The CIA is everywhere in the media. Now, according to Wired, here's the newest wrinkle. In-Q-Tel, the investment arm of the CIA, is putting cash into Visible Technologies to spy on social networks.
Who is being spied upon? Visible Technologies is souring "open source intelligence," information that is publicly available to survey the content on such sites as TV shows, newspaper articles, blog posts, online videos and radio reports generated every day.
Visible crawls over half a million sites a day and scans over 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.)
It gets better. Visible gets feeds of what is being said, plus ratings on whether posts are positive or negative, neutral or opinionated, influential or not.
What is even scarier is whether of not the information gathered could be used for unauthorized domestic investigations or operations.
Is the CIA invading your "right to privacy" by monitoring what you say and talk about in the media?
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
10-21-2009 @ 5:31PM
clikdawg said...
Fascinating.
But if I was a truly dedicated and cost-conscious spook, I would simply put it 'round that Big Brother was monitoring half a million sites a day (maybe this one!) in hopes that the very thought would curtail any un-pro Administration chatter and put a damper on expressions of dissent --
Kinda like the fake traffic cameras at stop lights: You don't know which are the real ones, so maybe you think twice about cruisin' through that red ...
In any case, I wish a lot of luck to the spies who have to wade through a million or so assorted and rated rants, raves and considered opinions a day -- I myself can manage about ten comments (including my very own deathless prose) before my eyes glaze over and my brain starts to shimmy and shudder and my feet begin to carry me downstairs to the fidgidator for a cool pop and a meatloaf sammich, so I know what you guys are up against.
Keep scannin' them Key Words, y'all -- it's America's last, best hope for Real Security In Our Time!