Comments on: CIA threat-tracking technology is fascinating, creepy

By: Sebkha

Sebkha — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 09:27:00 +0000

…what do people think the CIA does all day, if not data-mining? Walmart probably knows even more about you.

By: mike

mike — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 21:00:00 +0000

The problem with your analysis is that you’re presuming they really are doing this to catch terrorists…

By: dnebdal

dnebdal — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 21:09:00 +0000

Huh, that’s not much. I’m Norwegian, and we require this:
* Basic theory course.: 17 hours. (A bit less if you’re over 25.)
* Training lessons with a qualified instructor: At least one (to qualify for the next stage), though more are suggested.
* Safety course (handling, closed circuit): 4 hours, plus one more hour with an instructor (to qualify for the next stage)
* Safety course (on the road): Driving in the dark, safe passing, complicated environments, summary: 13 hours, a bit more is recommended.
* Theory test (modestly hard; 2 weeks waiting time if you fail)
* Driving test (quite hard, takes about an hour, some rescheduling delay if you fail.)

Practically speaking this takes some months, and a fair bit of money.

By: Slipgrid

Slipgrid — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 13:52:00 +0000

“it’s interesting because it’s one of the few examples of counter-terrorism work that is actually proactive”

There are many examples of proactive counter-terrorism. The mass arrest after 9/11 were proactive attempts to prevent more attacks. Torture is proactive counter-terrorism. Massive domestic spying is proactive.

By: Baldhead

Baldhead — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 18:47:00 +0000

One thing nobody seems to have mentioned is that even in their fake example, “Fikri” appears to have used, if not his real name, at least the same name for all f these things he’s done. Real terrorists/ criminals don’t do that. So not only does the software apparently require that the terrorist make amateur mistake #1, but also that there be only one person with that name. After all, what if John Michael Smith A is a farmer who needs to buy a lot of fertalizer, John Michael Smith B likes guns a lot and John Michael Smith C is taking flying lessons? and all three live within 150 miles of each other?

By: PathosBill

PathosBill — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 17:57:00 +0000

Palantir is an anagram of anal trip. Just sayin…

(Apologies to Mr. Tolkien, et al)

By: E. Christensen

E. Christensen — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 15:27:00 +0000

I commented on this article on my blog. It’s a bit too long for here, but I hope you find it interesting. The Bloomberg article overlooks a lot of potential for abuse with this system (not to mention the irony of the name Palantir). Seems like another sad step towards the surveillance state.

http://www.eric-christensen.com/2011/11/29/what-if-and-palantir-the-cia-and-fbis-threat-tracking-software/

By: Camp Freddie

Camp Freddie — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 14:38:00 +0000

It’s complete balls.

For this to be attempted, you’d need a database of all ticket sales to all major tourist attractions, all international phone calls, all flight tickets, all bank transfers and all traffic violations made by anyone who has every visited or been born in America. Oh, and all the CCTV footage from every tourist attraction, which someone would have to compare against the passport/driver’s license photos of everyone who has a passport/license. This isn’t possible outside of fantasy land.

Even if it existed, it wouldn’t catch any terrorist who was sensible enough to not use his own phone to call uncle Osama, who paid with cash, took a friend to disneyland and/or remembered to drive 55 on his was to his flying lesson.

Wasn’t Palantir a company created by that bullshitter Aaron Barr who tried to ‘take down’ annonymous? (Google says yes!) And epically failed in doing so? (Ars Technica says yes!)

By: ComradeQuestions

ComradeQuestions — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 12:55:00 +0000

Fikri isn’t real…

Talk about a buried lede.

Sounds like this software is really good at identifying the plots of Tom Clancy novels.

By: sabik

sabik — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 12:02:00 +0000

I don’t do anything illegal and I don’t plan to do anything illegal so I don’t really care what the government knows about my life. … If civil rights got to the point where I feared the government imprisoning me even though I do nothing wrong …

Imprison? Probably not. Subject you to additional screening every time you fly? Quite possibly, if reports are to be believed.

http://boingboing.net/2011/10/31/air-space-a-trip-through-an-airport-detention-center.html

By: Nadreck

Nadreck — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 04:03:00 +0000

And it’s not as if all of the False Positives are going to be accidental. See “The Prisoner” episode “Hammer Unto Anvil” for an idea of the fun that can be had with a Surveillance Society.

By: gwailo_joe

gwailo_joe — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 03:13:00 +0000

All I know is anyone who dares to gaze into the Minas Tirith stone has little to look forward to except a withered and burning pair of old man hands: I’ll pass.

(and of course this ‘security’ concern (besides an excellent choice in name theft) seems little more than snake oil selling profiteers sucking off the Great American Defense Budget Phallus…because the people who sign the checks don’t need to understand the effectiveness of a given system: simply the act of spending taxpayer money means problems are being addressed!)

Unless…that shit actually works. And if a few dumbass terrorists are caught, well then…good show beer pong white guys!

Yet eventually, as always; evil will find a way to commit some devious act; and a scared populace will cry ‘how could you not have Known?!’ And more freedoms will be lost and billions spent trying to close a barn door that the horses have already exited…

By: DirkSJ

DirkSJ — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 03:09:00 +0000

I don’t do anything illegal and I don’t plan to do anything illegal so I don’t really care what the government knows about my life. If they want to look through my bank account, sort it and crunch it, and discover how amazingly tasty I find Sonic…so be it. I will forever be branded a Sonic-liker in their database.

