Meet Prism's little brother: Socmint
wired.co.uk
Meet Prism's little brother: Socmint
1–10 of 21 posts
Re: Meet Prism's little brother: Socmint
#2I believe underpinning this is a need for new tools to give citizens the ability to ensure good governance. We can watch the watchmen, and we should.
Re: Meet Prism's little brother: Socmint
#3Operating 24 hours a day, seven days a week, a staff of 17 officers in the National Domestic Extremism Unit (NDEU) has been scanning the public's tweets, YouTube videos, Facebook profiles, and anything else UK citizens post in the public online sphere.
The HUGE difference here is the last three words of that paragraph, "public online sphere." They are doing no more then analyzing publicly accessible data just like any other company, specifically advertising and marketing companies, do on a daily basis.
Re: Meet Prism's little brother: Socmint
#4Operating 24 hours a day, seven days a week, a staff of 17 officers in the National Domestic Extremism Unit (NDEU) has been scanning the public's tweets, YouTube videos, Facebook profiles, and anything else UK citizens post in the public online sphere. The HUGE difference here is the last three words of that paragraph, "public online sphere." They are doing no more then analyzing publicly accessible data just like an…
TLDR: This is nothing like Prism. Prism (illegally) accesses private data, NDEU legally accesses data made public.
Re: Meet Prism's little brother: Socmint
#5I would have been more surprised if they WEREN'T doing this.
Re: Meet Prism's little brother: Socmint
#6I don't see anything wrong with this - they are scanning public activity - that's fair game as far as I am concerned, it's fishing through and storing the private stuff that bothers me.
Infact, the more I think about this topic the more I realise it's not the monitoring that bothers me - it's the storage element and the fact they could go back through in years to come and paint whatever picture they can about a person.
Disclosure: I'm British
Re: Meet Prism's little brother: Socmint
#7I don't see anything wrong with this - they are scanning public activity - that's fair game as far as I am concerned, it's fishing through and storing the private stuff that bothers me. Infact, the more I think about this topic the more I realise it's not the monitoring that bothers me - it's the storage element and the fact they could go back through in years to come and paint whatever picture they can about a perso…
Its still a bit creepy. What if a video surveillance van was parked in front of your house/apartment? Sure it would just be watching what anyone else could see. But most people would be bothered by it.
Are they friending people under false pretenses to get access to more info.
Re: Meet Prism's little brother: Socmint
#8Operating 24 hours a day, seven days a week, a staff of 17 officers in the National Domestic Extremism Unit (NDEU) has been scanning the public's tweets, YouTube videos, Facebook profiles, and anything else UK citizens post in the public online sphere. The HUGE difference here is the last three words of that paragraph, "public online sphere." They are doing no more then analyzing publicly accessible data just like an…
TLDR: This is nothing like Prism. Prism (illegally) accesses private data, NDEU legally accesses data made public.
Not quite, PRISM provides access to data legally acquired through mechanisms (like FISA requests) that should ideally not be legal.
Re: Meet Prism's little brother: Socmint
#9I don't see anything wrong with this - they are scanning public activity - that's fair game as far as I am concerned, it's fishing through and storing the private stuff that bothers me. Infact, the more I think about this topic the more I realise it's not the monitoring that bothers me - it's the storage element and the fact they could go back through in years to come and paint whatever picture they can about a perso…
Its still a bit creepy. What if a video surveillance van was parked in front of your house/apartment? Sure it would just be watching what anyone else could see. But most people would be bothered by it. Are they friending people under false pretenses to get access to more info.
Creepy yes, but that's a decision you make using a social network that "things could get creepy".
I think a van parked outside my house would be weird but anyone that lives in a UK city center apartment block essentially lives like that anyway - it's just that the cameras are bolted to lobby ceilings and lamp posts.
The friending thing is an interesting one - could it be argued that that is warrantless searching or, by accepting their friend request, are you allowing the police to monitor you... essentially inviting them in?
Re: Meet Prism's little brother: Socmint
#10So it's just scanning public info, right? What about the creation of fake personas [1]? What if these fake personas posted, commented and attempted to gain more information, or attempted to sway/entrap people?
It seems the line to be crossed from (a bit more than public) surveillance to manipulation is a very very thin line.
[1] http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/06/23/1218189/-HBGary-Pal...