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NSA domestic Spying and data mining

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There has been a lot of talk about the NSA domestic spying. The fact that AT&T Sprint, and others have been sending internet traffic, and phone calls to the NAS is not in Doubt. The issue is what they are doing with the data and phone calls.

Data mining is problematic, and probably always will be. The problem has to do with reducibility of content, and decisive targeting of probable results sets. In business, data mining focuses on business issues that can be, more or less, narrowed down. Discovering the percentage of persons with blue eyes who purchase your product might be interesting, but probably not useful unless you can link this data to an artifact that Blue eyed individuals purchase more of your product. Discussing terror takes on subtle difference wither you take it from the context of the “the grandchildren terrorizing their grandparents”, or the “we will be terrorizing the Capitol building” . Both word elements will trigger an automated scan, either vocal, or digital, but neither will be useful until connected with pertinent relevant data and reduced to comply with in the context of the target required.
What is the percentage of usage of the word terror in current conversations, and text? And how much reduction does it take to get to something useful? Does your filtration, remove valuable information.

You could simplify this issue by considering the general issues of the IT world. The distilling of facts into information.

I used to work in the Telecom world, and we had a cell phone fraud unit that, in order to catch fraud established a phone pattern recognition system. Not unlike the NSA’s own requirement. But unlike the NSA it’s target was focused on fraud. A requirement the telco applied to good customer service. But unlike the NSA privacy was not an issue. The design of the data mining system dissociated personal identification from phone numbers. The system only established a cell phone calling pattern for each phone number in the system. There was nothing to connect the user of the phone to the number at all. What was being detected was, change.

For everyone, there can be an associated pattern, a group of familiar phone numbers, a common event.
Calling your wife on your way home from work is a pattern. And can, over time, establish a rhythm, a pattern to the phone usage. And should that phone suddenly start calling Brazil, the call no longer fits the established pattern, and would trip a warning, which would be forwarded to a fraud investigator.

This is mealy an example, and evidence that the NSA did not need to acquire the amount and types of data that they requested in order to look for terrorist. They were spying, and listening in on Americans, and for that matter everyone else on the internet.

Time to dig out that old PGP encryption key.

wp-trackback spam, an attack on WordPress?

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I have been fighting a distributed, wp-trackback comment spam ‘attack’. Along with this I have been ‘discovered’ by distinct automated wp-trackback comment spammers. And putting on my tin-foil hat, I thought about that for a minute.

What if this was not just a advertising spam campaign? None of the comment spam I looked at (and I looked at a great deal) was not appealing, nothing I read would encourage a reader of the spam to follow the links. So you could say that the content was ineffective. Just random noise, only made to look like spam.

The second thought was that it was focused on WordPress software, and the bloggers that used WordPress. From what I can gather WordPress has become the choice of bloggers running their own sites.

Yet a third Idea, came to mind in that trackback is one of the important interconnects between websites, and part of the defense of this spam attack, was to break this interconnect.

So, if this were an attack, what would be it’s purpose?

1) an attack by a rival blogger software system competing with WordPress?
2) an attack by someone to herd bloggers on to one of the big blogger sites?
3) an attempt to break the relationships in the blogger community? (political?)
4) a … Well you fill in the next one ….

in any case, I’m taking off the tin-foil hat as it’s making my head hurt.

The wp-trackback spam is a pain in the ass, and it really sucks having to deal with it.

Commentary brings, reaction commentary

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A fellow blogger (Damien) is worrying Am I damaging Ireland’s international reputation? And while I believe he is not damaging it, I find that it is interesting that there is so much reaction.

And I believe, when he quotes the ministers reaction to ‘some commentators’ that those commentators are bloggers. It may be that same reaction, or the general buzz in the internet in general, about the ‘old’ media and the ‘new’ media that may have triggered a writer to interview Cork bloggers on the issues. (Cork being the center of Blogger Heaven) I find it also intriguing that, as I have been commenting about this phenomena, that I managed to get included in the process.

I look forward to having my name, Branedy, in the Garda Síochána blotter Newspaper headlines.

Mass Media, and the Internet’s blogger truth.

