The Department of Homeland Security makes fake users on Twitter and Facebook with which to follow suspicious people. But what if you're not shifty enough to get your own government e-stalker? No problem: Just tweet "My cow collapsed, and now there's a human to animal infection outbreak among illegal immigrants."
That should bring heaps of DHS scrutiny, judging from a fresh lawsuit seeking access to the agency's data. In the suit, the privacy advocates at Electronic Privacy Information Center said DHS is monitoring social networks, blogs and message boards for users saying terms like "human to animal," "collapse," "infection," "outbreak," and "illegal immigrants." If you use these words and phrases, the government might follow you, record your activity, and share information about you with local, state, federal, and foreign governments. Since EPIC has thus far received no cooperation from the government and is suing for access, it's not clear how the nonprofit compiled its list of red-flag keywords. Hopefully its research did not involve human to animal contact, smuggling things through airport security, or bribing government employees!
Fake profiles used by Department of Homeland Security, says privacy group
List of keywords flags 'danger' signal
DHS may attempt to identify users from their accounts
Keywords include 'virus', 'drill' and 'illegal immigrant'
The Department for Homeland Security announced plans to scan social networks for keywords such as 'human to animal', 'outbreak', 'strain' and 'drill', and then identify users, claims an online privacy group
The Department of Homeland Security makes fake Twitter and Facebook profiles for the specific purpose of scanning the networks for 'sensitive' words - and tracking people who use them.
Simply using a word or phrase from the DHS's 'watch' list could mean that spies from the government read your posts, investigate your account, and attempt to identify you from it, acccording to an online privacy group.
The words which attract attention range from ones seemingly related to diseases or bioweapons such as 'human to animal' and 'outbreak' to other, more obscure words such as 'drill' and 'strain'.
The DHS also watches for words such as 'illegal immigrant'.
The DHS outlined plans to scans blogs, Twitter and Facebook for words such as 'illegal immigrant', 'outbreak', 'drill', 'strain', 'virus', 'recovery', 'deaths', 'collapse', 'human to animal' and 'trojan', according to an 'impact asssessment' document filed by the agency.
When its search tools net an account using the phrases, they record personal information.
It's still not clear how this information is used - and who the DHS shares it with...[Full Article]
McLEAN, Va. (AP) — In an anonymous industrial park in Virginia, in an unassuming brick building, the CIA is following tweets — up to 5 million a day.
At the agency's Open Source Center, a team known affectionately as the "vengeful librarians" also pores over Facebook, newspapers, TV news channels, local radio stations, Internet chat rooms — anything overseas that anyone can access and contribute to openly.
From Arabic to Mandarin Chinese, from an angry tweet to a thoughtful blog, the analysts gather the information, often in native tongue. They cross-reference it with the local newspaper or a clandestinely intercepted phone conversation. From there, they build a picture sought by the highest levels at the White House, giving a real-time peek, for example, at the mood of a region after the Navy SEAL raid that killed Osama bin Laden or perhaps a prediction of which Mideast nation seems ripe for revolt...[Full Article]
Eight hundred million users are not enough. Facebook, the world's biggest social network, is now building profiles of non-users who haven't even signed up, an international privacy watchdog charges.
Facebook has admitted that it has been watching the web pages its members visit – even when they have logged out.
In its latest privacy blunder, the social networking site was forced to confirm that it has been constantly tracking its 750million users, even when they are using other sites.
The social networking giant says the huge privacy breach was simply a mistake - that software automatically downloaded to users' computers when they logged in to Facebook 'inadvertently' sent information to the company, whether or not they were logged in at the time.
Most would assume that Facebook stops monitoring them after they leave its site, but technology bloggers discovered this was not the case...[Full Article]
First ask about the funding Follow the money trail... This video reveals the true aim of the Facebook conspiracy: Data mining for the CIA
The connection between Facebook & DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) has some grotesque tentacles: the Information Awareness Office (IAO); TIA (Total Information Awareness, renamed Terrorism Information Program); and TIPS (Terrorism Information and Prevention System).
But as bad as the beginning of Facebook is, the parallels between the CIA's backing of Google's dream of becoming "the mind of God," and the CIA's funding of Facebook's goal of knowing everything about everybody is anything but benign.
