News US.Gov to harvest MySpace, social networks for data

A grand majority of the content located on the web is hosted from US servers. The DNS Servers for the web are hosted from the US. The hardware the Internet rides on come from a company in the US. It is plan naive to think that they already aren't looking at all that data. I am NOT a conspiracy theorist... Nor am I afraid or uneasy by this Public announcement. In my humble opinion this is nothing more then cause and effect... Enemies of the USA have been using the Internet as a means of communication for years now. The Federal Government has Finally figured out it CANT watch the whole damn thing. It cant even watch a percentage there is simply too much content. Therefor you make an announcement like this, and the whole world gets up in arms.

Now here is the interesting part... Two things happen simultaneously. People who aren't doing anything wrong start to think about WHAT they post, and those using the web for malicious reasons STOP for fear of there plan being discovered!

Now does this mean that the US gov isn't monitoring the web? No, on the contrary it means the exact opposite. It means that It just invented a new agency to step up there efforts!!!

As for the majority of this forum (Europe) Relax... The big bad US Gov doesn't care about you. Unless your funding or participating in an attempt to overthrow a US interest... In which case sucks to be you!

Also, Every time an article like this is released I witness a swarm or uneducated slander! WHY? I Live in the states, and have travelled all over Europe and the Middle East. I liked it there but it isn't my home. There are SEVERAL things about the rest of the world that Confused me. I.E. a "free country" with censorship and NO right to self defence, BUT it is not my home so I don't judge it! I would appreciate it if you would do the same...

 

why not just bend over then, the issue may not just be as limited as this, where do you let it slide to, what are they going to use this physc report for, how do you know you wont get fired, not get jobs, be arrested - etc etc
Where do you draw the line

 

ok...if i am on myspace and i am linked to several people that share a particular hobby, lets say....blowing up stuff and one of these people is a taliban even if i dont know that and he is making eforts to create a bomb or something like that to kill inocent people, now imagine this, guys in black suits would go to my house, bang on the door and say "we are from the NSA, please come with us" i ask "why?" they respond "you aided a terrorist in gaining information about bombs, you will be trialed for being a terrorist".

ok ok..... this will never happen..(remember RIAA sueing that computerless family?).

from this there is little or nothing keeping them from reading your e-mails and even real mail.

 

thats a good point, these "anti-terrorist" acts leave you with about 0 freedom, and if you even spoke to a terrorist, they could arrest you, so monitering your internet activities isnt good, also who says that they get it right

 

I think the problem is that most(/many) people who use the likes of myspace have no idea this is happening - it's never crossed their minds. BTW, what if you were to have a password protected network like, MSN Communities did/does? Would they dive into that?

-ed out

 

on the first note i think that "terrorism" is a new buzzword like communism and the whole mcarthy era where you would be socially blacklisted if you were thought to be a "communist". I'm getting sick of all this talk. If your posting on a public website I don't think you have any expectation of privacy the same way as if you posted a poster with the same information on billboard in real life. If your stupid enough to post your crimes or whatever on myspace you deserve to get caught
I think what everyone seems to be paranoid about is that they can use said public information which is easy to gather to create a profile of you to further their surveiling. and that mining public websites is some powerful tool of survielence.
I don't see what the big deal is since you are indeed exposing the information yourself and in all honesty this is not some big brother thing. I think it would be more useful in creating psychological profiles for criminal cases to establish say violent tendencies if your myspace is full of articles about you liking to kill things.
In conclusion your responsible for everything you say in a public setting, so if you self incriminate yourself you can only blame yourself and mining PUBLIC information which isn't that deep probably isn't going to further surveiling effectiveness as any terrorist worth his weight in explosives isn't going to join the facebook bomb makers group

 

now imagine a CS fanatic blog or myspace page were it reads: "i killed hit and it was satisfying me and the other terrorists killed them all" or whatever CS fanatics whrite on a blog or myspace.

 

(look for it in Columns, Why web 2.0 will end your privacy)
He's seen the news comin' !!
Hail to our prophet !

(To the cee aye a, and to whom it may concern : I'm joking of course !!)

 

Where this will get sticky is when they won't let someone on an airplane because of what they posted on MySpace or when the cops kick someone's door in because they were bragging about their accomplishments as a terrorist in CS:S.

I think the standard should be simple. If the government has probable cause to believe you may have committed a crime, then they should have to go to a judge and get a warrant to collect information on you. Otherwise, they should not take an interest in the actions or writings of individuals or organizations. Basically, unless you commit a crime, you should be pretty much off the government's radar.

@metarinka You hit it on the head. "terrorism" is the new buzzword that opens up all doors. Case in point, a small town in ALaska recently got a $50,000 "Homeland Security" grant to install cameras on every street corner. Maybe they think Osama Bin Ladin likes salmon fishing. Mentioning terrorism is fearmongering, pure and simple. The worst part is that the American people fall for it over and over.

And to Speck, you're right, the US is a pretty crappy place to live, and getting worse every day. Can I come immigrate there? Please??

 

Sorry to go so much back in the thread, but am I the only one who laughs hiss ass off about this? You talk about socalled "free countries" with censorship in the world, have you looked at you own homecountry? And then, the right to self defend? Most (every) country has a right to self defence, but not to the idiotic stance as in the US, where, if you walk on my property I have the right to shoot you. Right of self defence, yes, right of defending your property with lethal violence, no, because it is what it is, material.

But I do like your post, it shows very good what the average US person thinks. You are willing to give up any right, as long as it serves the war on terrorism. Well, newsflash Mr. Bush and the likes, terrorism was here before you, and it will outlast you. The only thing you manage to get with your behavour is that you'll just speed up the maturing process and make sure that they will strike back at you with even worse means. You tought 9/11 was bad? Then fear what the future brings, it was just the tip of the iceberg...

But I wish I was president of the USA... I could then make the most idiotic laws, and all the people would just accept them, if I would just mention: "God bless America" or "It is to oppose Terrorism" enough times.

OT: If you post the size of your bra online, in a public space, then you can't complain about people knowing it. But, I do however oppose the fact that all the information that you put online is gathered and used to make a psychological profile. How many people have made posts on this forum when they were mad? or just to "get back" on someone, not talking about sarcasm? Ok, mostly moderators will point that that isn't good behavour, but the posts are there. And if these posts are used to make up a psychological profile, then they will probably be torn out of the context, which makes it even worse... If that sort of actions are taken up globally, I think many of the Bit-tech forum members will dissapear... Hell, maybe we can then start a LAN @ Guantanamo Bay **/me thinks about the Guards vs Inmates CS:S match **

 

can you say gestapo

 

I don't think it's illegal or un-moral to data mine public forums/sites on the internet....
HOWEVER
it just sucks that you have to watch what you say. Not that a query will get you arrested, yet, but who knows, maybe eventualy they will have the feature avalible for the NSA.

The fact that you know the government is watching makes "Public" sites/forums not so free or easy to speak your mind. Thats what gets me.

Ps - NSA/Bush admin (not american citizens), mouth this to your nearst co-worker untill it sinks in, "vacuum"