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This is an ‘always-on’ application for broadband users which simulates someone browsing the internet. It accesses random web pages, occasionally backing up to previously viewed pages, waiting a while to ‘read’ content, clicking on links, generating occasional random searches in your search engine of
choice etc, all with the intent of hiding your actual activity amongst a welter of ‘noise’.
Trackmenot
http://cs.nyu.edu/trackmenot/
"TrackMeNot runs in Firefox as a low-priority background process that periodically issues randomized search-queries to popular search engines, e.g., AOL, Yahoo!, Google, and Bing." [calum, Apr 19 2012]
ECHELON and friends
http://en.wikipedia...gnals_intelligence)
Most of what I know about it is actually here. Secrets never last. [Alterother, Apr 22 2012]
Text Message Brands Quebec Man a Terror Suspect
http://boingboing.n...tivational-tex.html
Yep, echelon is scary. [xaviergisz, Apr 22 2012]
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Annotation:
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About 50% of the time it's going to stumble onto a porn site, as well as confuse the heck out of the MIB's. |
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I like the general idea, and, if THEY were looking through your connection logs manually, it might act as a reasonable obfuscation-tactic. |
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If however, THEY, are using computers, then (depending on implementation) a simple grep, or SELECT * FROM clause would probably be undeterred by such activity. |
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I'm making the assumption here that THEY are only interested in communications to specific users and/or locations/websites and not to other ones such as Party Puffin, which would of course, mean that THEY are missing a trick. |
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One way to do this would be to outsource an obfusticatory browsing sweatshop in some emerging economy, with scores of barely nourished urchins earning fractions of a dollar a day by indolently farting about on the internet. Or you could cajole a dweebish young relation to make this their comp sci dissertation project, and get it for nothing. |
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[zen] No! - the terrorists in the film "Four Lions" used Party Puffin to exchange messages with each other |
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calum, this sweatshop of yours. Are they hiring? |
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Yes, CVs to [calum] Enterprises, Scourie. Oh, now there's a thought. This could be done by way of sneaky peteing your way to getting a feed of your friends/colleagues/total strangers web activity (presumably this is trivial for morally fluid programming types) and using the aggregate of the feed to mask your own web activity. |
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Given the random nature of links in this place, the halfbakery itself could serve as a quick surrogate. |
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So, basically if we all do this then no one would be able to use the internet as a big chunk of the bandwidth would be pulling random material off the net? |
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Watch as humanity does a Denial of Service attack on itself..it might be an improvement. |
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A nice bit of software to insert into your boss's computer, especially if you could customize it to ring every bell in NSA's electronic surveillance unit. Men in back suits would arrive and take the odious man away. |
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The most ingenious bit about Echelon, IMO, is not how
good it is at sifting out tiny little details, but how good it is
at ignoring things that warrant no scrutiny. |
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Is there a difference between those two
things? |
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Um... well, we're a good example. Every day we discuss
something or other that would get alarm bells good and
rung if it were up to human eyes to determine whether red
flag activity were taking place, and every day Echelon
casually glances over at us and shuffles us back into the
'Mostly Harmless' pile. |
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//shuffles us back into the 'Mostly Harmless' pile//
You quite sure of that? |
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But it occurrs to me that I myself am very good at
sifting out tiny details, and completely incompetent
at ignoring things that warrant no scrutiny. So they
probably are quite different abilities. |
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// You quite sure of that? // |
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Yes. I can't publicly tell you how I come by that certainty,
but [8th] can confirm (through different sources) that it's
legitimate. |
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<unwarranted> sp. occurs </unwarranted> |
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//shuffles us back into the 'Mostly Harmless' pile// |
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That's spelled l33t, you n00b! |
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In the interest of pedantic accuracy, I suppose I must ruin
my own fun and go on
to explain that I can't claim to know that sigint data-
sifters like Echelon disregard HB _specifically_; if I asked
the person I know, or if [8th] asked the person(s?) they
know, the answer would be an arched eyebrow and an
incredulous "you know I can't tell you that." What I do know
is that individuals like us and our lovely little forum,
seditious as it may be, do not fall within the scope of their
interest. I wouldn't be surprised to learn we'd been
checked out and vetted, but I'd be equally unsurprised if
we haven't. |
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We're not who they're after. The really scary part is that
they've got a computer program that can tell the
difference between us and the bad guys with no human
involvement, and there's nothing we or anybody else can
do that will fool it. Activity randomization won't even slow
it down. It monitors Internet chatter, it reads email, it
even listens to phone calls and radio transmissions, and it
finds what it's looking for. And no, I haven't had somebody
blowing the wind up me. |
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//And no, I haven't had somebody blowing the wind up me.// You and me both. Man, I miss those days. Pliny, the Elder, one must say, gently toking on tincture of goat's foreskin and hemlock, and then the gentle applilcation. It brings tears to my eyes, as it did back then. |
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//The really scary part is that they've got a computer program that can tell the difference between us and the bad guys// |
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Any evidence that machine intelligence is
reaching
