Wired magazine reported on its website yesterday afternoon that the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency has bought a big stake (no price revealed) in a software firm that specializes in monitoring social media like Twitter, Flickr and YouTube.
Oct 20, 2009
And now back to the CIA and Twitter.<br>
<br>
Wired magazine reported on its website yesterday afternoon that the
U.S. Central Intelligence Agency has bought a big stake (no price
revealed) in a software firm that specializes in monitoring social
media like Twitter, Flickr and YouTube.<br>
<br>
The company is called Visible Technologies and the CIA bought in through its investment arm, In-Q-Tel, according to wired.com.<br>
<br>
Up until now, Visible Technologies has been snooping through the
Internet mainly for commercial clients, but now it looks like the U.S.
government is becoming a client, a client with a lot of clout and the
resources to push Visible Technologies in directions it wants explored
and expanded.<br>
<br>
Visible Technologies is a very profitable company, so Big Brother is
not only watching you, listening to you, and reading what you/I write -
he's also making a profit doing it now.<br>
<br>
Here's a bit of what wired.com has to say:<br>
<br>
"It's part of a larger movement within the spy services to get better
at using "open source intelligence" - information that's publicly
available, but often hidden in the flood of TV shows, newspaper
articles, blog posts, online videos and radio reports generated every
day.<br>
<br>
"Visible crawls over half a million web 2.0 sites a day, scraping more
than a million posts and conversations taking place on blogs, online
forums, Flickr, YouTube, Twitter and Amazon. (It doesn't touch closed
social networks, like Facebook, at the moment.) Customers get
customized, real-time feeds of what's being said on these sites, based
on a series of keywords."<br>
<br>
So be careful when you write online: "I'm <strong>terrorized</strong> that Johnny Depp's next movie will be a <strong>bomb</strong>. He's <strong>blown</strong> a few opportunities, but for the most part his output has been a <strong>mecca</strong> of interesting work in a <strong>worldwide conspiracy</strong> of cinematic mediocrity." Visible Technologies will be red-flagging your words and passing info on to the CIA.<br>
<br>
Back to wired.com:<br>
<br>
"In-Q-Tel says it wants Visible to keep track of foreign social media,
and give spooks "early-warning detection on how issues are playing
internationally," spokesperson Donald Tighe tells (wired.com's) Danger
Room.<br>
<br>
"Of course, such a tool can also be pointed inward, at domestic
bloggers or tweeters. Visible already keeps tabs on web 2.0 sites for
Dell, AT&T and Verizon. For Microsoft, the company is monitoring
the buzz on its Windows 7 rollout. For Spam-maker Hormel, Visible is
tracking animal-right activists' online campaigns against the company."<br>
<br>
Jeez, I don't know which bothers me more - the CIA reading what I write
or Hormel. It's just creepy that the company that makes Spam (the
original meat mush in a can, not the e-mail variety) is paying big
money to track what its "enemies" are saying.<br>
<br>
And now that I've mentioned Hormel's name, I guess I'm on their list
too. Well, basically Hormel is welcome to read whatever nasty things I
write about them. (Just based on knowing Hormel hired Visible
Schmisible, I think Hormel should be ashamed of itself - shame! shame!
on the makers of mush meat). And the CIA is welcome to read whatever I
write too - I never expected anything else. I've always worked on the
principle that anything I put on paper or a computer has a chance of
being public.<br>
<br>
And that's part of the joy of living in a free (relatively speaking)
society. I can say what I think and nobody shoots me for it - so far.
(I must confess I wrote some purposefully inflammatory - and false -
things in a Facebook e-mail to my friend Woody McGee this afternoon
just to see what happens, even though Facebook is supposedly
off-limits.)<br>
<br>
If the CIA wants to read what I have to say, they're welcome.<br>
<br>
But I'm not sure everyone else out there is as generous as I am.
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