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posted by janrinok on Friday January 16 2015, @11:47PM   Printer-friendly
from the hey-they're-talking-to-me-too! dept.

It’s common knowledge the NSA collects plenty of data on suspected terrorists as well as ordinary citizens but the agency also has algorithms in place to filter out information that doesn’t need to be collected or stored for further analysis, such as spam emails. Now Alice Truong reports that during operations in Afghanistan after 9/11, the US was able to analyze laptops formerly owned by Taliban members and according to NSA officer Michael Wertheimer discovered an email written in English found on the computers contained a purposely spammy subject line: “CONSOLIDATE YOUR DEBT.” According to Wertheimer, the email was sent to and from nondescript addresses that were later confirmed to belong to combatants. "It is surely the case that the sender and receiver attempted to avoid allied collection of this operational message by triggering presumed “spam” filters (PDF)." From a surveillance perspective, Wertheimer writes that this highlights the importance of filtering algorithms. Implementing them makes parsing huge amounts of data easier, but it also presents opportunities for someone with a secret to figure out what type of information is being tossed out and exploit the loophole.

 
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  • (Score: 2) by NoMaster on Saturday January 17 2015, @12:19AM

    by NoMaster (3543) on Saturday January 17 2015, @12:19AM (#135561)

    So this whole "story" hangs on a single anecdote about how a single message recovered had a spammy subject line? No actual evidence, not even the claim that the message contained Taliban-related communications.

    Just a spammy subject line.

    Ockham's razor would suggest that, absent of any other evidence, what they saw was most likely ... uh, I don't know if I should be revealing US national secrets here ... "spam".

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 17 2015, @12:30AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 17 2015, @12:30AM (#135564)

    No actual evidence, not even the claim that the message contained Taliban-related communications

    That's just how government propaganda rolls... oops did I say propaganda... I meant transparency.

    We learn from the best; US i.n.t.e.l.l.i.g.e.n.c.e.

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by frojack on Saturday January 17 2015, @12:49AM

    by frojack (1554) on Saturday January 17 2015, @12:49AM (#135568) Journal

    So this whole "story" hangs on a single anecdote

    Wait, don't be so dismissive. This could be better than Spamassassin, we could hunt down all these spammers and send them to gitmo.

    --
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    • (Score: 2) by Snotnose on Saturday January 17 2015, @06:52AM

      by Snotnose (1623) on Saturday January 17 2015, @06:52AM (#135603)

      But it's all good. They got some major headlines. They got to keep the sheeple in a state of fear. They accomplished their mission.

      "they" of course are the US guv'mint's TLA agencies.

      --
      Why shouldn't we judge a book by it's cover? It's got the author, title, and a summary of what the book's about.
    • (Score: 2) by sjames on Saturday January 17 2015, @09:38AM

      by sjames (2882) on Saturday January 17 2015, @09:38AM (#135622) Journal

      If only. However, I believe it's against their secret charter to do anything useful and besides, it might entail actual legwork and they hate that.

      • (Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Saturday January 17 2015, @10:20AM

        by Phoenix666 (552) on Saturday January 17 2015, @10:20AM (#135629) Journal

        I'd say you hit the nail on the head. The vast, vast majority of people who work for the government do so because they are not spontaneous, entrepreneurial risk-takers and problem solvers. They are extremely risk averse and like the suffocating rules-based culture and perceived job security it gives them. There are exceptions, of course, but they don't last. The initial excitement of "I could really make a difference!" evaporates in the daily reality of being surrounded by armies of Skippy the Wonder Flunky fighting tooth-and-nail to prevent any change, down to the color of the cover of the TPS report.

        The headline of this article exemplifies government's use of fear to safeguard next year's budget allotment and keep the public from raising objections to the obvious, massive waste the security state represents.

        --
        Washington DC delenda est.
        • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 17 2015, @05:04PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 17 2015, @05:04PM (#135684)

          They are extremely risk averse

          Who in their right mind would take risks when failure literally means homelessness and starving to death? If we had proper social safety nets, like a basic income for at least food and shelter, we'd see a lot more "entrepreneurial risk-takers and problem solvers".

          • (Score: 2) by sjames on Sunday January 18 2015, @10:48AM

            by sjames (2882) on Sunday January 18 2015, @10:48AM (#135799) Journal

            Agreed 100%. We would be years more advanced than we are now. We might even have healthy markets.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 17 2015, @03:06AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 17 2015, @03:06AM (#135588)

    Yep. But it is such a seductive story. It's like poor man's steganography. I bet within a week it gets mentioned on the national nightly news.

    It's also great for the anti-NSA angle - they want to collect it all and (David Cameron wants to) outlaw cryptography and it will all be for naught because terrerists can make it look like spam.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 17 2015, @04:15AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 17 2015, @04:15AM (#135593)

      not sure how they could effectively enforce a law that bans steganography. what are they gunna do? inspect every cat pic on the internet for possible hidden messages? what if they find something? they gunna arrest a 16 year old girl on terrorist charges because their super-awesome steganography-detection algorithm throws up a positive on her favebook selfie?