parity with human intelligence is scary, for the
humans, because machine intelligence is
improving
faster than humans'. It implies the AIs are
overtaking
the humans. |
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One could, of course, dispute that this is bad
news
for the humans, but it shouldn't be surprising that
it
frightens them. |
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Scary in the way that for a reasonably well-educated
fiction writer like me we're only a hop, skip, and proverbial
jump from computer programs that predict what we want
them to do and take action without prompting. Not like the
whole 'AI run amok, computers take over the world'
scenario, but at what point does the programming become
_too_ advanced? There easily exists the possibility that we
could overstep our own bounds; yes, they only do what we
tell them to do, but we must be increasingly careful about
what exactly that is. |
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In other words, I'm not suggesting that SkyNet is going to
nuke us, but I am suggesting that (as we did with nuclear
weapons) we could quickly get in over our heads. |
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//We're not who they're after//
Not today, perhaps. |
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I don't know how great governments are at
intelligence disemination.. and suspect there
abilities are most useful to building a case after the
fact. Unless your online conduct i probative of an
offence, I don't think there is much to worry about. |
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That said, I hate targeted ads, and love the idea of
trackmenot for that purpose. |
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What does Echelon do with Aesopian language and
Doublespeak? any ideas? From my experience even
humans have trouble interpreting it with
conviction. |
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//computer programs that predict what we want them to do and take action without prompting// |
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Erm, I remember in the UK the ambulance service just ran all the accident statistics through the machine and were using it to place ambulances where there were likely to be needed...<cuts to me about of try and change light-bulb by standing on rickety chair..glimpses ambulance just pulling up outside the house> |
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Echelon is a very complex system that carries out a
remarkably simple task: search terms and parameters are
entered and it combs every electronic signal
communication to locate the desired words, phrases, and
association. The genius lies in how it is able to prioritize
the results in a way that does not leave mountains of data
to sort through. Exactly how it does this, I don't know. As
far as cryptic references and doublespeak are concerned, I
don't think it has any way of intpreting them. It is, at
heart, a very powerful and clever search engine. |
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After reviewing the wiki, I have discovered to my mild
chagrin that much of
what I was told in confidence about three years ago is now
publicly known or accurately speculated upon. |
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//Exactly how it does this, I don't know.// |
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It's the rise of the machines, I tell you. |
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//Wouldn't fool the government...they're only interested in certain sites//
Ah, but that's part of the point. If such sites are being accessed more often due to random hits then accessing them can no longer be treated, in itself, as evidence of whatever behaviour it is that whoever it is is watching out for. |
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Who watches the watchers who watch the watchers? |
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//the recreational nature of this place would eliminate it from consideration//
Not necessarily. If just one halfbaker were on, for example, a government watch list, then that makes the 'bakery a possible drop-box and all the rest of us potential contacts. |
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//and the playfulness would be perceived as a loathsome distraction in the finality of their plans.// They may have installed a hand drier, or are possibly considering the uses of an automatic bag of sand in their evil plans. |
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//With that argument, everyone on the internet could find themselves on a list of potential contacts, eh.// I think that's the point. If everyone is on the list, what good is the list? |
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There are more than just one list. Every country has
different lists, and those lists are prioritized. There are
lists of 'persons of interest', and there are also so-called
'blind lists' that just contain words, phrases, and topics 'of
interest'. |
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[simpleton] is on the right track; in my reasonably
informed opinion, one of the things that keeps us above
suspicion is that we talk about this stuff freely with no
attempt to conceal our topics or motivation. We can spend
days or weeks discussing explosives both nuclear and
convential, novel new ways to commit various heinous
crimes, hacking computer systems, or deadly biological
agents, but it's all right out in the open and our intent is
clearly abstract and intellectual. None of us are building
dirty bombs in our garages. |
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Another possible reason is that a handful of us have
already been vetted by various agencies (I can think of two
others besides yours truly). In my case, it's simply because
of family connections. I've also worked for a private
security firm at an armed post, meaning I've been
subjected to an intensive background check; I'm sure quite
a few others here have as well, for various reasons.
Anyone who travels overseas on a regular basis has been,
whether they know it or not. Let's face it: we're clean
people. As far as (inter)national security is concerned,
we're a bunch of harmless brainiacs and kooks. |
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// Scary in the way that for a reasonably well-educated
fiction writer like me we're only a hop, skip, and proverbial
jump from computer programs that predict what we want
them to do and take action without prompting // |
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That would be awesome because we keep misinterpreting
thing other people want, not to mention asking of others
things when we, ourselves, are not really sure what we
actually want. |
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[PauloSargaco]; I get that at work sometimes.
There are 3 "options":
What you TELL me you want.
What I interpret "what you want" ie what I THINK you want.
What you ACTUALLY want.
If we're lucky, all 3 align. That doesn't happen often... |
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