FBI's Facebook Monitoring Leads To Arrest In England 329
An anonymous reader writes "The BBC reports that armed police were called to a UK school earlier today after being advised of a potential threat by the FBI. The school stated that the FBI 'raised the alarm after Internet scanning software picked up a suspicious combination of words,' strongly implying that they are carrying out routine, automated surveillance of social networking sites. While in this case it does appear that there may have been a genuine threat, the story nonetheless raises significant privacy concerns."
Surveillance laws (Score:4, Insightful)
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I wonder if they conduct questionable surveillance of American citizens in return?
They don't need to - we have the FBI for that ;-)
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That's an interesting theory. You'd suggest that since there's no obligation to the citizens of another country, that some other government would spy on you, and then your government would spy on their citizens, and then just trade information back and forth "as required, for national security matters"?
I wonder they'd have a cool acronym for the program.
Apparently the non-classified name is/was... (Score:2)
Echelon [wikipedia.org]-- one of theories regarding that back in late 90s (?) was that it was used by signatories to circumvent local privacy laws.
Though, of course, I could also be just a conspiracy theory... ;-)
Paul B.
Re:Surveillance laws (Score:5, Insightful)
Good grief (Score:5, Funny)
The school uses MS Comic Sans font on the sign to their entrance. They deserve all they get!
(Note to the FBI: This is just a humourous crack. I'm not threatening to blow the school up, okay?)
Re:Good grief (Score:4, Funny)
Unfortunately, ED 209 doesn't understand humor.
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But at least he IS very polite!
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Re:Good grief (Score:4, Funny)
Keywords "blow up" and "school" detected.
Deploying FBI.
Re:Good grief (Score:5, Funny)
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"school", "deserve all they get", "crack", "blow"
I think we've got enough isolated words out of that post to charge you as a terrorist.
Please pack your bags and wait for a knock on the door,
Sincerely,
FBI
Privacy? Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
Does someone out there thinks there is an expectation of privacy for data they post on the internet?
I thought that was exactly what you should NOT expect.
Re:Privacy? Really? (Score:4, Insightful)
I think the issue is that he might have been arrested without having actually done anything.
I mean, if he writes a note theatening bullies so that they don't ruin the last day of school for him, so that he can eat his lunch in peace, is it necessary for the police to step in?
I think it's a good thing the police were notified, this is a potential threat, and it's good that they acted upon it.
But - I mean, if you see the kid outside of school, and he didn't have a weapon on him, you've essentially got anecdotal evidence of what essentially boils down to a thought crime, which he shouldn't be ARRESTED for. Keep an eye on the kid, but no need to arrest him.
Re:Privacy? Really? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Privacy? Really? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Privacy? Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
Unless you're muslim, those fuckers do it all the time.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/2010/apr/22/south-park-censored-fatwa-muhammad [guardian.co.uk]
There is one example with 1.0 seconds of google, I will leave it as an exercise for karma whores to find other notable examples.
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That is the most braindead thing I've ever read. I'm going to kill you because of it!
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Re:Privacy? Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
story nonetheless raises significant privacy concerns
Bullshit. Facebook posting is not private. There is no 'privacy' involved here. No mail was opened. No phone tapped. No email account rifled through. There may be other issues to address regarding whatever wholesale analysis the cops are performing, but there are no 'privacy' issues here. The kid put it out there for the world to pick up on, automated word-eater or otherwise. End of 'privacy' issues.
if he writes a note theatening (sic) bullies so that they don't ruin the last day of school for him
Since we're talking hypotheticals; If such a note is presented to police and they fail to follow up and/or arrest the author and he then carries out the act do we then condemn the police or defer to your finely tuned sense of justice and celebrate our civil liberties?
essentially boils down to a thought crime
Bullshit. Public threats are not thoughts. Here's a big fat clue [uslegal.com] in case you're confused about the legalities.
Re:Privacy? Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:No they are not (Score:5, Interesting)
If I was to follow you around everywhere you went in public, saw every item you looked at in a shop, logged everyone you talked to and had someone following them and all their contacts, and so on, I would be able to build up a fairly good profile of who your friends were, your political, religious, and sexual orientation, whether you were cheating on your wife if you have one, and a lot of other personal information which most people would prefer wasn't stored in some government database for whatever purpose they decide this week. If I were working for a private entity, they would be able to guess most of the information a government already has (but which private entities probably don't), such as whether you had children and roughly how much money you have. All that information can be gathered without you saying anything, if you or your friends speak, their tails can gather even more data.
