I was just asking this on Twitter -- every defender of the NSA program says they're "just looking for patterns."

I know what looking for patterns means in real life. I do not know what it means as far as higher mathematics and large databases. And few seem to be interested in explaining -- the NSA's defenders don't, choosing a euphemism rather than saying "data-mining." At least if they said "data-mining" we could look that up and see what it's about.

The media doesn't. Obama has settled on a vague euphemism to describe this and so the media decides he knows best. If Obama thinks it's best not to explain to the public, then the media will follow his lead.

As someone who's not on the full-on Libertarian pole on this issue, my own take on it will be fact-specific. That is, I could envision scenarios where I might support this, and I can imagine scenarios where I would strongly oppose it. The details, then, are important to me.

They're not important to some -- full Libertarians are ideologically against this, no matter what the actual process might be; and Obama partisans are of course now the foremost advocates for an intrusive surveillance state, no matter how intrusive that surveillance might be.

But to some of us, the on-the-fencers, we really need to know what the hell exactly it is we're talking about before we can render any judgment.

I am just coming to this, but I'll link two articles (and a third as a bonus) about data-mining.

This clever, cute piece pretends to be written from the point of view of one of King George III's intelligence agents based in Boston circa 1770, and uses just one tiny snatch of information -- real historical records of what clubs certain Colonial trouble-makers belonged to -- and then uses data-mining techniques using her Difference Engine (mechanical, primitive computer) to determine that one suspected Traitor called Paul Revere is absolutely central in terms of the "connections" between the trouble-makers, and scores near the very top of the list in terms of his connections to people who themselves have a lot of connections. Per this simple data-mining, this Royal Intelligence Report points to Paul Revere as a likely high-ranking leader of a Colonial "terrorist cell."

This Forbes piece looks at Target's data-mining figuring out that a young female customer was pregnant before her family did. Based on data-mining, they had seen a pattern: Woman buys unscented lotions and supplement like magnesium, and then, four months later, starts shopping for a crib and baby clothes. Seeing that one particular woman was buying unscented lotions and magnesium, they sent her a flier offering her great deals on cribs and strollers, which made her dad pretty angry, as he thought Target was encouraging her to get pregnant.

A few weeks after angrily complaining to Target, he apologized to the store, stating that perhaps there were a few things going on under his roof that he wasn't previously apprised of.

Now, that article in turn is just a digest of a single anecdote from a much-longer New York Times piece on corporate marketing data-mining and its power, which runs nine pages, and which I have not had a chance to read yet. (But will. But I thought I should get this up. Why should you wait on me, if you're interested?)

Obviously these meager little hints are the beginning of knowledge, not the end of it, but I did think it was about time I started to learn exactly what these people mean when they say they're "looking for patterns."

And Wikipedia, Of Course: It's written in that Wikipedia way, but I imagine I'll be referring to this too as I try to figure out what we're actually talking about here.

And here's an official government document about the technique, which I assume, being authored by the government, is primarily designed to hide information rather than reveal it.

Posted by: Ace at 11:10 AM | Comments (324)
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This is actually shocking. The biggest case of political corruption in decades and the head of the FBI doesn't know how many agents he's assigned to it nor who is heading up the investigation.

He literally knows nothing. Obviously he could know these things, were he actually interested in the case.

Plainly he is not, and when the boss doesn't care about something, the employees quickly get that sense of it and comport themselves to the boss' actual feelings.

[Update JohnE.] Related: FBI hasnÂ’t contacted a single tea party group in IRS probe, groups say. more...

Posted by: Ace at 10:15 AM | Comments (401)
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Apologies for my late posting of this week's edition, going back to the regular Wednesday schedule this week.

This edition will feature objects best viewed from a dark sky site. To best appreciate most of the features discussed in the Milky Way Challenges, I recommend visiting a site colored at least green zone or better, blue/grey/black preferred, on the map and link below.

Milky Way observing runs by the same rules as deep sky object observing: wait for a new moon, or when the moon isn't up to brighten the sky. Use red-LED lighting to preserve night vision. Allow your eyes to adjust at least thirty minutes before observing. Avoid ingesting alcohol or narcotics as these will interfere with your vision.

Ready? Read on. more...

Posted by: CAC at 03:37 PM | Comments (123)
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No more secrets?

Some of this I approve of, such as Microsoft tipping off the government about bugs and hack-exploits shortly before it widely disseminates patches to fix those bugs. This permits the government a short period of time to exploit the security holes in terrorists' or foreign officials' computers before they're fixed.

But I don't know the extent of it. And I don't know what the government gets in return.

Thousands of technology, finance and manufacturing companies are working closely with U.S. national security agencies, providing sensitive information and in return receiving benefits that include access to classified intelligence, four people familiar with the process said.

These programs, whose participants are known as trusted partners, extend far beyond what was revealed by Edward Snowden, a computer technician who did work for the National Security Agency. The role of private companies has come under intense scrutiny since his disclosure this month that the NSA is collecting millions of U.S. residentsÂ’ telephone records and the computer communications of foreigners from Google Inc (GOOG). and other Internet companies under court order.

