"I AM continually shocked and appalled at the details people voluntarily post online about themselves." So says Jon Callas, chief security officer at PGP, a Silicon Valley-based maker of encryption software. He is far from alone in noticing that fast-growing social networking websites such as MySpace and Friendster are a snoop's dream.
New Scientist has discovered that Pentagon's National Security Agency, which specialises in eavesdropping and code-breaking, is funding research into the mass harvesting of the information that people post about themselves on social networks. And it could harness advances in internet technology - specifically the forthcoming "semantic web" championed by the web standards organisation W3C - to combine data from social networking websites with details such as banking, retail and property records, allowing the NSA to build extensive, all-embracing personal profiles of individuals.
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Comments: 28
i ifind it annoying that they are wasting money filling up hard disks bought with my tax dollars with this stuff. i find it vastly more disturbing that they are trying to access the information like phone calls and encrypted communications that one wishes to keep private.
In researching for a soon to be posted article, I had another look at the Gather profile page to be filled in when joining the site. The information it can generate is a tad concerning. It would be a goldmine for the NSA. Have a look at members' profiles (but not mine).
Magi
As long as they share.
thanks for the reminder that Big Brother is here, Will. I guess next you'll tell me that clicking in my phone means something too, and I should probably stop saying Bush Sucks when I hear it?
When cashiers at stores ask me for my phone number, I pick a number, any number, and they dutifully peck it into their computers. Throws the store's demographics off, hopefully..
if only it was cash. what - a check?
uhhh, yeah... that's m-a-r-t-i-n-c-h-i-l-l.
will, i was running a series of articles for awhile here about rfid vulnerabilities, payment schemes involving fingerprint scans linked straight to your bank account, etc.
there are numerous arby's restaurants in the midwest that now accept visa contactless card payments. pretty sure that anyone with the right equipment in their coat pocket can stand behind you in line and get your info.
still, if that doesn't happen - you've saved about fifteen seconds of time. so there's that...
;p
First of all, few and far between are the posters who are eligible for cash. True, any and all can transfer points to gift certificates with "Gather partners," but even that is murky and mysterious.
For instance, I once heard that Barnes & Noble was a partner, but nowhere do I see a page or a link to any form one could fill out for such a gift certificate. Also, I do not know if Gather holds its gift certificates hostage until you fork over valuable personal information. It seems everyone feels they have a right to your address, TN#, even social security # these days.
Pass on that, brothers. You can keep your silly points, if that's the snooping and possible identity-theft truth of the matter...