You then get problems because this data never goes away, so if, in one's student days, one were friends with someone who sold drugs or untaxed booze, or had a now-embarrassing political affiliation, that wouldn't go away, and worse than that, if too many one's current friends had slightly questionable pasts which they were keeping quiet about now, that would potentially tar one with the same brush. (And if you think that's purely hypothetical because you are careful about who your friends are and never did anything embarrassing, think of those from smaller cities: in two degrees of separation (a friend of a friend), I can get to both some of the most respectable names in my country's social and political life, and to people who are almost certainly active members of criminal gangs, and that is perfectly normal in this city.)
This isn't practical in the real world yet, but with technology like the Australian centre for Visual Technology's surveillance system which is currently undergoing medium-scale testing which would, with a suitable database to store the gathered data, enable nearly complete tracking of everybody who is within the area of camera coverage, it would be relatively easy to implement.
There is also the problem of missing, garbled, and incomplete data, which will almost certainly lead to false positives, leading to even more perfectly innocent people getting added to no-fly-lists and the like. This isn't just me being paranoid: if they have data, the media will crucify them for not using it every time there is a shooting or terrorist attack.
Because anyone could have been there to see you, it's simply the case that potentially MORE people may see/hear what you did - but that makes NO DIFFERENCE because they could have done so without the camera/microphone.
They could have heard me, but, without cameras and microphones, I know they didn't because I can see there is no-one watching.
100 years ago, if I simply checked there was no person hanging around (fairly easy to do), I would know no-one was listening. Even now, in the real world, if the nearest person is 100m away, he probably can't hear you, and he is very unlikely to be able to, say, lip-read you, so you can talk with a reasonable expectation of privacy. However, if there are hidden microphones scattered all over the place, then it means one cannot speak freely not anywhere except in a private house where you trust the owner, because there is no way you can tell if anyone is listening. Surely you have had conversations in public places where you have checked that no-one is listening: well, with microphones everywhere, this would be effectively impossible (remember, it was originally an analogy, in which the microphones are invisible). In such a scenario, it would also be easy for third parties to claim that, since you have no expectation of privacy, they can record your conversations too.
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Does someone out there thinks there is an expectation of privacy for data they post on the internet?
I thought that was exactly what you should NOT expect.
Well, you can expect all the privacy you want ... but you're not going to get it.
Re:Privacy? Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
People have no fucking idea what "privacy" is anymore. They've given up so much of it with Facebook, Twitter, loyalty programs, etc that no one seems to care about losing more or taking that of someone else. And if you try to explain things to them, they just look at you like you have two heads and give you that good old line: "What do you have to hide?" Any attempt to reason it out with them results in indifference: "You're just paranoid." Privacy is taking it's final few breaths because the collective fat, lazy ass of western culture has sat on it and doesn't even realize what's being smothered to death beneath its cellulite inflated cheeks. Too fucking bad for those of us who cared, we just saw it too late to make a difference. /rant of a guy now labeled "paranoid" and "suspicious" by various acquaintances because he blew up when his cellphone was temporarily "borrowed" by an (ex) friend so they could rifle through my text message history "for fun".
*Grumble*
Re:Privacy? Really? (Score:4, Insightful)
Too fucking bad for those of us who cared, we just saw it too late to make a difference.
So, what, you think you need to protect all those poor, ignorant pleebs from themselves? Gee wiz, how nice of you.
Hey, here's an idea: Why don't you worry about your own privacy, and let everyone else worry about there's. If someone wants to post every little piece of minutiae of their lives on the internet, who the fuck are you to tell them they shouldn't? Are they curtailing your ability to preserve your own privacy? No. So fuck off. What they do with their personal information is their own god damned business, just as what you do with your personal information is yours.
Re:Privacy? Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh, I am fully capable of protecting my privacy on my own... if I want to live in a mud hut on a desert island.
I get your point, but the simple fact is if anyone wants to take part in "modern society" they have to abide by it's rules and norms; even if those very rules and norms require your photo, fingerprints, DNA, fetishes, psych profile, and rectal bacteria cultures just so the we can make sure you aren't a "terrer'ist" or some weirdo who doesn't like having their entire personal life on display like some fucking monkey in a zoo.