One in six children is failing to read books as they spend an increasing amount of time text messaging friends, sending emails and browsing social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, a study has found.
Schoolchildren are significantly more likely to be exposed to mobile phones and computers in the home than novels, according to researchers. They also found that reading frequency declined sharply with age, with 14 to 16 year–olds being more than 10 times as likely to avoid books altogether as those in primary education.
The findings, in a study by the National Literacy Trust, follow the publication of an international league table last year that showed reading standards among children in Britain had slipped from 17th to 25th in the world...[Full Article]
The New York Times and the Washington Post have posted articles detailing a plan by the Pentagon to detect and track popular ideas on social networks.
They are not interested in what people think about Lady Gaga or the latest cooking recipes.
In 2005, it was reported that the Pentagon was adding anti-war groups and individuals to a terrorist database. A Defense Department document leaked to NBC provided a “first inside look at how the U.S. military has stepped up intelligence collection inside this country since 9/11, which now includes the monitoring of peaceful anti-war and counter-military recruitment groups.”
Northcom also has a unit dedicated to snooping on political activists.
In 2002, the Pentagon established CIFA, Counterintelligence Field Activity, by directive. Its size and budget were classified. CIFA created a database, TALON (Threat and Local Observation Notice), to keep track of antiwar activists and individuals opposed to invading and bombing small defenseless countries. After a spate of bad PR, the government said CIFA was to be dismantled. It was later revealed that its operations were outsourced and privatized.
The Washington Post admits the DARPA – the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency – plan to hire programmers and researchers to build software to track “popular ideas” on social networks is political.
The plan “makes a certain amount of sense, if you think about how Twitter, Facebook and other social media networks have been used to broadcast the ideas of revolutionaries, protesters and other political figures over the past few years,” writes Hayley Tsukayama.
And, as the report highlights, DARPA could also use the social networks to identify threats. It suggests, for example, that the agency could look into incidences of several people in the same area posting messages about rumors that a wanted individual is hiding nearby.
Or where the next demonstration against the Federal Reserve will be held so agents provocateurs and informers can be dispatched.
“Social networks can allow the military not only to follow but also to shape the action,” writes David Streitfeld for the New York Times.
In 2009, the Pentagon released a “Force Protection Advisory” about “planned protests at all Federal Reserve Banks and office locations within the United States.” The “advisory” went out to Northcom and the FBI.
On November 22, 2008, Alex Jones led a rally at the Federal Reserve Bank in Dallas Texas. The Dallas protest is specifically mentioned in the official Army document. Ron Paul’s brother was also in attendance.
The days when you could be "anonymous" on the Internet are long gone. Social media networks like Facebook are a lot of fun, but you should expect to have absolutely zero privacy while using them. If you still believe that anything you say or do on Facebook is private than you are being delusional. Now, Facebook has even enabled facial recognition technology across its entire site. Facebook can now instantly identify your face out of its half a billion users worldwide. Facebook is using this technology for its new "Tag Suggestions" feature. The idea is that facial recognition technology will speed up the process of tagging friends and family in photos that have been posted on Facebook. (Read More.....)
In early April, Engadget posted a short article confirming a rumor that Facebook would be using facial recognition to suggest the names of friends who appeared in newly uploaded photos. You’d be allowed to opt out of tagging, and only friends would be able to tag each other in albums. Nevertheless, a commenter beneath the story quipped, “Awesome! Now I can take pictures of cute girls at the grocery store or at the park, upload them and Facebook will tell me who they are! (I'm pretty sure that’s not [how] it works but I’m sure it will get there.)”
The commenter’s confidence says a lot: Facial recognition may be just one more way for Facebook to push the visual part of the social graph (photos of us) toward being more public and far less private. Facebook has a history of asking for forgiveness after the fact instead of asking for permission in advance, and its new face-recognition feature could become the latest example of a seemingly innocuous development morphing into a serious threat to the privacy of our (visual) data. And as usual, some Facebook users will like the convenience of the new features so much that they will forget the privacy trade-off altogether, or just choose not to worry about it...[Full Article]
DETROIT — Federal investigators in Detroit have taken the rare step of obtaining search warrants that give them access to Facebook accounts of suspected criminals.
