Why Would The Government Want to Spy On Me?
April 29, 2015
By Logan Robinson
After all the debating over privacy rights violation, justification, and the technical hows of government spying, there is one question to answer: why? Glenn Sulmasy of CNN argues here that the U.S. government’s motivation for collecting information on individuals is genuinely about protecting the citizens from ?Jihadists?. But considering the U.S. government has a lot to lose here, it’s a little naive to take their explanation blindly. Let’s go a little deeper.
Either the agents in charge of spying operations have no idea how to profile a terrorist or they’re just not looking for terrorists. I’m going to go out on a limb and say that people don’t tend to talk about their diabolical plans for overthrowing government or flying planes into buildings in online multiplayer fantasy games like World of Warcraft.Yet government spying is also taking place there. Closer to home and almost as absurd is the NSA’s Xbox Live data collecting practices from tracking locations to monitoring audio channels between game players.
With the NSA tapping into the phone records of millions of U.S. citizens and countless more in other countries, mining information on individuals through Facebook and social networking sites, and gaining access to emails of users of Google and Yahoo, it’s bewildering to think even supercomputers might sort through it efficiently enough to come up with useful leads. Quite bewildering indeed. In fact, data sorting programs that are suspected to be used in these vast spying operations actually create false connections or see patterns where there are none. Each series of connections the program finds is marked to be reviewed by a real human being (if you consider NSA agents human beings). This means that in order to find terrorists, real people have to use time, money, and resources chasing down tens of thousands of leads that turn out to be useless false connections. Even with a program that could recognized patterns and connections in vast amounts of data with more discretion, the underlying assumption from which the NSA works, that terrorists have a consistent data profile, isn’t anywhere near agreed-upon. Simply put, this method of searching for terrorists seems horrendously inefficient.
The original number of acts of terrorism thwarted by your altruistic friends at the National Security Agency was greatly exaggerated. You likely heard the number to be 54. It turns out that there was exactly one criminal conviction of terrorism that came about by the violation of your 4th amendment civil rights. A cab driver named Basaaly Moalinsent 8500 dollars to an extremist group with ties to Al-Qaeda. You can see that it is inefficient both in in theory and practice.
Now, we have that the NSA is searching in suspiciously irrelevant places and its terrorist search is wildly ineffective. It is therefore not unreasonable to think that the motivation, or at the very least the result, of government spying is not only to search for terrorists. The NSA has shared the information it collects with the DEA and the FBI to help with their investigation of suspects at home. It has gone even gone on the offensive and attacked its targets. Whatever the initial cause of spying was, it appears now that it is being used to enhance the oppressive capabilities of other branches and bureaucracies and to bring us twenty steps closer to a dystopian police state.
So why does the U.S. government want to spy on you? Simply put, because it understands that information is power and anyone can be a liability.
A CIA Funded Company Reportedly Scanning Chats but Facebook Rejects Claim
April 15, 2015
Facebook Privacy Debate: A CIA Funded Company Reportedly Scanning Chats but Facebook Rejects the Claim.
A developer has claimed on Hacker News that a third-party agency is continuously scanning private chats on Facebook. The developer observed this feature while testing an application that was set up in a non-published area. As a result, unusual activity was noticed when the app’s link was transmitted via Facebook chat and afterword numerous IPv6 originated for a single check on Facebook.
Furthermore, it was also observed that forced IPv4 and a URL’s tracked logs were also freshly created and transmitted through Facebook chat, according to the Bosnadev’s Blog Post.
After the Facebook checking of the URL no further activity was observed for at least three minutes and the next hit from the logs was the “Recorded Future” signature. Apparently, “Recorded Future is an American-Swedish start-up backed by both Google Ventures and American intelligence agencies.”
The agencies also claim that their patented Web Intelligence Engine is analyzing the open web continuously.
However, in this statement the term Open Web seems rather inappropriate because the agency was scrutinizing links that weren’t published anywhere else and were only transmitted through Facebook chat.