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I have been reading plenty about the fears that the Television and print media are loosing ground to the Internet and bloggers as a source of news. And as I posted earlier I knew that I was missing the point as well. The mass media just like most of the reporters now are just repeating ‘stuff’ and not reporting the whole story. They never put the information into context, never illuminate the information into anything other than a mental monotone of words. It’s no wonder that no one listens to them any more, or worse yet listens and then gets it wrong.

Years ago I was on a Jury in a manslaughter case. (Trust me you do not want to be on a jury for capitol offense trial) I always thought that the nature of lawyers was to get at the truth in the case. But both the Defense and the Prosecution did more to withhold the truth than illustrate the truth. Both presented facts, in general terms, but what they left out was all the contextually important facts. We as a jury had to recreate the actions of what had happened. We had sat through a whole week of the trial, and then we spent more than a week deliberating, and analyzing what really went on.

This is what has happened to our very ‘legal’ and proper news in the mass media world. The lawyers have prevented the reporters from doing analysis of the news to prevent liability. So there is no real reporting, only information droplets dispensed from their sources are presented. Always legal deference can be applied. It’s always ‘Their’ information, ‘Their’ facts, or the ‘what your see is what you get’, the camera never lies. ‘We just report the news as we see it.’ And should things like ‘Bias’ be accused, well that’s not even a legal issue. You can’t call them a liar if they DON’T report the facts, only if they report the facts wrong.

And this brings us back to the Blogs. People are seeking the analysis that is missing from the news, they are seeking point, counterpoint. They have the news illustrated and illuminated to make sense of the world. Bloggers on their own are only responsible for their own opinions. Viewers of Blogs usually only visit blogs that generally reflect what the viewer is seeking. They receive the illustration painted in colors that are familiar to them. And if the mass media, afraid of the loss of revenue, seek to regain their viewers. The first place they will have to start is to, fire the lawyers, and get back to news analysis, and proper investigative reporting.

Net Neutrality, and opinions, on Ethics.

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David S. Isenberg is worried that for once he has disagreed with Cory,
Tim Wu and Cory Doctorow on Network Neutrality

Disagreeing with Cory should be common. He’s only another person with an opinion.

As for Net Neutrality regulation, you will never know till you try, if it will work or not.

Anytime congress passes a law, someone’s rights get removed. But would you remove the restriction over which side of the road you drive on?

Many of the restrictions we place on ourselves are based on an understanding of our human nature. We know that we are greedy, we place restrictions on our greed.

Since corporations are treated as a ‘corporate body’ and hence treated in the courts as if the corporation were a human. You must treat that person based upon what you believe that persons ethics are founded on. Since Corporations have no moral soul, the observations of it’s ethical behavior are, that it has no ethics. And hence controls placed on the corporate person are greater than that placed on a human person.

Cory’s problem is that that he personalizes the issues from his own point of view. He believes that as an ethical person, he should be allow to control his own actions. And for the most part he can, except for his tendency to run off at the mouth. But he is not a corporation, who’s only ethic is profit. And has no moral compunction to control that motivation. Laws are passed to provide the moral lessons to corporations.

Automated Blog Spammer at …

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I am currently fending off an automated blog Spammer originating from IP address 65.39.251.54. It appears to be using the WordPress “wp-trackback.php” as it’s vector. I have sent email to the hosting service and the whois holder for this IP range. But no luck yet. I am currently being hit every 2 minutes, which isn’t yet a Denial of Service, but it is coming close.

Update: This spammer now has changed the address to 216.195.47.248 It’s the same Linux system as before, just another address.

UPDATE: Now a regular spammer at 69.31.32.5

PNAC, MySpace, Murdoch and Technorati Search

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I was disturbed the other day that Technorati was returning a different political balance when I searched. It seemed that the entire blogsphere had moved to the right. And I noted that most of the links were in MySpace blogs. I didn’t think too much about it, just that MySpace bloggers might have been very busy on the subject I was searching for.

Then I saw this:
NeoConservatives: Destroying America for Republicans and Democrats alike

and noticed one thing out of place, or rather one person Ruppert Murdoch and I remembered my search results. And remembered that MySpace.com blogspace had been bought by Murdoch. The phrase from the article “Control the International Commons of cyberspace” struck home.

Could Technorati search results be biased to conservative Blogs on MySpace?

Even given the easily availability of my tinhat close to hand. This scared me. I hope it scares you also. Has someone gained control of blog searching. Could they? And is this part of the NeoCon plan?