If civil rights got to the point where I feared the government imprisoning me even though I do nothing wrong I would move to another country. Similarly if it was ever appearing that moving to another country would stop being allowed I would move to another country before it stopped being allowed. If neither of those two things occur the sky has not fallen and I really care less what they know.

Actually let me amend that: I want them to know as much as they can, everything really. It reduces the likelihood they will incorrectly flag me.

By: v01ceofre450n

v01ceofre450n — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 02:51:00 +0000

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blowback_(intelligence)

By: scolbath

scolbath — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 01:56:00 +0000

Driver’s ed in my state was *6 hours* of practicum over six days accompanied by a matching amount of ‘classroom’ work [NB: this was in 1983 - no idea if it is still true]. You could take the road test at any time thereafter. So, yea, you could do it in 48h and probably pass. And probably be as good as most people on the road…!

By: Laroquod

Laroquod — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 01:37:00 +0000

“It is when Sauron acquired one that it became dangerous to use one — as it would open the user to the corrupting influence of the embodiment of evil.”

I guess the lesson is, the Palantir (both fictional and real) is only as good or as bad as who’s looking in it.

By: oasisob1

oasisob1 — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 01:09:00 +0000

Is this the same company? http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2011/02/11/palantir-apologizes-for-wikileaks-attack-proposal-cuts-ties-with-hbgary/

By: alconnolly

alconnolly — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 00:42:00 +0000

They don’t validate anything. They make things up with hypothetical nonsense and then wow some government agency with a splashy presentation. Then someone write them a massive blank check! Kaching!!! I doubt it is very effective at anything except destroying civil liberties by throwing up huge numbers of false positives for every real one. How is the scenario did someone getting a speeding ticket flag the system? Only one possible answer, every single encounter with the law or a major institution flags you. It either cannot detect real threats or detects tens of thousands of fake threats for every real one.

By: dnebdal

dnebdal — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 00:12:00 +0000

Two days? Really? Remind me to never go near a road whereever you live.

By: DeargDoom

DeargDoom — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 23:21:00 +0000

It’s a shame Boing Boing doesn’t have some kind of comment of the day feature. Your genius deserves greater exposure.

By: RichaEcke2

RichaEcke2 — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 22:50:00 +0000

We had Mohammed Atta here in Idaho and Bill Clinton burn noticed me for failure to join his communist party, he also said he was gay so I guess that means I supposed to be a Monica for him too. So I knew exactly what Mohammed Atta was like like, a smartass who would do something intense. So I just let these idiot cops and idiot Idaho soldiers push me around and keep silent on Mohammed, I was friends with Mohammed as an agent and simply could have asked him to stand down, he would have done it, but now we have commies in congress and 4 commie presidents in a row, so what the hell good is your stupid software? Take a crap on an agent and watch it hit the fan!

By: Michael Roberts

Michael Roberts — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 22:48:00 +0000

Fail to frolic, go to jail!

By: Daniel

Daniel — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 22:24:00 +0000

I may be wearing my rose colored glasses but wouldn’t it be more productive to try and figure out why terrorism exists and fix the cause?

That would certainly make sense assuming that the purpose of the “War on Terror” is to stop terrorism. It would be counterproductive if the purpose of the “War on Terror” was to erode civil liberties, scare citizens into compliance, serve as a pretext for military adventurism, justify ubiquitous surveillance, create opportunities for government graft and corruption, funnel money into military and intelligence contractors, or any combination of those goals.

By: travtastic

travtastic — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 22:23:00 +0000

Simple enough. If you can’t calibrate it, how do you prove it doesn’t work? It’s not a bug!

By: DeargDoom

DeargDoom — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 21:58:00 +0000

I work on a system somewhat similar to Palantir as it is used by PayPal but where the numbers of positives are presumed to be much smaller than in PayPal’s data set.

To my knowledge we have a 100% false positive rate to date. So apart from investigating a large amount of false positives we also presumably missed all activity we were trying to detect.

By: xenphilos

xenphilos — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 21:42:00 +0000

I’m all for better intelligence tools given they respect your civil rights and are evidence-based. This fails on both counts.

By: AirPillo

AirPillo — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 21:23:00 +0000

They certainly score points for knowing how to pick an appropriate name.

By: Daniel

Daniel — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 21:22:00 +0000

Tangentially relevant:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/22/opinion/the-umbrella-man.html

He’s holding up an open, black umbrella on a warm, sunny day in Dallas. A few moments after he’s passed by the president’s limousine the president is shot dead. Gotta be part of a sinister conspiracy, right?

Well, no…

By: Marc45

Marc45 — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 21:11:00 +0000

We got a call from an FBI guy at my company a while ago. It was clear that he was alerted by their database software. There wasn’t anything to be found so this begs the question of false positives and how many resources they use up.

I may be wearing my rose colored glasses but wouldn’t it be more productive to try and figure out why terrorism exists and fix the cause?

By: Antinous / Moderator

Antinous / Moderator — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 21:03:00 +0000

The Palantir were magical communication devices. They were used for good and are a kind of Elvish family heirloom.

They were made by Fëanor, and we all know where that inevitably leads.