Many of these same Internet and telecommunications companies voluntarily provide U.S. intelligence organizations with additional data, such as equipment specifications, that donÂ’t involve private communications of their customers, the four people said.

Makers of hardware and software, banks, Internet security providers, satellite telecommunications companies and many other companies also participate in the government programs. In some cases, the information gathered may be used not just to defend the nation but to help infiltrate computers of its adversaries.

Microsoft Corp. (MSFT), the worldÂ’s largest software company, provides intelligence agencies with information about bugs in its popular software before it publicly releases a fix, according to two people familiar with the process. That information can be used to protect government computers and to access the computers of terrorists or military foes.

...

The extensive cooperation between commercial companies and intelligence agencies is legal and reaches deeply into many aspects of everyday life, though little of it is scrutinized by more than a small number of lawyers, company leaders and spies. Company executives are motivated by a desire to help the national defense as well as to help their own companies, said the people, who are familiar with the agreements.

Most of the arrangements are so sensitive that only a handful of people in a company know of them, and they are sometimes brokered directly between chief executive officers and the heads of the U.S.Â’s major spy agencies, the people familiar with those programs said.

One thing that might be surprising to people is that there has long been a lot of cooperation between the CIA and private corporations in the tech area. The CIA's gadget shop, for example, would often go to private companies with specific needs, and private companies would put their engineers on the job to make them, say, a very miniaturized camera, or a battery that lasted for years (to power a hidden microphone and transmitter planted in an official's office), or so on.

In many cases these breakthroughs would then become subject of patents and tech items available to the general public, but only after a certain period of time during which the CIA had exclusive use of the technology.

The popular, but somewhat silly-sounding, idea that the CIA has technology that won't see the light of day for years is actually... true. (Citation: Spycraft: The Secret History of the CIA's Spytechs, from Communism to Al-Qaeda by Wallace, Melton, et al. discusses this. The book is based on declassified documents, and the forward was written by George Tenet, so this book is relatively accurate and not some flight of fancy. )

I'm not entirely sure if I should be alarmed by this because this scary-sounding secret tech alliance between the CIA and private tech corporations has been going on since, I don't know, at least the forties.

Now, sharing citizens' private data is something else again, but... Here's the thing: Google is already spying on you and collecting your information. Google is the world's largest espionage organization. Not the NSA, but Google.

Microsoft is a somewhat smaller one, and Apple, and Amazon, and etc...

I don't know how much more alarmed I should be that the government is recording my data when practically every large tech company on earth is already doing it.

I Wonder if There are Secret Patents and a Secret Patent Office. I think there must be. Patents are public. That's the point of them -- in exchange for an inventor voluntarily telling the world how his device works, and adding to the world's net wealth of technological knowledge, he receives a government-granted right of exclusive use of the patent for a period of years. After that period, the patent lapses, and now anyone can use it.

But if a corporation is doing work for the CIA, and they create a patentable innovation, they surely would want a patent on that. The trouble is, they can't get a public patent. The whole point of the CIA's request for a super-long-lasting tiny battery is that they don't want the world to know they have such things.

So I wonder -- and I think it must be the case -- that somewhere in the law, or perhaps some secret Executive Order, there's a provision that says corporations' will get the benefit of the patent without publicly disclosing it, and that their official patent application -- when they seek it, after the CIA has used it for some years -- will be back-dated to reflect the actual date of invention.

Not sure how this would work. Gotta be going on, though.

Posted by: Ace at 09:24 AM | Comments (261)
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So, apparently Kids These Days are going bananas with the sexting and the sexpix and so on. But maybe some have learned that Gee, that picture can be shared with millions, and will last forever. So, then, this might result in less naked photos being sent.

And that can't be allowed to happen.

Enter the tech guys. They've created a new application that causes a photo to disappear -- to self-destruct -- in 1-10 seconds (the sender chooses the duration).

The Huffington Post screamed this out as "the Vegas of photosharing... what happens in SnapChat, stays in SnapChat."

So, now all girls can start sending their crazy naked pictures again, right?

Not entirely right. Because... someone can always screencap the picture while it's on the screen.

Good thought though guys.

Apparently another big user of SnapChat is... Bankers. They take pictures of themselves out on the town and send them out. I guess they don't want any permanent record of drinking or silliness.

I wouldn't link ABCNews (which has been almost entirely embargoing all news of Obama's scandals) but they do work Anthony Weiner into the story. more...

Posted by: Ace at 08:33 AM | Comments (238)
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And why the stealth?

Head to the link for evidence of her firing (including the word from a source). Here's why she might have been fired:

As the director of Rulings and Agreements, Paz served as the first line of management in Washington, D.C., that oversaw both the tax-law specialists who provided guidance to agents in Cincinnati reviewing tea-party applications and the Determinations Unit in Cincinnati charged with processing those applications. Paz has served in that position since January 2011, reporting directly to Lois Lerner, with the exception of a four-month period between October 2011 and January 2012 when she reportedly was on maternity leave. Lerner, the director of the IRSÂ’s Exempt Organizations division was on May 23 placed on paid leave.