Update: More interesting things about MySpace Murdoch wants teenagers’…

Political Critical Mass

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In a nuclear reaction, radioactive material is brought together until neutron density increases until critical mass is attained, and ‘boom’, Fission happens.

I think the GOP and the current administration has brought the political climate in the U.S. almost to critical mass. I believe this is getting to that stage by, of all things, reading geek news groups, blogs and message boards.

Geeks are a unique breed, give them enough technology, and they are happy. But lately many of the tech talk sites are degrading into political debates. Well not debates so much, as strangely, they have taken a very anti-republican, anti-adminstration, anti-GOP stance.

When you get stimulated geeks together, you get new technology, fission/fussion reactions. If the politically activated geeks apply themselves, we are going to get new government. And I don’t think the Democrats are going to be any more the winners here than the republicans.

All I can say is it’s going to get very explosive, politically speaking that is.

Information Stressing

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I have noticed over the years that when a big issue appears, or when big issues are in the news over a long time, that people in general tend to become saturated with the subject. They ignore it in favor of mundane trivial subjects. It occurs at a more rapid rate when there is someone, or something confronting the subject in question. It happens even faster when the subject is controversial. Subjects like Religion, Science, politics and War are such subjects. When there is a long running issue, the general population generally duck for cover into non controversial details like gadgets and toys, entertainment, and Hollywood stars, restaurants and food, anything not related to the controversy at hand.

This may be due to the belief that ‘someone’ else is dealing with it. Say a government, or a politician or priest. And that therefore it need not be necessary for themselves to deal with it. Or it may be due to fear of confronting the issues, and either the belief or hope that the matter will just go away.

All of these behaviors are indicative of a generally ignorant population, or of a population completely overwhelmed with information. And that’s the point, I can’t tell the difference.

Blogging is a point in reference, the blogging world will hop on a subject to great illustration and commentary, but like a wave, the focus moves on, crashing on another subject shore.

I have noted such waves in my blogging statistics, when the wave is high, any comment I make on the focus-du-jour brings in traffic. And when I comment, or post an article not in the ‘curl’ of the wave, the traffic diminishes. And while the subject I post might be important (at least to me, or the world as I perceive it), it gets no viewing. It is easier to post trivial things, computer items, trinkets, gadgets subject materials, than it is to post subjects with substance. And I get more traffic dealing with gadgets than with the ‘big’ topic items.

Go figure.

E-mail postage, just cashing in on Spam

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AOL and Yahoo have got to have some nerve, claiming that this will stop spam!
Postage Is Due for Companies Sending E-Mail

The Internet companies say that this will help them identify legitimate mail and cut down on junk e-mail, identity-theft scams and other scourges that plague users of their services. They also stand to earn millions of dollars a year from the system if it is widely adopted.

This is just a way to cash in on e-mail traffic. The spammers will work around this in a week, and will end up billing invalid accounts or valid ones incorrectly. There is nothing in an e-mail packet that can’t be spoofed. Including any ‘accounting’ that might be required.

Given the fact that e-mail has never been a ‘Guaranteed’ protocol in the TCP/IP stack. How would AOL or Yahoo indemnify e-mail? They couldn’t, so they are selling vapor. They could only ensure email delivery within their own systems, and even that would be questionable.

This is more of what the telco’s are already trying to do by having everyone pay double for what they have already paid for. Paying double for bandwidth, pay double for e-mail.

Another Rip-off scam by big business.

The Truth in the Press.

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A very good read at We Hold These Facts about the Washington Post and the Abramoff story.

But what is really at the heart, is Freedom of the Press and Corporate ownership of the ‘Truth’. We can only thank the freedom of the Blogsphere that does not let corporate and political ‘Spin’ destroy the Truth.

And like this gentleman, I hope that they will rise above the corporate corruption of the Truth. And defend a true Freedom of the Press in the form of honest reporting.

Al Gore and Wingnut Bloggers

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I didn’t even have to know that Al Gore had made a great speech, or to know what he said. All I had to do was look at all the Flak that the Right Wing (GOP supported) Blogsphere was putting into the internet about it.

I could only find one link Al Gore: Bush must be probed

And wouldn’t you know, none of the Mass Media seem to have taken any notice that he even gave a speech.

So much for “Fair and Balanced” coverage of the news.