So to answer your question: yes, the other ignorant plebs ARE curtailing my ability to protect my privacy. Their ignorance is societies ignorance. And while I can ignore an ignorant person, unfortunately I still have to bow to an ignorant society.
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If someone wants to post every little piece of minutiae of their lives on the internet, who the fuck are you to tell them they shouldn't? Are they curtailing your ability to preserve your own privacy?
This argument is severly short-sighted. We are not living alone on this planet, so unless you do not have a social life, you have to regularly communicate in some way with the "unwashed masses". Especially on the internet the methods of communication tend to be monopolized quite fast so you really need to care what others are doing. You probably remember the ugly days of IE-only websites with flashy ActiveX controls, which thanks to people like you and me educating others about alternatives have finally gon
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Re:Privacy? Really? (Score:4, Insightful)
(as an example read Blind Faith by Ben Elton, it is set in a community where people are expected to live video blog every aspect of their lives, borderline public nudity is normal because modesty = secretive = devious = actively seditious).
if this happened, then you wouldn't care. well, it wouldn't be you, so let me rephrase; if this had happened, you wouldn't care. You'd have lived with it all your life and you'd be used to it. That's how slowly it'll happen (if at all) and your values would be different if it had happened.
Further, if privacy is devalued then a lot of the reasons to be private go away. For example if your name, address, and social weren't enough to get credit in your name, then the fact that a lot of people besides you probably know your SSN would be a minor issue at most.
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You sound like you've got a lot to hide.
No, in all seriousness, it's not paranoia when they actually ARE out to get you. I saw a cartoon where there was a couple sitting in their house, while workers were putting up a fence. The fence was labelled "security" and the house "privacy".
The workers were, of course, using the boards of the house to build the fence.
That's the problem. People have been promised absolute security in everything they do. Look at the teenager who wanted to sail -- everyone is calli
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I delete my history every time I send or receive text messages for privacy reasons. My phone has a tiny memory footprint of personal information related to me. Maybe four hours of call history, no text message history and a small list of professional contacts. My private contacts are kept on the only physical media I trust, my brain.
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unless you have some kind of special phone that we don't know about, what is to keep your text messages from being logged elsewhere. every phone number that you call / calls you is routinely recorded as part of the billing process.
These can be social engineered pretty easily [wikipedia.org]. So you are only protecting yourself from the person that stole/finds your phone if you lost it.
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Yeah, I understand that texting (and even phone calls) are simple enough to monitor given the right equipment and sufficient knowledge of it. Like most people, my protection is partially security through obscurity. Virtually any person or company with the ability to monitor my communications likely doesn't give a shit about me anyways. People who *do* have an interest in, or something to gain from, my correspondence (friends, enemies, etc) largely lack the ability to gain access to it. Thus the information
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It's give and take and it is optional.
There is right balance in there somewhere, and it is not the same for everybody. Remember we are only talking about a new technology here that enables communication in a slightly changed way from what was previously possible. It is a bit unknown and therefore perhaps a bit scary. You'll get used to it.
People were scared of printed press and got used to it. Radio, TV, www, email, IM, they all had people against it for a number of reasons and in all cases you can still co
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Fuck your red herring, FBI ass-kisser!
That’s not the point!
The point is that a FBI monitoring led to a UK ARREST just because of a “dangerous combination of words”.
So in other words: Add the following string to anything, and he goes to jail, WITHOUT HAVING DONE ANY CRIME AT ALL! :
bomb school hate bastard kill all never again bought explosives
If that is enough for someone to go to jail, then it’s way more than is needed for me, to throw you in jail, just because I did not like your comment!
Now how cool do you think that would be? Hm? Not very
Re:Privacy? Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
You don't have an expectation of privacy when walking around town; but if there were a plainclothes G-man following everybody around, that would be a Bad Sign(tm)....
Re:Privacy? Really? (Score:4, Insightful)
but if there were a plainclothes G-man following everybody around, that would be a Bad Sign(tm)....
But there aren't, and the analogy doesn't hold up. You can't reasonably function without leaving your house, but what you post on Facebook is entirely within your own discretion. It's not at all like being followed around; it's like having one particular space monitored vigilantly, like a stadium, or the streets around the J. Edgar Hoover building. It's entirely up to you whether you wish to visit such places, let alone what you do when you're there. FFS, if your only guard against invasion of privacy is assuming that nobody's paying attention, then you're doing it wrong.
