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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.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Saturday January 17 2015, @09:38AM
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
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
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
Agreed 100%. We would be years more advanced than we are now. We might even have healthy markets.