EU Funding "Orwellian" Artificial Intelligence Snooping System 181
leonbenjamin writes "Britain's Telegraph reports on a five-year research programme, called Project Indect, which aims to develop computer programmes which act as 'agents' to monitor and process information from web sites, discussion forums, file servers, peer-to-peer networks and even individual computers. Its main objectives include the 'automatic detection of threats and abnormal behaviour or violence.' Shami Chakrabarti, head of the UK's Liberty human-rights NGO, said: 'Profiling whole populations instead of monitoring individual suspects is a sinister step in any society. ... It's dangerous enough at national level, but on a Europe-wide scale the idea becomes positively chilling.'"
'automatic detection of ... abnormal behavior' (Score:2, Insightful)
Next up: thought police.
Abnormal behavior (Score:5, Insightful)
"Abnormal behavior"... You know, like disagreeing with the government about what the definition of that may be.
Just another building block ... (Score:4, Insightful)
CC.
All your base... (Score:3, Insightful)
Ignorance is strength,
War is peace,
Freedom is slavery.
All your base are belong to us.
They're processing public information (Score:0, Insightful)
Why does anybody have problem with this? I'm from the old school that considers even email to not be private. Why would you expect privacy about what you post on web sites, discussion forums, p2p networks, and other public venues?
Re:'automatic detection of ... abnormal behavior' (Score:2, Insightful)
That would make anyone cringe unless you are the scum of the world.
Expecting a -1 very soon.
Sounds perfect to me... (Score:3, Insightful)
A five-year research programme, called Project Indect, aims to develop computer programmes which act as "agents" to monitor and process information from web sites, discussion forums, file servers, peer-to-peer networks and even individual computers
Fantastic, so after you are done rounding up all the teenagers posting with attitude and skinheads, how is this system going to help find competent threats?
Sure this will foil your low level moronic so called terrorist that happens to be down on his luck and just wants a group to blame for his own problems in life. However, I do not see this system giving any insight to groups that are smart enough to not say things on open systems or that are completely offline.
A litiginous society leads to 1984 (Score:5, Insightful)
This is the single biggest threat to our freedom as individuals: the desire of the state to form a broad security apparatus, in order to protect itself from lawsuits filed by aggrieved citizens.
I don't believe there's some super-secret cabal out to restrict our freedoms and turn us all into mindless meme-spouting "Citizens" living in a modern-day panopticon. What this is, is the result of an ill-informed populace, fearful of terrorists, criminals, and anything/everything that could possibly disrupt their lives demanding that their leadership Do Something . So the government is placed in the impossible position of trying to predict potential future attacks/assaults/cataclysms, because a clear majority of its constituents has told it that this is necessary. And when they fail, the survivors/aggrieved parties file lawsuits because clearly the government has failed in its duties to predict and prevent bad things from happening to its people.
So now we have entities like the TSA in the US, which exists solely as a giant resource-sucking time waster of a stop-gap prevention against class action lawsuits against the government in case another 9/11 type attack occurs. That is all it is: an insurance policy the government has taken out against the possible threat of legal action from its citizens should the unthinkable occurs. We all know that the TSA isn't going to stop terrorists - it's so the government can say "See, we did everything we could to prevent it and it still happened". And in this case, I'm going to step into the blame game and blame US, not the government. I have Karma to burn, so here goes: the vast majority of us citizens, regardless of country, want security and safety - NOT freedom. We want to know that when we get into our cars and go to work, we are insulated from the random elements of chaos that make up the world we live in. And when that protective bubble gets popped, we get angry because by God/FSM/Entropy/Satan, we want our security! And so we sue our government because 'THEY' should have been able to stop it with all their resources and manpower. And our government finds itself having to establish all these 'safeguards' simply so we can regain some measure of belief in the illusion of security we demand the government provide us.
I'm no libertarian, but this is one case in which I agree with their ethos: leave us the hell alone and don't build a nanny/father state to protect us. Yes, it's scary to live in a world in which anything could happen, but the alternative to me is unthinkable: some faceless entity doing everything it can to remove risk from my life and give me the illusion of control/safety, because most of my fellow citizens want that. I'd rather face up to my limitations and fallacies on my own, thank-you-very-much; I don't need my issues with needing control to be enabled.
So before we go into another round of 'how much blame can we heap on the government', let's think for a moment that the government is nothing more than a reflection of its people, and their values.
Remember. (Score:5, Insightful)
Remember, remember the Fifth of November,
The Gunpowder Treason and Plot,
I know of no reason
Why the Gunpowder Treason
Should ever be forgot.
Guy Fawkes, Guy Fawkes, t'was his intent
To blow up the King and Parli'ment.
Three-score barrels of powder below
To prove old England's overthrow;
By God's providence he was catch'd (or by God's mercy*)
With a dark lantern and burning match.
Holloa boys, holloa boys, let the bells ring. (Holla*)
Holloa boys, holloa boys, God save the King!
Re:Sounds perfect to me... (Score:5, Insightful)
There was a case here a few days ago, where some teenagers who wrote in their diaries some fantasy story about blowing up their school were arrested and held in jail for some months and then tried as terrorists. Luckily they got a jury trial: the jury acquitted them straight away, and then took the trouble to wait outside the court to congratulate them on their release.
The next step for the authorities will have to be to abolish jury trials for terrorist offenses.
Guys, guys, guys. (Score:2, Insightful)
This is what will happen: millions of Pounds Euros, or Dollars will be spent on proof of concept, maybe even some code and who knows, a delivered system. One way or another, it will turn into a complete failure and abandoned or drastically scaled down.
This is Government and their contractors who will do the absolute minimum piece of shit they can get away with to pad their pockets. They're not interested in anything that will work! They're just interested in something to show the voters that "they're doing something and it's with technology!"
God Bless government incompetence and government contractor greed and incompetence!
The STASI is dead! Long live the new STASI (Score:5, Insightful)
How long will it take until Europe realizes that they aren't "One" country with one set of beliefs and standards and just get on with life? Will Europe now be reduced to an East German-like existence? Will one-half of the populace spy and inform on the other half? When will they begin collecting "scent" samples of all the population? Or will they choose DNA this time? Decisions, decisions.
Listen, it's time to give big government the bum's rush to the garbage tip. The sooner governments are beaten back down, the sooner normal people will be able to get on with their lives without fearing being sent to prison or being fined and taxed into penury.
Re:A litiginous society leads to 1984 (Score:2, Insightful)
I'd like to add that this reminds me of the problem prisoners have when they are finally released after a long prison stay. Often times they cannot handle the freedom and lack of structure in the real world. Unfortunately the vast majority of humans essentially feel the same way.
Freedom is scary, and dangerous. People can't deal with that.
Re:I'm Glad it's the Europeans. Seriously. (Score:5, Insightful)
This is why I never buy arguments about why dressing well is so important.
Odd, this seems to prove that dressing is important.
It's about scaring the masses... (Score:3, Insightful)
These systems are not for catching the bad guys. They may occasionally be caught, but the main purpose of these surveillance systems is to scare the masses so as that the masses do not overthrow the governments.
Remember 1789? the elite were caught and hanged in Bastille by the people...that's what terrifies the elite...that we, the common folks, might realize one day our power and the level of fraud(*) the elite has committed against us and retaliate the hard way, i.e. invade their homes, take them out and hang them in Trafalgar square...
(*)20% of the population owns 80% of wealth.