The warrants let investigators view photographs, email addresses, cell phone numbers, lists of friends who might double as partners in crime, and see GPS locations that could help disprove alibis.
There have been a few dozen search warrants for Facebook accounts nationwide since May 2009, including three approved recently by a federal magistrate judge in Detroit, according to a Detroit News analysis of publicly available federal court records.
The trend raises privacy and evidentiary concerns in a rapidly evolving digital age and illustrates the potential law-enforcement value of social media, experts said...[Full Article]
Google is in the midst of planning an app that would identify a person's face in a photo, then pull their personal information--like Facebook Flickr, or even a cell phone number.
CNN reports Google has had the technology to do this for years--but is still hesitant about privacy issues. It's not just some quote "start-up" company with nothing to lose... (Video: Google)
"Google also is concerned about the legal implications of facial recognition. Even during trials among its own employees, Google has taken steps to ensure testers have explicitly agreed on record to try out the service."
...and while users have to give Google permission before it can pull such info-- Digital Quest points out that once agreement is given... it could be dangerous.
"Imagine a guy takes a picture of a woman in a bar and then he knows her address just because somewhere on the Web there is an association of her address with her photo."
And while the latest buzz is on Google's most recent announcement--it seems it's already been done. As Seen on Phone--a website dedicated to mobile news-- says a demo-Android app called Viewdle, may have just beat Google to the punch.
"What you're seeing here is a concept of facial recognition working as the video is being played, so you see the boxes are face to text, the name is a face-recognition, then we take that name, hook it up to a social network and are able to pull down status updates as they're happening. As you see in the video, the idea is that our algorithms are fast enough to run 100% local to the device."
Other face recognition technologies are being implemented in China right now. NTDTV explains the device can recognize up to 1400 faces and costs around $720.
"This is made possible by a device called the "Hanvon Face ID" that was developed in China. The device uses infer-red technology to scan a 3D image of a person's face, these images are then stored on the device's internal chip, so it doesn't have to be connected to an external server."
So...is Google too worried about privacy issues--or is this technology scary? Tell us in our comments section.
It was only a matter of time, and that time is fast approaching: Google is incubating a mobile app that will use facial recognition technology to identify people and access their personal info via photos snapped with a digital camera or mobile device. Privacy advocates, prepare for war.
For its part, Google is trying to get in front of the privacy argument that is undoubtedly coming (Google is getting pretty good at this by now) by assuring users that they will have to opt into such a service by checking a box. And the search giant is working on added layers of security and privacy to ensure that only those who want to be photographically found will be.
The idea is that Google’s massive search resources could be used to trawl social networks, online photo sharing sites like Flickr and Picasa, and the like to associate an individual’s face with his or her online presence. This, of course, could also include contact info like email addresses and phone numbers. It would at the very least identify a person by name, with which any reasonably tech-savvy person could track down contact information anyhow...[Full Article]
You're watching multisource technology video news analysis from Newsy.
BY ZHENG HWUANG CHIA
Tired of tagging the gazillion pictures from the weekend? Mark Zuckerberg feels you. ABC explains Facebook's new brainchild -- Tag Suggestions.
"Facebook adds facial recognition software. The new technology will make it easier to identify friends on the photos you upload. It works by matching new photos to others that have already been tagged, and suggests people that you may want to tag. The feature will begin rolling out next week."
Mashable tells us more.
"Facebook fills in the 'Who is this?' box with its suggestion — all you have to do is click the 'Save Tags' button to accept."
If you're a little freaked out by this new feature, don't worry-- you're not alone. An anchor from HLN is with you.
"Some people are loving this, but if you find this a little bit creepy, like I do, you can opt out of it."
And the Facebook blog says -- opting out is simple.
"If for any reason you don't want your name to be suggested, you will be able to disable suggested tags in your Privacy Settings. Just click 'Customize Settings' and 'Suggest photos of me to friends.' Your name will no longer be suggested in photo tags, though friends can still tag you manually."
So, what makes Facebook think it knows your friends better than you do? Well, Urlesque says apparently it knows, but it ain't telling how.
