjoy.
Note: Duplicate entries will not be counted. You will be notified
by email with further instructions once this email has reached
1000 people. MetaCarta Geographic Text Search will not be shipped
until it has been released to the general public.
Your friend,
MetaCarta & DARPA
International Organizations eh? (Score:5, Interesting)
What worries me is what a foreign nation might do with this information. Say I own a piece of software that is legal at home, but illegal in the nation where I spend my spring break, am I going to get Skylarov'ed for something I do in a different nation with different rules?
Re:International Organizations eh? (Score:2)
In your example, you'd be doing something illegal in [whatever country] while you're in that country. So, yes, I'd say it's possible you'd be arrested, but it's not the same situation as Skylarov.
--RJ
This is going to catch criminals? (Score:3, Interesting)
Nigerian friend (Score:3, Funny)
I am going to forward MetaCarta guys a copy of my 419 Nigerian email right away. Brilliant!
Our Privacy is Doomed anyway (Score:5, Interesting)
As an example - waaaay back in '85, when I was hacking on a 8086 Panicsonic Business Partier, I was playing with biometrics with a keyboard snatching TSR (for the company I was working for at the time) that would identify individuals by their idiosyncratic keystroke patterns. The identification was very successful, but on that limited hardware the database involved was prohibitive. There are probably thousands of idiosyncratic behaviors that could be monitored by interactive websites (or 'routers' that could examine traffic) to identify and track users; it's only a matter of CPU power, which Moore's law will take care of - unless it hits Moore's Wall soon.
How it Works - and what it means (Score:2, Informative)
this software really only does one thing - it sucks the names of geographical locations out of text documents like web pages and emails and translates them into points on a map. That in itself is harmless.
the real invasion of privacy isn't this program - it's that the feds are monitoring communications of many types, all over the globe, 24-7-365. Until now, they've had FAR more information than they could ever hope to process. They had to sort through stuff manually, and a single day'
Re:How it Works - and what it means (Score:2)
Hello dave, i'm going to see my aunt in florida next week, so i'll look forward to meeting you...
-
append a handwritten image of your actual message with alot of noise (junk, say a picture of a cat or a car or something) in the background. Heh, atleast my scanner text-recognition can't read it =P
No longer land of the free (Score:4, Informative)
Apathy (Score:5, Insightful)
People would much rather be safe than free, by and large. Most people will gladly give up all their important freedoms if it means they have safety (or just the illusion of it). People generally prefer to follow the path of least resistance too - another factor that works against freedom since you must work at staying free.
Expect more of these schemes to come into action with the majority of the public either not caring (path of least resistance) or just accepting (safety over freedom) the changes. If we want to make sure these schemes don't keep adding up, bit by bit, be prepared for an uphill struggle.
Amendment IV The Bill of Rights (Score:2, Informative)
nuff said!
Re:Amendment IV The Bill of Rights (Score:3, Insightful)
So close, and yet so far, from the truth.
RTFWW. Read the fucking Weasel Word.
It says "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated [ ... ]" (Emphasis mine)
Nowhere does it say the people have any say in defining what
Bleh (Score:3, Insightful)
What's needed is systems in place to ensure that the information is not abused, and punishments for abuse.
Like the Do Not Call list. I was bombarded with telemarketers before it went into affect (you need only buy a home to get every mortgage agent in the universe to start calling). Now they've completely stopped. Do I care that people can go find out how much I owe on my mortgage? Not really.
Outsourcing (Score:3, Funny)
Convenience in Law Enforcement (Score:3, Interesting)
The government and international security agencies have a desire to find, track and sometimes arrest people. Our system can be used to find them across the globe.
There will be some people who will feel more re-assured that such an effort is underway, that the "terrorist" threat will be diminished by developing these kinds of technologies.
These are the same people who will give you a confused look when you mention that the government of the Peoples Republic of China is very interested in exactly the same technology for exactly the same stated purpose.
Bush Economy II (Score:2, Insightful)
My god. Not only do they tip up the U.S. Treasury and shake it empty, but they also want to track everyone as we try find a job? Double-plus ungood.
Any remaining Party members should have a look at this [reuters.com]. We have been raped and robbed, repeatedly, and we should start publicizing it, and see to ars publicum, as they have seen to their radical self-interest, for so long.
{foil hat}
This in mind, I offer a deeply cynical view of
Where there is secrecy, there is no democracy. (Score:3, Informative)
The U.S. government has secret agencies. Their funding is secret, their objectives are secret, and their methods are secret. The CIA, the NSA, the FBI, and other agencies whose names are secret operate everywhere in the world. They interfere with the politics of other countries. They sometimes arrange to kill leaders or destroy property.
The secrecy began in the 1940s when oil companies asked the British and U.S. governments to protect their interests. The countries in which they operated began claiming the oil and oil facilities for themselves. On the one hand, it is easy to see that the oil companies did not like their property taken from them without sufficient payment. On the other hand, the oil companies were paying very little for the oil, so the countries felt robbed.
The U.S. and British governments began trying to help the U.S. and British oil companies by operating in secret. For example, the U.S. government's CIA agency overthrew a democratically elected president in Iran. The U.S. government supported a violent government instead, that of the Shah of Iran. Years later, Iranians objected, and the Iranian government began terrorist activities as a way of retaliating against continued secret U.S. government operations in Iran.
