11–20 of 83 posts
In my mind, the erosion of privacy and freedom - some of the most vaunted principles of the West - is the ultimate triumph of terrorist organizations like ISIS and Al-Qaeda. They can't beat us by strength of arms, so instead they're stunting our culture.
In my mind, the erosion of privacy and freedom - some of the most vaunted principles of the West - is the ultimate triumph of terrorist organizations like ISIS and Al-Qaeda. They can't beat us by strength of arms, so instead they're stunting our culture.
Yep, its like poisons that kill you by triggering an overreactive histamine response. The body's zealous desire to protect itself is precisely what kills it.
The real problem is flagging 0.2% of the population is useless when 0.00001% of the population is terrorists. If everything works perfectly your people end up investigating 1,000 innocent people in a row which trains them that everything is a false positive. The 9/11 hijackers and the Boston marathon bombers where both flagged yet the attacks still happened in large part because there was simply far to much noise fro…
> The 9/11 hijackers and the Boston marathon bombers where both flagged yet the attacks still happened because there was simply far to much noise and not enough signal. I've never read that this was a typical "noise": "NBC News said the Russian intelligence agency FSB cabled the FBI about its concerns in March 2011, warning that Tsarnaev was known to have associated with militant Islamists." http://www.reuters.com/ar…
That's the noise he's talking about. The reason you can't "prevent" terrorism, is because there are way too many people who "act a certain way", whatever that way may be. This isn't helped by the fact that agencies like TSA and whatnot have huge lists or vague descriptions of what describes "suspicious behavior" that pretty much cover everyone who goes through the airport.
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20141024/14222128933/guide...
That's noise. You're giving these agents exponentially more factors to consider that makes it impossible for them to find the real terrorist. It really is "making the haystack bigger" (as a counter-argument to NSA's opinion that mass surveillance helps them "find the needle in the haystack").
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yep, its like poisons that kill you by triggering an overreactive histamine response. The body's zealous desire to protect itself is precisely what kills it.
I like that analogy. Can you give an example of a specific poison that does that?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The 9/11 hijackers and the Boston marathon bombers where both flagged yet the attacks still happened because there was simply far to much noise and not enough signal. I've never read that this was a typical "noise": "NBC News said the Russian intelligence agency FSB cabled the FBI about its concerns in March 2011, warning that Tsarnaev was known to have associated with militant Islamists." http://www.reuters.com/ar…
I think he meant it in the sense that "we have 10,000 other people who are associated with militant Islamits in our database, why should we care about these guys?" That's the noise he's talking about. The reason you can't "prevent" terrorism, is because there are way too many people who "act a certain way", whatever that way may be. This isn't helped by the fact that agencies like TSA and whatnot have huge lists or v…
"And for who even Russians spent their energy to notify us"?
I'd expect that most of the 10,000 others aren't on the list because Russians notify the FBI. Or you know more than I do, and I'd be glad to learn.
Or maybe the warning was ignored because of the Tsarnaev's uncle?
http://backchannel.al-monitor.com/index.php/2013/04/5090/for...
Interestingly, the "Terrorist Watch List" reached 1 million in 2009:
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/washington/2009-03-10-wa...
It seems your estimate was two orders of magnitude off.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yep, its like poisons that kill you by triggering an overreactive histamine response. The body's zealous desire to protect itself is precisely what kills it.
I like that analogy. Can you give an example of a specific poison that does that?
In my mind, the erosion of privacy and freedom - some of the most vaunted principles of the West - is the ultimate triumph of terrorist organizations like ISIS and Al-Qaeda. They can't beat us by strength of arms, so instead they're stunting our culture.
So it's beside the point to them. Let's say someone wants your money, so in fear, you stop spending your money, stop bringing your wallet with you, the thief doesn't care about that, what they want is to take your money, ultimately.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The gp isn't calling that noise, it's the thousands of other things that they track that don't lead to anything that are noise.
And my argument is that the Boston bomber warning from the Russian authorities doesn't appear like a typical "noise," at last for somebody just reading the news, like me. I admit I don't know how many such warnings come from Russia, but I doubt it's really something overwhelming, especially compared to collecting every phone record of everybody, if you know more I'm surely interested.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yep, its like poisons that kill you by triggering an overreactive histamine response. The body's zealous desire to protect itself is precisely what kills it.
I like that analogy. Can you give an example of a specific poison that does that?
The real problem is flagging 0.2% of the population is useless when 0.00001% of the population is terrorists. If everything works perfectly your people end up investigating 1,000 innocent people in a row which trains them that everything is a false positive. The 9/11 hijackers and the Boston marathon bombers where both flagged yet the attacks still happened in large part because there was simply far to much noise fro…