Moreover, an interesting aspect is the current focus of “Recorded Future” are militant terrorist organizations like the ISIS, Cybercriminals and all sorts of “public” web usage that may be linked to probable threats.
It was identified that there is supposedly no such thing as privacy on Facebook and this isn’t surprising to us because Facebook often has been criticized for its privacy features for years. However, in response to these claims, Facebook and Recorded Future have denied any knowledge or involvement in such a feat.
The firm Recorded Future identifies real-time risks on the web by gathering and analyzing internet sources. It is a private firm and majority of its clients are also private firms. However, it also has ties with the government thanks to CIA’s investment from its investment wing. This connection actually alarmed conspiracy theorists.
It is but obvious that the company has openly and categorically denied scanning of Facebook chat messages. While talking to Business Insider, Recorded Future spokesperson stated:”We have no idea what the guy is referring to. We only get Public/Open Facebook data, and certainly have no interest nor any technical ability to get to any chat data at all.”
“Our systems followed this URL after it was posted on a public site. Our system constantly explores links published on the web. We’ve checked our logs and confirmed that this is what happened in this specific case. It’s not related to any Facebook chat messages containing this link. Our system doesn’t access that information,” according to Bosnadev’s comment on Hacker News.
Moreover, Facebook also categorically affirmed that there is no collaboration between the social network and Recorded Future.
“While investigating the claims of this post, we’ve confirmed that Facebook doesn’t use Recorded Future ? an open source aggregation of public data ? to scan any private content. That means we haven’t partnered with or directed Recorded Future to scan anyone’s message links. It’s hard to tell precisely what’s going on based on the amount of information in the post. It’s possible that another interaction, including one that could be occurring on the client machine, is consuming the URL and generating this behavior.”
In an exclusive conversation with the Bosnadev researcher, HackRead was told that despite Facebook denial they firm will carry on looking into the matter.
Facebook has always been under criticism for sharing user data with the government and intelligence agencies, yet it has never accepted spying or tracking its users.
The European Commission recently told that there were serious privacy issues concerning users’ data and those looking for privacy should leave Facebook.
Digital Shadow Exposes What Facebook Really Knows About You
6th April, 2015
Philip Bates
How much can people discover about you over social media? It began as a mere marketing stunt, but Digital Shadow remains a very useful (and potentially scary) application.
Ubisoft’s Watch Dogs is a sci-fi game that works on a smart premise: that our lives can be laid out to a hacker and used against us. Our family, our friends, our interests, our personalities: they build up a digital trail, leaving us exposed. It sounds like an Asimov or Bradbury concept, but the accompanying Digital Shadow, used to advertise the game, shows us that this dystopia isn’t too far removed from today.
By allowing it access to Facebook, Digital Shadow gets to know you. But how accurate is it really? I let it loose on my profile to find out?
What Actually Is Digital Shadow?
You might not have previously heard of Digital Shadow, but its potential as a marketing tool was genius. The idea is to make the video game believable. Watch Dogs, released last year, is an open-world game in which you play as a hacker, intent on seeking justice on those who have hurt your family. To do so, you hack into Chicago’s infrastructure and access personal data from the city’s inhabitants.
It was a commercial and critical success, selling four million copies in its first week.
Digital Shadow was part of its marketing campaign, a free app that scours a small section of your online trail. It simply states that “you are not a person. You are a data cluster.” It’s a sobering thought, and a useful tool to remind people not to surrender so much data.
Starting Out
It’s very easy to use. You just sign in using Facebook as you might when commenting on sites.
Within 10 seconds, it’s pulled together all it needs to know. Ubisoft says that “the hope behind the app isn’t to make you afraid of leaving a social footprint. Much like the game itself, the Digital Shadow app is meant to provoke thought and conversation, and perhaps lead to further exploration of our increasingly digital world.” But you’d never believe it’s not there to intimidate and scare you with the accompanying disturbing graphics.
