High Tech Snooping and the USA

[Scayde]

Are you scared yet? You should be.

hi-tech geography software can track you anywhere!
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Imagine being able to pinpoint someone's location anywhere in the world simply by typing a few keywords on your PC.


That is what software partly funded by the US military is trying to do.

The MetaCarta program works by analysing thousands of documents and cross-checking the results with a massive geographical database.

So far it has largely been used by US intelligence agencies to analyse the huge amount of information collected as part of the war on terror.

"The government and international security agencies have a desire to find, track and sometimes arrest people," said Randy Ridley, MetaCarta's Vice President of Sales. "Our system can be used to find them across the globe."

"Perhaps it could be used to find Osama Bin Laden by checking out various aspects of Afghanistan and other parts of the world where we think he might be and see if there is a lot of data that supports a potential presence," he told BBC News Online.

Patterns of activity

The company behind the software was founded in 1999 by researchers from the renowned Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

It received funding from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the investment arm of the CIA to develop its MetaCarta Geographic Text Search program.

Randy Ridley of MetaCarta
In three to four years we expect this software to be ubiquitous, something that everybody has to use to do their work
Randy Ridley, MetaCarta
The software automatically extracts geographic references from text documents such as e-mails or webpages.

Millions of documents can be searched using keywords, place names or a time reference.

Search results appear as points on a map instead of as a list of documents. The company says this information can be used, for example, to track patterns of criminal activity and identify spots of intensity.

The software relies on the reliability of the documents searched. But the program tries to take account of some of these factors by making sure it has found the right location.

This can be particularly tricky in the Middle East, where many place names are the same as a person's name.

To counter this, the MetaCarta software uses an AI process to make sense of the geographical information, rating the results on a probability factor.

'Ubiquitous' software

The company sees its product as giving the intelligence community an edge in providing timely and reliable analysis of mountains of data.

"Government agencies have information archived, streaming in," said Mr Ridley. "We estimate that there is roughly 1,000 to one or 10,000 to one productivity advantage over a human doing it manually, depending on the process."

"In three to four years we expect this software to be ubiquitous," he added, "something that everybody has to use to do their work."

Since September 11, US security agencies have increasingly turned to technology to help them process website postings, internet chat and e-mail traffic.

MetaCarta was exhibiting its technology at the recent Government Convention on Emerging Technologies in Las Vegas, which showcases hi-tech products developed for use in the fight against terror.

Scource

[dragon wench]

Terrifying..... I thought the Patriot Act was appalling enough... but IMO this brings the world even closer to the nightmarish scenario depicted by Orwell in his 'novel'.. 1984

[Scayde]

Indeed..that is why I posted this here.

[Bloodstalker]

*gives digital finger*

Track that.

it's sad that things like this come out to take advantage of the public's fears. I'm voting for Big Bird this election

[Scayde]

Yea..and people are passively accepting it, giving up their personal freedoms and rights as an individual left and right because they REALLY believe this is for their own good...that somehow they will be safer...They are so blind !!!

*Grins @ Big Bird*

[VoodooDali]

types a few keystrokes on PC...bingo!...now has BS's exact strategic location...

[fable]

I think it's fairly safe to say that any government with pretensions to international diplomacy/espionage is going to welcome MetaCarta like a new bride, guys. And that goes for all the MetaCarta lookalikes located in other economic powerhouses.

Still, I wonder if it's half as potentially scary as the new RFID tags which can be dropped into the mold of items, and which can be invisibly tracked by a hidden monitor in any store you visit. Just think of the fun of going shopping, knowing that a computer inside a store already knows everything you have on you, how much it cost, when you purchased it, your credit account numbers, etc.

[Scayde]

Quote:

Originally posted by fable Still, I wonder if it's half as potentially scary as the new RFID tags which can be dropped into the mold of items, and which can be invisibly tracked by a hidden monitor in any store you visit. Just think of the fun of going shopping, knowing that a computer inside a store already knows everything you have on you, how much it cost, when you purchased it, your credit account numbers, etc.

Oh great ....Like I wasnt already p*ssed enough !

That's it..I vote for Texas to secede and become an isolationist nation with a minimalist libertarian govt. and a voluntary militia !

[fable]

Quote:

Originally posted by Scayde Oh great ....Like I wasnt already p*ssed enough ! That's it..I vote for Texas to secede and become an isolationist nation with a minimalist libertarian govt. and a voluntary militia !

Oh, right! Minimalist liberatarian government? And just how did you plan to fund your militia's equipment and weaponry? With a "voluntary" continuous tax?

Here's a press release on the latest attempts to add RFID tags in Germany:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

February 5, 2004

German RFID Scandal: Hidden devices, unkillable tags found in Metro Future Store: Germans say, "Nein! We wont be your versuchskaninchen"

"We won't be your versuchskaninchen." That's the message German privacy advocates are sending to executives at the Metro Future Store in Rheinberg, Germany after discovering RFID devices hidden in the store's loyalty cards. They also found that RFID tags on products sold at the store cannot be completely deactivated after purchase, despite Metro's claims.

"Versuchskaninchen" is the German word for guinea pig, which is how German consumers feel Metro and its partners have treated them since opening the Future Store last year to test experimental RFID applications on live shoppers.

The revelations came just one day after Katherine Albrecht, founder and director of CASPIAN (Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering) toured the Future Store with a delegation of privacy experts from German advocacy group FoeBud, who sponsored her visit.