Concerns? (Score:5, Insightful)
The story nonetheless raises significant privacy concerns
Like "OMG my public postings can be read by others"?
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The BBC article doesn't specify whether the posting was public or not.
Re:Concerns? (Score:4, Interesting)
The article suggests in no way the facebook gave FBI special access to privileged data (and why would they?), and FBI use Internet scanning software, so it's almost certainly public.
Significant privacy concerns? (Score:5, Insightful)
Facebook and privacy is an oxymoron (Score:5, Interesting)
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It's not so much that they expected the information to be private, its that the kid was arrested and we don't know the details. Would you like to be arrested for an angry rant you wrote on your livejournal?
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It's not so much that they expected the information to be private, its that the kid was arrested and we don't know the details. Would you like to be arrested for an angry rant you wrote on your livejournal?
If I posted that I was going to blow up "X" building at my school at 3pm on a given day (not to say that's what happened here) in that angry rant, and it was public, then I think that deserves a second look.
Just because you are on an emo rant in your blog, doesn't mean you can write whatever the hell you want and expect there to be no repercussions.
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It's not so much that they expected the information to be private, its that the kid was arrested and we don't know the details. Would you like to be arrested for an angry rant you wrote on your livejournal?
Considering its illegal to make death threats, its kind of expected. Just because it's a minor doesn't mean they might not be willing to go through with it (though in this article its a 19 year old). Look at all the high school shootings that were done by minors. While it might be a stupid thing to have posted an angry rant on something like livejournal doesn't make it any better. If someone makes death threats, then its going to be investigated.
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But the one thing we can be sure of is that the school system will NOT use their *discipline system* against the people who were bullying him, for years on end. The bullies, or "lads" are the ones to be protected at all costs, while their victims must be driven to the point of going over the edge, and then arrested when they complain, try to defend themselves, or threaten the bullies in turn.
QFT
This is why people shouldn't put up with bullying at all. The moment a class mate pushes you or calls you a name, you should lash out and make sure they and everyone around remember not to mess with you.
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I wouldn't like to be arrested, period. If I go rob a bank, I wouldn't like to be arrested. But I'd expect that I would be.
I tend to agree with the prevailing opinion that if you make threats to someone in public--and, yes, if your livejournal may be read by anyone, it's public--then you may get a visit from the appropriate law enforcement authorities to investigate your intentions.
So the question is, is it unreasonable to expect to be arrested for things that you do in public even if you meant no harm?
They're damned if they do, damned if they don't (Score:5, Insightful)
Every time some idiot goes and posts somewhere "I'm gonna kill people" and it isn't caught, the news is "They were posting it for all the world to see, why didn't somebody stop them!?"
Then some idiot is caught from his posting, and the new is "How dare the police read posts!?"
While I don't believe in prior restraint and so I worry about arresting people based on things they said they might do, Facebook is the new equivalent of painting signs on the water tower. If ever anything didn't qualify for 'expectation of privacy', a service where the express purpose is to tell other people what you're doing should be it. As long as some additional police work goes into verifying that the threat is real, I think this is a good thing.
Re:They're damned if they do, damned if they don't (Score:4, Insightful)
Every time some idiot goes and posts somewhere "I'm gonna kill people" and it isn't caught, the news is "They were posting it for all the world to see, why didn't somebody stop them!?"
Then some idiot is caught from his posting, and the new is "How dare the police read posts!?"
One problem with a surveillance society is that it forces the police to intervene in every event that anyone could interpret as the least bit suspicious, or else face the "Why didn't you do something!" rage whenever something does happen.
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+1 -- Please mod parent up.
I'm jealous! because s/he beat me to the punch. I was gonna say, "How dare anyone -- especially a government agency, harrumph! -- perform an automated scan of publicly posted statements on a public website. How dare they!"
It's public, people. It's posted with the expectation that it _will_ be freely accessed and read. That's just the opposite of an expectation of privacy, regardless of who's accessing or reading it.
!Surprise (Score:2)
Please give me the adress of a good lawyer. (Score:2)
Thanks for the help.... (Score:2)
I know there's a problem with teenage pregnancy in the UK, but damn, getting a call from the FBI just because some teen said on their facebook page "party", "no parents", "beer", "condoms" is a bit much.