I’m naturally very concerned about online privacy. Combine this paranoia with a laziness that has left me with the same display photo for the past few years, and I predict that Digital Shadow won’t find out too much about me. Let’s see, shall we??
What Does It Actually Know?
Straight away, Digital Shadow asserts that I can be identified with 94.6% accuracy. Facebook uses DeepFace, a facial recognition project that compares two different images and locates the same individual in each. This allows you to tag people with ease. It’s also deeply unsettling: Facebook knows what you look like.
Fortunately, my contacts are a law unto themselves. They tag me just so I see said images, regardless of whether I’m in them or not. That’s why two of the four displayed images supposedly purporting to be me actually feature my Aunty and a baby.
The other two are, indeed, me; interestingly, both are looking slightly away from the camera, and in one, I’m attempting to conceal my face. I try this three separate times to see exactly what Digital Shadow reckons I look like. The first search is pretty successful: three of the displayed photos feature my face. The second is utterly useless, because I don’t appear at all. One of these images shows a hedgehog. The third has mixed results.
This is just an algorithm. If a real hacker had access to my photos, I’ve no doubt that a wider sample would garner an entirely realistic impression of me. And I don’t like my picture being taken. Those who indulge in selfies will get more accurate results.
Next up, it focuses on my relationships with my online friends. Fortunately, the ?pawns’ are unidentified. Apparently, I exhibit “low risk of exposure.” I don’t know what would be exposed, but this information is nevertheless a relief.
This is swiftly followed by: Stalkers (who interact with me the most); Liabilities (contacts who tag me the most, supposedly able to weaken me); Obsessions (those who don’t reciprocate conversation, or as Digital Shadow puts it, “potentially hostile”); and Scapegoats (people I might sacrifice because I don’t speak to them often).
The friends listed as Liabilities aren’t the people I immediately thought were tagging me in photos. After searching through my albums, I concede that they have in the last five years. But another, my Aunty, doesn’t appear there, despite attracting my attention to pictures, charity fundraisers, and petitions. Instead, she appears in my Obsessions list, ie. contacts who could “be tapped as allies in an attack against you.” I’ll have words with her!
This is a marketing stunt: you need to bear that in mind here. Deducing that family and friends have nefarious plans is a bit unrealistic.
I hope.
I’ve also got to question what interactions it keeps track of. I presume simple status updates and public conversations because I frequently engage one of my Obsessions in a two-way dialogue via private messaging. This shows the limitations of Digital Shadow: you only give it access to what friends can see; Facebook, meanwhile, can read your private conversations.
Predicting My Personality
I’m then labelled a submissive, “a conformist and demonstrate compliance. You will be governable if pressured.” While I’d argue the majority of people are “governable if pressured,” I rebel against the idea of conformity. Yet it’s quite a loose concept: what am I conforming to, exactly? I don’t go on protests, but I do write and read articles against conformity, about Occupy, about unethical anti-privacy laws.
I predict, then, that most people would be labelled a submissive. Other labels include Volatile, Deviant, Depressive, and Neurotic.
My most used words vary wildly: grateful, thankful, inflict, killing, stupid. Many of these were, I’m sure, said in jest (I’m not owning up to being a psychopath), while ?grateful’ comes from the decision to participate in an ill-conceived “Five Days of Gratitude” meme (I lasted a day).
By comparing my results to those of my friends, I can also find out the personality traits of, for instance, MUO’s Security editor, Christian Cawley. He, too, is apparently a conformist ? something I know to be incorrect.
More interesting is when I’m most active, something I wouldn’t be aware of otherwise. I mostly share links and am particularly active on Thursday evenings. This is pretty likely; I’m typically away from the computer on Fridays and Saturdays, so like to share as many articles as possible before the weekend.
Digital Shadow is also right about my age (my DOB is stated in my profile, so that’s not a surprise), and general locality. The latter might be particularly concerning if, in my three attempts, it had located the road I actually live on. Instead, it’s plumped for three polarised places, all pretty far from where I live. It’s also wrong about my education, and takes a guess at my occupation. I’m freelance, though, so this likely put a spanner in the works.