"We were shocked to find RFID tags in Metro's 'Payback' loyalty card," said Albrecht, after FoeBuD tested the cards with an RFID reader and discovered the tag. "The card application form, brochures, and signage at the store made no mention of the embedded technology and Metro executives spent several hours showing us the store without telling us about it."

"In retrospect, it's no wonder store employees appeared nervous when we asked to take a few of the cards with us," she added.

Vendors of RFID-enabled loyalty cards promote them as a way for
supermarkets to identify shoppers remotely as they enter the store, using details of their identity and purchase history to pitch products to them and to track their movements and activities within the store. Prior to the Metro discovery, no major retailer had publicly admitted to using such cards.

In addition to the cards, Albrecht discovered that Metro cannot
deactivate the unique identification number contained in RFID tags in products it sells. The use of unique, item-level ID numbers is one of the key privacy concerns surrounding the use of RFID tags on consumer goods.

"Customers are misled into believing that the tags can be killed at a special deactivation kiosk, but the kiosk only rewrites a portion of the tag, while leaving the unique ID number intact," she said.

Outraged German citizens are calling on Metro to put an immediate end to the trials.

"We are deeply disappointed at the Metro executives. They talked of an open dialog while hiding important facts from us," said Rena Tangens of FoeBuD. "We are calling for an immediate moratorium on further RFID testing as it is clear that Metro is not handling the technology responsibly."

Evidence of the RFID tag in Metro's "Payback" loyalty card, along with evidence of the incomplete deactivation of product tags, can be found on FoeBuD's website at http://www.foebud.org/rfid/.

[Scayde]

Quote:

Oh, right! Minimalist liberatarian government? And just how did you plan to fund your militia's equipment and weaponry? With a "voluntary" continuous tax?

You're forgetting, this is Texas...we prefer to buy our own 'equipment and weaponry'...hide it in our basement and not tell anyone we have it...well, except for that really cool deer rifle we only pull out during hunting season


Seriously though..this goes against every fiber in my being...I am far more outraged by this than I have the ability to convey !

[fable]

Quote:

Originally posted by Scayde Seriously though..this goes against every fiber in my being...I am far more outraged by this than I have the ability to convey !

I know what you mean. Walmart has actually issued a press release instructing its top 100 wholesalers to switch over from barcodes to RFID tags by January 2005. I would expect this to become widespread in the next few years, if the public doesn't respond to it. And given the supine nature of the US public, which rolls over and accepts the Patriot Acts, I can't see any opposition more than a very small group. Hope I'm wrong, though. Now's the time to protest it, but hardly anybody cares.

[Scayde]

Quote:

Originally posted by fable I know what you mean. Walmart has actually issued a press release instructing its top 100 wholesalers to switch over from barcodes to RFID tags by January 2005. I would expect this to become widespread in the next few years, if the public doesn't respond to it. And given the supine nature of the US public, which rolls over and accepts the Patriot Acts, I can't see any opposition more than a very small group. Hope I'm wrong, though. Now's the time to protest it, but hardly anybody cares.

Not only do they not care..the people I have talked to on the boards actually believe this is a good thing...They do not mind big brother knowing what you read a t the library. bought at Barne's and Noble, or googled for last night in your own home...because they honestly think that this is going to stop some lunatic from flying a plain into their office building !

Our government has been trying to get their thumb on us for 50 years...now, thanks to a hand full of bastards and the instant horror of live TV...they finally have what they needed to accomplish it!

[fable]

It's not "the government," @Scayde. If anything, the stuff about RFID tags should clue us all into that. It's the belief among those with power to know what those without power are doing: it's the desire for knowledge of that sort, knowledge being the ability to predict and spin the course of actions. Remove the government from the equation, and you still have powerful corporations who want the same thing. Because they're filled with humans, and humans are fallible, and strange.

I'm beginning to regret ever leaving Babylonia, you know.

[Scayde]

Quote:

Originally posted by fable It's not "the government," @Scayde. If anything, the stuff about RFID tags should clue us all into that. It's the belief among those with power to know what those without power are doing: it's the desire for knowledge of that sort, knowledge being the ability to predict and spin the course of actions. Remove the government from the equation, and you still have powerful corporations who want the same thing. Because they're filled with humans, and humans are fallible, and strange. I'm beginning to regret ever leaving Babylonia, you know.

I know what you are saying is true fable...and I am not arguing..the invasion is coming from two levels...and we are caught in the tidal wave.

1. The government....any and all information gathered about you as an individual is going to be in a centralized data rescource..and they are going to get this information through...

2. Corporations..your grocer, your book seller, your sporting goods dealer, your telephone company, your credit card company, your travel agent, you ISP provider, any one with whom you have business dealings with where a cashregister scanner is used and recipts are kept. The only dealings that might be remotely safe from scrutiny are simple cash transactions between individuals where not recorded.

This information will be purchased from the corporations in the form of goodwill lists..as it is done today by telemarketers...

Hell, I speak as if this is in the future..this is what is going on NOW..and when you say it is not the government but individuals with power...surely you know that the only thing our government is , is a front piece for those same people !

[fable]

I think the most chilling aspect of all this is if you combine the two. Think about it, for a second. Right now, some booksellers, at least, are refusing to send lists of who purchased what to the government; and for the moment, the government isn't taking action, because it's not too sure how this will go over if challenged in the US Supreme Court. (Of course, if Dubya appoints another justice...) But if RFID tags are placed in book covers--which they can be, because the stuff can be made to a micro-depth--then the chances for scanning increase dramatically outside the point-of-purchase.