"The feature only makes suggestions when the algorithms have 'high confidence' in their accuracy, but Facebook hasn't released what percentage of confidence is required to make a suggestion. How exactly are we measuring confidence here?"
Commenters on India's TechTree say they're so concerned about the new function they're considering calling it quits with Facebook.
Comment 2: "Calling this creepy is a massive understatement. ... This is going to result in huge lapses in privacy and security of Facebook users. The wise thing is to quit Facebook now and join a safer social networking platform."
Finally - a Facebook executive tells CNET the feature actually enhances privacy, despite all the concerns to the contrary.
Chris Cox: ... Every time a tag is created, it means that there was a photo of you on the Internet that you didn't know about. ... Once you know that, you can remove the tag [or] write to the person, and say, 'I'm not that psyched about this photo."
So what do you think about the new feature?
Get more multisource technology video news analysis from Newsy.
As pro-reform uprisings continue across the Arab world, the U.S. is stepping up its influence with anti-government activists around the world. America is using new mobile phone technology to help protest groups - and manipulating social network websites as well as Twitter with fake idenities - to spread dissent and encourage regime-change by influencing media coverage. RT on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/RTnews RT on Twitter: http://twitter.com/RT_com
WASHINGTON – The U.S. government's new system to replace the five color-coded terror alerts will have two levels of warnings — elevated and imminent — that will be relayed to the public only under certain circumstances for limited periods of time, sometimes using Facebook and Twitter, according to a draft Homeland Security Department plan obtained by The Associated Press...[Full Article]
[Webmaster - Yet again, ratcheting up the fear level. They're priming us for another False Flag.]
In the case of both Google and Facebook, three talented students in their 20's came out of obscurity to establish multi-billion dollar enterprises. Do you suppose they had some help?
BY SANDEEP PARWAGA (FOR HENRYMAKOW.COM)
There used to be a saying: ''No one makes a name for himself without giving something up''
As a youngster, I was awed by people who ''made it to the top'' by creating and innovating corporations, technologies, or simply establishing themselves through sports, music, entertainment, etc. thus becoming millionaires.
Now as I have grown older, I realize how illusory this paradigm really is. I came to the conclusion that if you want to reach the ''top',' you have to give up your soul.
Take Mark Zuckerberg for example. He is one of the most ''successful entrepreneurs'' in the last decade. Having made a fortune through his Facebook empire, he reaches more than 500 million people worldwide. It seems like a fairytale. A student creates a new interface to connect the people throughout the world. Well, it sounds great doesn't it? It would, if we were true.
Here is a good video that demonstrates that Facebook was indirectly funded by the CIA with the goal of learning and storing everything there is to know about you. Why? To monitor and ultimately control.
Again, the people have been totally duped by the Facebook-mania and can only see what they are told to see. As my friends say: ''It is to connect people and share information''. In the wake of the recent crisis in Egypt, we might add that Facebook has become not just a data-mining operation, but also a soft power proxy for crisis-creation.
Let's look at headlines that should cast no doubt about the true character of CIAbook:
US spies invest in internet monitoring technology - Quoted from this article: ''In an attempt to sift through the blizzard of information, the investment arm of the CIA, In-Q-Tel, has invested in a software firm that monitors social media.''
TIME Mag Person of the Year 2010 - This link is just a mere reminder of past history and the perversion of ''honoring''those who don't deserve it. Would you like to share this front cover with Hitler, Stalin, Kissinger, etc.? I sure wouldn't. Obviously Zuckerberg has done something ''great''. Just my 2 cents about this garbage.
GOOGLE
Google has come under scrutiny over its attempt to eliminate competing search engines and block ''controversial'' sites and people, but the biggest controversy came over its alleged ties to the CIA and NSA.
Google founders Sergey M. Brin and Lawrence E. Page are portrayed as average folks, Stanford University students, who teamed up to create a ''superior search engine''. Their attempt to do just that turned out to be so successful that they started to get funding from big players, for example Sun Microsystems. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergey_Brin#Search_engine_development)
It can be assumed that the CIA and NSA funded them as well. As in the above example of Facebook, don't forget the Google scandal connected to China last year, where Google simply evaded censorship laws by moving to Hong Kong.