As for my annual salary? I wish!
The most worrying part is its password generation. Based on all my results, Digital Shadow displays a list of buzzwords that have the potential to give hackers access to emails, PayPal, Amazon, and countless other services! There are plenty ofreasons to do online banking, but if you’re concerned about security, this section is especially revealing.
Fortunately, this is all based on personality, so if you’ve followed tips for creating a memorable password, I doubt many of these will be anywhere close to the mark.
Digital Shadow even suggested ?Spyro’ (or variations thereof) as my password because I shared an article about PS1 games I still love to play!
What’s interesting about this is what Digital Shadow doesn’t look at. Much more can be discovered by assessing what sites and articles I’ve either shared or liked. This is ignored here ? but Facebook does take note in order to fashion adverts for your tastes. Indeed, early this year, it was revealed that intelligent machines had assessed the ?likes’ of over 86,000 volunteers, and predicted their personalities with shocking accuracy.
How Much Does Digital Shadow Reveal?
Results vary wildly. It depends on how much time you spend on Facebook, how many photos you’re tagged in, how often you update your status.
As a marketing stunt, Ubisoft has done brilliantly. It’s memorable, emotive, and creepy. As a tool to find out about your digital trail, it’s the tip of the iceberg: Facebook knows even more. Nonetheless, this could be wake-up call for millions of people.
Why not give Digital Shadow a go? How accurate is it about you?
Law Proposed To Force Employees To Friend Their Boss On Facebook
March 27, 2015
An Arkansas Senate committee met this week to consider a bill that said employees should be essentially forced to “friend” their bosses on Facebook or other social media websites.
The bill targeted online privacy protections for workers that passed as part of a social media rights law two years ago.
The bill passed in a 91-1 Arkansas House vote in February. It holds that employers could require workers to “friend” them on social media, and that firing for a refusal to add them would be seen as just grounds for termination.
Some employers could be granted even more access to their employees’ accounts, by requiring them to turn over their passwords so that employers could read their private emails.
The proposal was killed on March 25, in the Senate committee, but the authors of the bill say that is only “strike one” and they’ll be back for another round, tweaking the bill to continue pushing it through.
“What we’re trying to do is to just move that line back so that employers, if say an employee is making slanderous statements about their employer in social media, that the employer has the right to know that,” Rep. Nate Bell (R) explained in an interview.
“We clearly don’t want people ? employers ? being able to access that bedroom information. Probably don’t want them accessing the backyard information. But what happens in the front yard is very similar to what happens in the street,” he said to a local television station.
by way of analogy. As of publication, Bell had not responded to two Washington Post requests for comment sent Monday.
The bill has outraged groups like the National Network to End Domestic Violence who wrote in a letter to Bell, co-signed by the Arkansas Coalition Against Domestic Violence, that “applicants and employees would be put in a situation where they are no longer in control of their privacy settings and would be forced to disclose information they would otherwise not share with their employer.”
Facebook has spoken out against the bill as well, saying that “any legislation that requires employees to give employers access to their private communication is problematic, but this bill goes even further by compelling minors to provide an adult employee or supervisor access to their social media accounts,” the company said in a statement. “As child safety advocates have noted, this could result in inappropriate contact between that adult employee and the minor, jeopardizing the safety not only of the minor, but also the friends with whom they were communicating.”
One legislator voted against the bill. Rep. Warwick Sabin (D) explained that “we’re kind of moving into dangerous territory where we’re giving primacy to businesses and employers and allowing them access to every aspect of their employees’ lives.”
He added that “my recollection is that there was very little explanation of the bill, very few questions, very little debate and a quick vote.”
There are nearly three dozen bills in 22 states pushing similar laws, and this one will be back in a slightly modified form soon. Stay vigilant and help SPREAD THE WORD about invasive laws like this that seek to destroy personal privacy online.