Disclaimer: The scenario posted in this comment bares no resemblance to any actual event in this life or a past life...
Privacy? How? (Score:5, Insightful)
"the story nonetheless raises significant privacy concerns."
I know it's all the rage right now to automatically link Facebook with "Privacy Concerns," but in this case it's just asinine.
surveillance society (Score:2, Insightful)
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Sure, if by "somebody" you mean "HAL 9000's nosy nephew". Or did you miss the part where automated scanning software picked up this "threat"?
Considering how much spam gets passed my spam filter I see no reason to trust a computer program to determine whether a threat is credible. Especially one written to government specs.
Public information (Score:2)
This is not a comment on whether Facebook makes too much information public. This is a comment on the whether public data can be scanned:
If the data was available on the public site then there is no privacy concern. If they 'hacked' facebook to get private data, then there is a privacy concern.
Public data is public data and anybody can 'scan' it if they like.
Excellent (Score:3, Insightful)
Their monitoring has had one possibly correct hit. Therefore it was justified and it is a Good Thing (tm).
It saddens me that so many people I talk to have this exact thought process.
Actually that's not quite right... (Score:5, Interesting)
...for all those that say -- "Na, na, you have no expectation to privacy on the net" -- lets get a few things straight. The first is, Facebook actually gives the impression that privacy will be shared only with those who you invite into your social circle. That means in fact that there IS an expectation of privacy, just a rather loose one (amongst your 238 friends). However the problem here is that there is a very strong suggestion that the FBI had access to Facebook accounts that they were not "invited to", and thus, under the definition and general understanding of the Facebook privacy model, were not "authorized to" view. The key concept here is the idea of "scanning software" that picked up a "combination of words". There is no mention of a person (officer, agent, etc). Had someone reported the person (say one of the friends in the guy's social network), and the FBI had pretended to be "someone" - a living person say - and then captured the tip off as part of an investigation, then I'm sure it would have been reported much differently. In this case it would seem that somehow the FBI has an automated system that has access to accounts it hasn't been invited to, and thus there are serious privacy concerns in fact.
Second thing is, how come the FBI is doing this on behalf of the UK? Isn't the FBI's juristiction only in the US? Aren't there certain laws that cover this sort of thing? Are the US and England playing a little game of bend the rules, by having the FBI spy on their citizens, so as to bypass local laws that prevent UK law enforcement from doing the same? And then the next logical step -- is England doing the same on behalf of the US -- spying on their citizens?
Finally, for all those really negative people that go on and on about the bleeding obvious -- that there is no expectation of privacy on the net -- stop it. REALLY. We can dream of a better world were we do have accountable law enforcement, strict privacy laws, and the universal expectation of free speach. Impossible you say? Well I'd counter that if you don't even bother imagining it, then for sure it definately IS impossible, because you'll never even lift a finger to try.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Yep the FBI only has jurisdiction in the US, but law enforcement everywhere shares data with each other. It's been like that for 100 odd years, no shortage of pissing matches or anything either. Canada shares with the US, US shares with Canada, both of which share with all of the EU. Japan shares with everyone, and so on.
Short answer: There's no shortage of law enforcement sharing informati
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However the problem here is that there is a very strong suggestion that the FBI had access to Facebook accounts that they were not "invited to"
I see no such suggestion. Care to elaborate?
Re:Actually that's not quite right... (Score:4, Interesting)
All this ranting about privacy seems quite naive to me. I wont say who I worked for, but I worked for a year reading internet chat logs that filters pulled out with 'combinations of words'. Mostly we were picking out suicide threats, murder threats, paedophile grooming and school shooting threats. The vast majority of it was just a load of crap and reading through this kind of stuff for up to ten hours a day sure can make someone go a bit peculiar, but to think that allowing some of the indescribably horrific things I have read over that time to go unreported to the police because of a desperate need for privacy bothers me. The people scanning this detail train their eyes to sift masses of information very quickly picking out key words and phrases but rarely ever actually reading or taking in anything not relevant.
Having a job interviewer with your private messages and your browser history before them is clearly unacceptable but stopping children from being raped and murdered seems somewhat acceptable to me. It is possible to have one without having both but knee jerk reacting with limited facts isn't going to help anyone.