Paz became the subject of controversy when, in an interview with the House Oversight Committee, she revealed that she participated in an IRS internal investigation about the agencyÂ’s discrimination against tea-party groups and was aware of its findings, which emerged a year before the inspector generalÂ’s report and reached similar conclusions. Paz, however, did not notify Congress of those findings.

Lawmakers have also raised eyebrows at the fact that Paz was present when members of the inspector general’s team interviewed her subordinates during the course of their investigation. In a May 23 Oversight Committee hearing, chairman Darrell Issa expressed his astonishment, saying he was “shocked” to find that Paz “participated in virtually every one of the interrogations or interviews with her own subordinates.” He added: ”In those, of course, one of the questions the IG had to ask was, ‘Did anyone tell you to do this?’ If that question was asked, their own superior was in the room.”

But all of the other malefactors involved were permitted to resign with full benefits or were put on administrative leave with full pay. Why the firing here?

Perhaps because she talked too much.

Just yesterday the committee interviewed Holly Paz, the director of exempt organizations, rulings and agreements, division of the IRS,' Issa said. 'While a tremendous amount of attention is centered about the Inspector General's report, or investigation, the committee has learned from Ms. Paz that she in fact participated in an IRS internal investigation that concluded in May of 2012 - May 3 of 2012 - and found essentially the same thing that Mr. George found more than a year later.'

That is, she wasn't just guilty, she was guilty and talking. And it's the last that's the real sin.

Posted by: Ace at 07:57 AM | Comments (105)
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CBS released a statement:

A cyber security firm hired by CBS News has determined through forensic analysis that Sharyl AttkissonÂ’s computer was accessed by an unauthorized, external, unknown party on multiple occasions late in 2012. Evidence suggests this party performed all access remotely using AttkissonÂ’s accounts. While no malicious code was found, forensic analysis revealed an intruder had executed commands that appeared to involve search and exfiltration of data.

This party also used sophisticated methods to remove all possible indications of unauthorized activity, and alter system times to cause further confusion.

CBS News is taking steps to identify the responsible party and their method of access.

Didn't she say it was both her home computer and her work computer?

Question: Could someone who is more savvy than me, explain this sentence? I've bolded the part that's catching me: "Evidence suggests this party performed all access remotely using AttkissonÂ’s accounts."

They remotely accessed her computer by using her accounts? Eh? Could they be talking about a virtual machine or some kind of remote secure login via, e.g., RSA token? Or could this be something like Windows Remote Assistance?

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 07:06 AM | Comments (313)
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On today's episode, longtime coblogger Rick Tempest joins special guest Jon Gabriel and cobloggers Gabe, Drew M. and John E. to discuss Jan Brewer's newfound love for ObamaCare, military intervention in Syria and the NSA spying scandals. Rick wraps up the podcast with one of his famous book reviews.

Be sure to check out Jon Gabriel's soon-to-be-award-winning new site at ExJon.com and his post on Jan Brewer at Ricochet.com.

Topics in Rick's book review segment: Amusing Ourselves To Death and the related post, "Is Google Making Us Stupid?"

Follow on Twitter:
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Rick Tempest (@RickTempest)
Jon Gabriel (@ExJon)
Gabe (@GabrielMalor)
Drew M. (@DrewMTips)
John E. (@JohnEkdahl)

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Posted by: andy at 03:45 PM | Comments (338)
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• Obama's Africa Trip Could Cost Up To 100 Million
  
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• The Biggest Threat To The Economy Could Come From Outer Space
  
• The White House's Founding Founders
  
• Obama Meets With Newton Families
  
• Think Progress And The English Language
  
• Louie Gohmert Gets Into It With The Head Of The FBI
  
• If Immigration Reform Gets To The House, It Will Pass With Bi-Partisan Support
  
• Boehner Already Weaseling On Immigration
  
• Freedom: The Unfolding Revolution
  
• Erdogan Makes A Conciliatory Move
  
• Republicans Orwellian Doublespeak On Immigration
  
• Kansas Cuts Income Tax Rates
  
• Ex-SS Officer Has Been Living In Minnesota Since 1949
  
• Snowden Used A Thumb Drive To Steal NSA Documents
  
• "Reporters" Laugh At Serious Question To Nancy Pelosi On Abortion
  
• Eye-Ball Licking Is A Thing In Japan
  
• When All You've Got Is A Hammer..
  
• Zimmerman Jury Selection Day 4
  

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Posted by: Pixy Misa at 05:23 AM | Comments (389)
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Finally we have one of those national day thingamajigs that I can support. It's National Bourbon Day. And it's also Flag Day. Which means Google ignores it. And Happy Birthday U.S. Army! Google ignores that too.

Allow me to share with you the Flag Presentation Ceremony during retirements. It can be a very moving presentation and the words are touching. Video below the fold.
more...

Posted by: CDR M at 06:30 PM | Comments (556)
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