The CIA might have used Google as a soft power proxy in China as well for destabilization operations. Here are a few issues that made the news regarding Google:
I admit I have Facebook. I am not particularly happy about it, but it does facilitate being connected with friends from other places. I try to keep a low profile. Don't reveal anything or don't click on trivial buttons, for example the ''Likes''.
Use alternatives to make contact if you can, e.g. email or other messengers. If you have Facebook, you have probably realized how people have literally sold their lives over to it.
Every time I see people revealing things to the finest detail, they don't think about any consequences, or let's say, they are not smart enough to care. The scientific dictatorship has done a ''good'' job in brainwashing and manipulating the masses. Don't be fooled by the deceit. The mainstream media has been very reluctant to cover the disturbing Google/Facebook ties as it would expose important assets for the Big Brother machine and its secret use to destabilize.
Zuckerberg or the Google founders would never have gotten the publicity, wealth and success without a CIA or NSA connection. To elaborate on the opening quote, I assume they have been initiated into the Illuminati Order and sold their soul.
------------
Sandeep Parwaga is a 22 yr old Indian student who currently lives in the UK.
Algeria shuts down internet and Facebook as protest mounts Internet providers were shut down and Facebook accounts deleted across Algeria on Saturday as thousands of pro-democracy demonstrators were arrested in violent street demonstrations.
Plastic bullets and tear gas were used to try and disperse large crowds in major cities and towns, with 30,000 riot police taking to the streets in Algiers alone.
There were also reports of journalists being targeted by state-sponsored thugs to stop reports of the disturbances being broadcast to the outside world.
But it was the government attack on the internet which was of particular significance to those calling for an end to President Abdelaziz Boutifleka's repressive regime.
Protesters mobilising through the internet were largely credited with bringing about revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia.
"The government doesn't want us forming crowds through the internet," said Rachid Salem, of Co-ordination for Democratic Change in Algeria...
"The cost of reading the New York Times for free is being tracked. The cost of being on Facebook is being data-mined," Peter Eckersley, a senior staff technologist for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said Friday at a panel discussion on the intersection of technology and privacy...
For connecting more than half a billion people and mapping the social relations among them; for creating a new system of exchanging information; and for changing how we all live our lives, Mark Elliot Zuckerberg is TIME's 2010 Person of the Year.
...More than anyone else on the world stage, Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg is at the center of these changes. Born in 1984, the same year the Macintosh computer was launched, he is both a product of his generation and an architect of it. The social-networking platform he invented is closing in on 600 million users. In a single day, about a billion new pieces of content are posted on Facebook. It is the connective tissue for nearly a tenth of the planet. Facebook is now the third largest country on earth and surely has more information about its citizens than any government does. Zuckerberg, a Harvard dropout, is its T-shirt-wearing head of state...
Loveable Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg called his first few thousand users "dumb f*cks" for trusting him with their data, published IM transcripts show. Facebook hasn't disputed the authenticity of the transcript.
Zuckerberg was chatting with an unnamed friend, apparently in early 2004. Business Insider, which has a series of quite juicy anecdotes about Facebook's early days, takes the credit for this one.
The exchange apparently ran like this:
Zuck: Yeah so if you ever need info about anyone at Harvard
Zuck: Just ask.
Zuck: I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS
[Redacted Friend's Name]: What? How'd you manage that one?
Zuck: People just submitted it.
Zuck: I don't know why.
Zuck: They "trust me"
Zuck: Dumb f*cks
The founder was then 19, and he may have been joking. But humour tells you a lot. Some might say that this exchange shows Zuckerberg was not particularly aware of the trust issue in all its depth and complexity...
(CNN) -- Worried about when you might get dumped? Facebook knows.
That's according to a graphic making the rounds online that uses Facebook status updates to chart what time of year people are splitting up.
British journalist and graphic designer David McCandless, who specializes in showcasing data in visual ways, compiled the chart. He showed off the graphic at a TED conference last July in Oxford, England.
In the talk, McCandless said he and a colleague scraped 10,000 Facebook status updates for the phrases "breakup" and "broken up."...
The New York Times and the Washington Post have posted articles detailing a plan by the Pentagon to detect and track popular ideas on social networks.