Cleartext (Score:3, Insightful)
Facebook is not secure. Facebook has servers in the US. The FBI can watch cleartext entering or leaving the country, pursuant to the border search doctrine. Unless someone comes up with a very good argument why that's unreasonable, and that someone takes the case to the Supreme Court. But it would have to be very good, because the First Congress approved border searches AND wrote the Bill of Right--so we know that they considered them "reasonable," and it's only unreasonable searches that are forbidden.
I understood this was from 4Chan, not Facebook (Score:2, Informative)
http://www.photo-pimp.com/dgnr8/lost/drf.jpg [photo-pimp.com]
was it about (Score:2)
an arse-bandit having plans to blow and pound into the ground some hapless chap ?
I undestood this was from 4Chan, not Facebook (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.photo-pimp.com/dgnr8/lost/drf.jpg [photo-pimp.com]
Odd.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
In Soviet America (Score:2)
In Soviet America, All you comments belong to us.
What is privacy about (Score:2)
Privacy is about the embarassment of things you'd like private being made public. Our instinct for privacy isn't the crazy "between me and my gods" kind of thing - it's a mechanism that works on reputation.
Provided that law enforcement doesn't publicise your private life when you're doing things that are pretty innocent, no foul. You have a legitimate concern about advertisers knowing too much about you, because that stuff can make a difference. As for legal agencies that are sorting through heaps of person
Privacy concerns? (Score:3, Insightful)
It's looking at data which is explicitly published by people such that the general public can view it.
Or is the summary writer claiming they are snooping the data elsewhere?
FBI... (Score:3, Insightful)
Face Book Incorporated
The whole problem I have with sites like Facebook isn't that they exist, but that people treat them as if a conversation on FB is no different than one in person. There are a lot of differences:
I probably post more than I should on FB, but not nearly as much as some of my colleagues. The real problem with something like FB is that it gives any prosecuting attorney a mountain of evidence on which to have you tried should you ever become *problematic* to those in power. It's a website for the unwashed, insignificant masses ruled by the upper classes. For those fighting injustice and oppression, who have the guts to speak up for what is right, it's just another liability.
Turns out to be a false alarm. (Score:3, Informative)
Looks like a false alarm. Later report: "A 19-year-old man who was arrested by armed police at a Merseyside school has been released on bail. " [bbc.co.uk]. "Merseyside Police said that their inquiries were continuing into the man, who had imitation firearms and a computer seized from his home. The alert had been raised after a threat with a picture of a gun was posted on a social networking website."
I had something like this happen a few years back. I have a domain in ".com" which is the same as the "co.uk" domain of a boarding school in England. Occasionally I'd get misaddressed mail. (This was back when you could use a catchall address for a domain without being overwhelmed by spam.) Once I got a message with the subject "I am going to kill you tonight". After checking the headers, it was clear that it was from someone at the school, not a death threat aimed at me. (Sent from .co.uk, addressed to same second level domain in .com.) Called up the school in England and reached someone in authority. 8 hour time difference; middle of the night there, someone had to be awakened. Turned out it was a 12-year old kid sending a dumb email to one of the other kids. He was disciplined by the school.
Today, they'd send in a SWAT team.
Trolling, trolling (Score:5, Insightful)
Tomorrow - last day of school. I'm glad because I'm tired of being bullied by the assholes in this place. I will at last be leaving this world. TGI summer break.
This isn't a Facebook threat Mr. FBI.
This is just me circa 1986 typing into a BBS.
Re:Trolling, trolling (Score:5, Funny)
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Hey man. In 1986 I had a high-quality Commodore Amiga with 4100 colors and hi-res 704x480 graphics. No pixelated nudity for me. We're talking near-photo-realistic here - like watching television. Yep. 32-bit cutting-edge technology is the way to go.
(whispers). You got that new game? MicroProse's Strike Eagle? I have a cracked copy downloaded fresh from Europe on my faaaaaast 2400 bit per second modem. Also some topless Italians if that's your thing. ;-)
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An online confession to having hacking hardware, and pirated software. Are you sure that was the best thing to do?
Well, and an admission that you still have your archaic piece of equipment. At least you didn't admit that you really spend your weekends playing C64 games.
Don't worry, you have been under surveillance for months. We've just been waiting for probable cause to come in. Just wait for the interrogation. Just so you know, we'll be taking you to a bas
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and pixellated bitmaps of Heather Lochlear nude
Next time, post the link!