The present terrorism against the U.S. people is the result of the U.S. government's secret violence. About a year ago, I hastily put together a short, incomplete history that shows what happened: History surrounding the U.S. war with Iraq: Four short stories [futurepower.net].
Those who work for the U.S. government's secret agencies have a huge conflict of interest. If they cause trouble, or if they find some trouble and help make it bigger, they are promoted. If they help assure that everyone lives together in peace, they become less important, and some lose their jobs. So there is a terrific pressure for them to cause trouble.
Democracy is founded on openness. If a government can do things without the approval or even the knowledge of its people, it is not a democracy. Therefore the secret side of the U.S. government has, in part, overthrown the real U.S. government.
How corrupt is the U.S. government? Here's just one example: Mr. Dick Cheney, who is now vice-president of the U.S., was once head of an oil company called Halliburton. Mr. Cheney went into the U.S. defense department, and while there, arranged that secretly awarding contracts would no longer be illegal. Later it was arranged that Halliburton would secretly get a contract for work in Iraq. Then the U.S. government invaded Iraq, with no reason, as we are now seeing.
It's important to understand that oil companies do not want the oil. They want the oil profits. The U.S. government's war in Iraq has allowed U.S. companies to get Iraq oil profits. Before, the oil profits went to Iraqis. The amount of oil coming from Iraq to the world has remained somewhat the same.
Anyone who reads this should understand that there may be inaccuracies due to the fact that secret government agencies are sometimes able to keep their operations secret, or are able to mislead the public about what they have done. The information here has been reported many times by many well-respected news agencies, and is believed completely accurate.
Loss of privacy good thing (Score:2)
I think anonymous stats could help to free us, but I fear [slashdot.org] data being linked to small groups like individuals.
A good example [slashdot.org] of anonymous stats is when anthropologists ask about your drinking habits and then go to the local dump to confirm the results....that you drink a ton.
The trick is to keep it anonymous, but those types of stats can show law makers what their voter
Is internet anonymity a right? (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course, there's a limit to this. Law enforcement should not be able to track anyone for any reason. They should only track those for whom they have sufficient cause. But that's true in the non-cyber world, too. In the non-cyber world, if you do something that provides justification for tracking, you have no right to anonymity. Ted Kaczynski did not have a right to anonymity after he started planting bombs. Just because Ted Kaczynski gets tracked doesn't mean that everyone should be tracked. But at the same time, just because there are limits on who to track doesn't mean that we shouldn't track Ted Kaczynski.
So my question is this: how is the internet different? Shouldn't law enforcement be able to track criminals on the internet? If controls can be put in place to prevent tracking anyone for any reason, shouldn't we encourage being able to track suspected criminals?
Re:Is internet anonymity a right? (Score:3, Insightful)
Sure they should. Now define 'criminal' for me. Before you do, I can confidently state that what you consider criminal and what I consider criminal are going to be different; which one of us gets to make the determination?
Would you consider Dr. Martin Luther King & associates criminal? He was viewed as one by people in law enforcement, and was closely monitored. Do you see what the real problem is, yet?
================
Finally! (Score:3, Funny)
I hear a snarling laugh from hell (Score:3, Insightful)
Scientology rejoices today. There will be no way they do not obtain access to this tracking system.
I'm sure Reverend Moon (R-God on Earth), good friend of Bush, and owner of the Washington Times, will also receive his TrackYourEnemiesOnline! account userid and password at the same time the Doublecrossers will.
How would this system have stopped 40 men with boxcutters from crashing those planes?
This is a dream system for crushing dissidents. That's all it is.
This will be for finding the "innocent" (Score:5, Interesting)
But soon it will be used for trolling in general for anyone who "does something bad" online.
Let me ask you this:
- Have you ever read or downloaded any of those "survivalist" texts or "handbooks"?
- Have you, for any reason, ever stumbled accross Pr0n with participants of questionable age?
- Have you ever downloaded a krack or SN generator?
- Have you ever checked out those "virus creation programs"?
- Have you ever been pissed about something the "gubmint" did and perhaps "overstated" what you'd like to do about it online?
- Have you ever gotten a virus or malware on you box that started opening websites you never asked for?
- Have you ever [insert anything, which might become illegal in the future] online?
Although I'm a SysAdmin now, I've spent a good part of my youth "looking under rocks" on the internet out of [morbid?] curiosity. Some of it could be construed as "illegal" behavior - although I have never intentionally broken the law with any of the "knowledge" I've gotten from it.If the Feds were to troll for my "surfing" habits, I'll bet I could be put on a watch list right now. Currently there are things like court orders limiting what can be gleaned and what can be done with the data once collected, but these checks and balances are quickly drying up.
For those who are quick to reach for their tin-foil hats (mine's right here) check out some fun, time-killin' reading [johntitor.com]. Errosion of privacy is one of his top points...
Hacking of this system being made into a film... (Score:2)
Don't buy stock in Reynolds; (Score:2, Funny)
And don't buy your foil with a debit or credit card! Pay cash only, and don't use a loyalty card. Best to wear a disguise while you're at it. Too many cameras. Take the bus to the store, but don't redeem a bus ticket, use coins -- but only ones you've wiped down to remove fingerprints. And don't leave from your home, or your office; leave from a neutral public site! And whatever you do, don't look up. Those spy satellites could reco
Re:it hurts (Score:2, Funny)
Maybe because you wrote your penis dimensions in their form?