You mean they don't already? That's a bit of a surprise. It's public information.
If they had been given access to private posts, that would be a cause for concern.
FBI to monitor Facebook, Twitter, Myspace
11–20 of 39 posts
Re: FBI to monitor Facebook, Twitter, Myspace
#12I can't imagine the amount of channel noise generated by certain keywords. And for every one you'd have to do a time consuming search through the user's social graph(s).
There should be a function in the scraper that gives each user a unique ID, and retains an instance count of keyword 'hits'. Over time, the user would build up a 'heat rating' and IDs could be sorted by this. That way, people generating keyword noise over and over again could be separated from the general population for a closer look.
Re: FBI to monitor Facebook, Twitter, Myspace
#13P2P social network is the future
Re: FBI to monitor Facebook, Twitter, Myspace
#14Does the fact they specifically include MySpace in Section H, subsection a, in the original Request for Information indicate just how disconnected the people who are writing these are from consumer internet trends?
Re: FBI to monitor Facebook, Twitter, Myspace
#15[deleted]
Re: FBI to monitor Facebook, Twitter, Myspace
#16They have already been doing it for a few years now. I don't think you understand what sort of infiltration software their contractors make. It gets deep fast. They aren't as good as some of the stuff at other three letter agencies, but its getting there.
If only you guys on the West coast knew what gets built here on the East coast...
Re: FBI to monitor Facebook, Twitter, Myspace
#17This seems to be very clearly against Facebook and Twitter's terms, unless they are given permission:
Facebook: "You will not collect users' content or information, or otherwise access Facebook, using automated means (such as harvesting bots, robots, spiders, or scrapers) without our permission." - https://www.facebook.com/legal/terms
Twitter: "You may not do any of the following while accessing or using the Services: (i) access, tamper with, or use non-public areas of the Services, Twitter’s computer systems, or the technical delivery systems of Twitter’s providers; (ii) probe, scan, or test the vulnerability of any system or network or breach or circumvent any security or authentication measures; (iii) access or search or attempt to access or search the Services by any means (automated or otherwise) other than through our currently available, published interfaces that are provided by Twitter (and only pursuant to those terms and conditions), unless you have been specifically allowed to do so in a separate agreement with Twitter (NOTE: crawling the Services is permissible if done in accordance with the provisions of the robots.txt file, however, scraping the Services without the prior consent of Twitter is expressly prohibited)" - https://twitter.com/tos
(edit: typo)
Re: FBI to monitor Facebook, Twitter, Myspace
#18You mean they don't already? That's a bit of a surprise. It's public information. If they had been given access to private posts, that would be a cause for concern.
[deleted]
Re: FBI to monitor Facebook, Twitter, Myspace
#19I'm more interested in seeing what they end up paying for this software when it's built. I'm sure the right couple of geeks from HN could do it in a few months for fairly little; I'm sure the FBI will end up paying many millions.
The FBI would be smart to learn from DARPA and take a prize approach on projects like this. "First company that builds X to our satisfaction will get $1mm." I imagine it'd save them a ton.
Re: FBI to monitor Facebook, Twitter, Myspace
#20Someone else raised this point elsewhere but...so what? Monitoring public information is their job. I'd be disappointed if they weren't monitoring those services. If you post public information, it's publicly consumable, including by government intelligence services. If you have a problem with that, consider that the issue might be your choice to post information publicly that you don't want the FBI to see, rather th…
The difference as far as I can see is that as a startup would I be granted access to all the data? AFAIK facebook terms say I cannot scrape the information and in the past they had forced a hacker to delete the database that was collected by scraping this info.
This sets a dangerous precedent. By letting a government authority to oversee the activity, even if considered public, is still personal. Its a step closer to the cliche - "In Soviet Russia TV watches you"