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No Lochlear - here is the best I could find: http://girls.c64.org/p_bloempjes_and_byties_01.gif [c64.org] (an amazing 160x200x16 colors)
http://www.micro-paradise.com/Gifs/Images/Amiga/Amiga_sex_tetris_01.png [micro-paradise.com] (352x240x64 colors)
http://www.micro-paradise.com/Gifs/Images/Amiga/Amiga_sex_tetris_02.png [micro-paradise.com] (Amiga Tetris)
Stickman from 1986 - http://codinghorror.typepad.com/.a/6a0120a85dcdae970b0128777032aa970c-pi [typepad.com] (4100 colors)
Another Amiga image - http://image.absoluteastronomy.com/images/encyclopediaimages/h/ha/ham6example.pn [absoluteastronomy.com]
Re:Trolling, trolling (Score:5, Interesting)
You forgot the part where you posted a picture of a firearm to go with your rant about bullies. Nice job of cherry picking the parts of story that fit your rant while ignoring the obvious threat. Last I checked it was next to impossible to get a firearm in the UK, so the fact that a kid who was having problems with bullies posted a picture of him with a firearm and POTENTIALLY menancing words warranted a closer investigation.
Put the shoe on the other foot. What if some kid had gone on a rampage and it later came out that the FBI thought he might have been a threat but decided not to share the information? Rather than worrying about someone's rights being trampled (and I'd argue that they weren't given that he posted in a PUBLIC forum visible to the world), we'd be condemning the FBI for not doing more to save the children.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Nobody went on a rampage. From TFA, it was not even clear to me that a real threat had been issued, as opposed to some kid who vented in an unusual way. I also noticed that the type of gun is not mentioned -- maybe it was a handgun, maybe it was an old smoothbore quail hunting gun. All that we can see in TFA is 8 words from the note and some kind of vague mention of bullies.
Maybe the kid was really a threat, but from what I am reading here, it is pretty hard
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Last I checked it was next to impossible to get a firearm in the UK,
Really? Admittedly, I haven't tried for a few years - I got a bit bored of shooting - but when I was at school I had the alarm code to the armoury, so I could easily lay my hands on a dozen .22 target rifles, 40 L-98 (cadet assault rifles - SA-80s crippled to need manual cocking) and a pair of LSWs (fully automatic version of the L98 - still only magazine fed, so you needed to change magazine every 30 shots). And that's ignoring the shotguns that most of the farmers near me kept, and the black-powder revo
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
No can do. TSA told me to take them off.
Re:Trolling, trolling (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Plutonium.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Remember kids, the ghost of J. Edgar Hoover is watching everything you do ... and so is Mark Elliot Zuckerberg.
You see folk! I always said my life would make a good reality TV show. You all made fun of me, but obviously these fellows Hoover and Zuckerberg were/are men of taste and class. Ha!
Now excuse me while I go beg for attention on the street by dressing skimpily in the cold night air.
Re: (Score:2)
Remember kids, the ghost of J. Edgar Hoover is watching everything you do ... and so is Mark Elliot Zuckerberg.
Do they share other pastimes?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
So it's wrong for the FBI, or anyone else for that matter, to look at all the crap you publicly and deliberately post for the whole world to see on a website that is very well known for not giving a crap about anyone's privacy?
The article isn't about the FBI listening in on phone calls. It's not about them peeping into your windows or installing cameras in your car. It's about them looking at the graffiti you spray painted on the outside of your house.
Re: (Score:2)
yes, but only one of them is masturbating furiously over your profile pictures.
But which one is going to town like a clown?
Re:Echelon this!!! (Score:5, Funny)
http://echelonspoofer.com/ [echelonspoofer.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Set it to 250 words, click GO, and see the list of 250 things the FBI does want to hide. ^^
Re: (Score:2)
Okay.
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Wait, what do “unix Tie-fighter Information Firewalls Anonymous PPP Nike industrial sardine pink PBX Dictionary chosen bet noise delay government information chosen mechanism beef sport mixmaster executive rail tax PGP RL Bugs Bunny Tokyo captain AC Furbys screws’ do in there?? Seriosly... WTF?
That list of keywords matches on pretty much everything out there.
Oh wait... that’s the point...
Seems they learned an important trick from their masters (the Catholic Taliban): If everyone is always
Re:Seriosly... WTF? (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2001/05/31/what_are_those_words/ [theregister.co.uk]
Re: (Score:2)