NSF-Funded "Dark Web" to Battle Terrorists 258
BuzzSkyline writes "The National Science Foundation has announced a new University of Arizona project, which they call the Dark Web, intended to monitor all terrorist activity on the Internet. The project relies on 'advanced techniques such as Web spidering, link analysis, content analysis, authorship analysis, sentiment analysis and multimedia analysis [to] find, catalog and analyze extremist activities online.' The coolest part of the project is a tool called Writeprint, which 'automatically extracts thousands of multilingual, structural, and semantic features to determine who is creating "anonymous" content' with an accuracy of 95%, according to the release."
5% (Score:3, Insightful)
So when they get it wrong, and the police storm my front door instead of my neighbors, will it still be "cool"?
This could have been used... (Score:5, Insightful)
Other than that, I'm afraid this is the sort of technology that's only "cool" when it isn't being used on you.
Re:5% (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:5% (Score:4, Insightful)
F or A? (Score:4, Insightful)
Change NSF to NSA, and the summary would make just as much sense...except "terrorist" would be defined as whatever the current politicians in power decide it to mean.
Space race, nuclear power, this kind of technology. Just goes to show, if you have a good idea, find a way to use it to further the war machine and political agendas and prepare to get buried in money. Can someone please figure out a way to weaponize a cure for cancer?
And simple to defeat? (Score:3, Insightful)
Okay, they'll be able to group all of his posting as being posted by him
Re:And simple to defeat? (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't think for a second that they aren't trying to actively hack some of the more popular places these things are being posted. If they can get one honey pot and the correlate that guys posts to others, they have all they need.
Re:5% (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's say in 1,000,000 posters there are 20 secret terrorists. This system (assuming the 95% figure isn't just made up, and since it's a reliability figure coming from a government contractor - it is) will label 19 of the real terrorists as terrorists and *50,000* innocent internet users as terrorists. Since we already live in a world where being under government suspicion (but no charges) gets your assets frozen, phones tapped, and puts you on the no-fly list this is a BIG problem.
I go to a fairly international university. I've seen this 1984 B.S. shit on innocent people's jobs and educations first hand. As long as our elected representatives keep granting themselves and their officers these kinds of powers, we do not have the right to call ourselves the "land of the free."
Right now the US has in place a set of laws that would allow for an authoritarian (not-quite totalitarian, though if the press keeps dismantling itself, who knows) government. All it would take is the decision to enforce them to the letter; no consent from the voters would be needed.
They kind of covered that. (Score:1, Insightful)
One man's "terrorist" is another man's "Freedom fighter".
Re:5% (Score:3, Insightful)
No and neither do you as that has never been the case. Checks and balances precludes true independence.
Re:"Spying" (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't think it's reasonable to call it spying.
You're right, it's not spying, it's surveillance.
That doesn't really make it any better, however.
Re:remember... (Score:3, Insightful)
Extremist =! Terrorists (Score:3, Insightful)
This should scare anyone that likes their right to free speech. And yes, even terrorists should have the right to *speak*. If you restrict their right to speak, its not much of a stretch to restrict yours too.
Be afraid.
Re:"terrorist" vs. "freedom fighter" (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:About 20% of "colonists" opposed our Independen (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm pretty sure nothing of the sort happened, but i'm willing to hear evidence to the contrary.
Those were greatly less "evolved" times, and yet, my impression is that those at the forefront of political dissent were vastly more humane in spreading their message.
Re:About 20% of "colonists" opposed our Independen (Score:3, Insightful)
I would agree if the insurgents would act in a military manor. but as of yet, they are completely happy with killing innocent people (iraqis, reporters, medical workers, people attempting to just live their lives) to show their "outrage" at the occupying forces. This isn't comparable by any means to a revolution in 1776.
Re:About 20% of "colonists" opposed our Independen (Score:2, Insightful)
There is a difference between a rebel and terrorist, *if* the speaker is using the terms *honestly*. Terrorism, terrorist tactics, have a specific meaning, it doesn't mean "military activity by people we dislike". Rebels generally give a stand up fight, they are a defacto army. Terrorist aim to change policy through inciting fear (terror). 9/11 is a shining example. We were terrified, and we changed our policies.... A rebel army would do things like attack a loyalist munitions depot, seize radio stations, capture real estate etc. Terrorists do things like poisoning water supplies, setting off bombs in places where people usually feel safe (bus stops, market squares, night clubs). This is not to say that rebels and loyalist types won't use terror tactics.
England couldn't have won for the same reason we can't win in Iraq. The enemy is the population, it wasn't initially, but terrorist groups and religious types made it so. Bush didn't read The Prince.
My point is that terrorist and rebel are NOT RELATIVE TERMS. *Our* revolution, *their* rebellion... those are relative. Terrorism is not relative, it has a specific meaning. It has a real and functional, objective meaning. If England called us terrorists, they would have been dishonest. If our revolutionaries were throwing pipe bombs into crowds in London, that would be terrorism. If we misuse the terms we dilute their meaning and effect. That causes ambiguity, ambiguity makes manipulation easier and communication harder.
That's why it grinds my oats when someone says "you can't have a war against terrorism because it's a tactic, not a person". That's a sophomoric claim. Terrorism refers to people in the same way that Catholicism refers to people that are Catholic. AQ is a part of terrorism, just ONE PART. "The War against Terror" (tWAt) is a war against all the groups that use terrorism. "The war against" metaphor is stupid and needs replacing. But efforts to say that terrorism is a tactic and can't be killed/beaten is misleading. Terrorism is not a monolithic unit like a government, but it still consists of people. It might be more precise to say "War against Terrorists".
But be a good little partisan and call me names like neocon, sheeple, chickenhawk or whatever will impress your friends and avoid being objective. Mod me down as troll or flamebait since that is the