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Well, duh.

Submitted by bsfootprint on Wed, 02/01/2012 - 18:10
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First, we have The Onion Facebook-CIA faux-expose.

Now this:

In February 2011, the Department of Homeland Security announced that the agency planned to implement a program that would monitor media content, including social media data. The proposed initiatives would gather information from "online forums, blogs, public websites, and messages boards" and disseminate information to "federal, state, local, and foreign government and private sector partners." The program would be executed, in part, by individuals who established fictitious usernames and passwords to create covert social media profiles to spy on other users. The agency stated it would store personal information for up to five years.
[...]
The records reveal that the DHS is paying General Dynamics to monitor the news. The agency instructed the company to monitor for "[media] reports that reflect adversely on the U.S. Government, DHS, or prevent, protect, respond government activities."
[...]
The DHS instructed the company to "Monitor public social communications on the Internet." The records list the websites that will be monitored, including the comments sections of [The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, the Huffington Post, the Drudge Report, Wired, and ABC News.]"

Source: EPIC v. Department of Homeland Security: Media Monitoring via British Tourists Arrested in the U.S. for Tweeting (Bruce Schneier)

All I can say is... what did you expect?

Sources: 
EPIC v. Department of Homeland Security: Media Monitoring (epic.org)
British Tourists Arrested in the U.S. for Tweeting (www.schneier.com)
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Submitted by bsfootprint on Mon, 01/23/2012 - 09:12
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THIS. IS. FUNNY. (Or is it?)

View video

Via Bruce Schneier

Addendum

Privacy? What privacy?

View video

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The death of the telephone: I won't miss it.

Submitted by bsfootprint on Sat, 03/19/2011 - 10:00
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The New York Times announces the lingering death of the telephone as a primary communications tool.

I've always found the telephone to be an annoyance, interrupting the daily flow, and putting the caller in charge. As Miss Manners (via the New York Times) points out:

Phone calls are rude. Intrusive. Awkward. “Thank you for noticing something that millions of people have failed to notice since the invention of the telephone until just now,” Judith Martin, a k a Miss Manners, said by way of opening our phone conversation. “I’ve been hammering away at this for decades. The telephone has a very rude propensity to interrupt people.”

Continuing, the dynamic duo (NYT/Miss Manners) point out the glaringly obvious:

Though the beast has been somewhat tamed by voice mail and caller ID, the phone caller still insists, Ms. Martin explained, “that we should drop whatever we’re doing and listen to me.”

Roger that. The telephone puts the caller in charge! Ring! Ring! Respond! Pavlov would be proud!

Nails in the coffin

The combination of caller I.D. features, voice mail, and the rise of digital text communications (think e-mail, texting, tweeting, farcebook FaceBook) has put a serious dent in the popularity (ubiquity?) of the telephone as a primary communication mechanism. Call screening is de rigueur for anyone with even a lightly-loaded schedule.

Though a dwindling number of people may prefer the 'talk time' one gets from using the telephone, for most people, the ringing telephone is a bother, viewed with a combination of suspicion and dread: Is it another damn telemarketer? Or a family emergency? The caller I.D. display sorts it out in a hurry, and having the ability to screen calls is wonderfully liberating.

Fixing the telephone's main shortcoming

We can train the telephone to ring only if the caller is 'white listed'–a known and trusted caller–all others go straight to voice mail. That'd be my dream phone, and I know you can buy call screening devices or telmarketing call blockers on the intrawebz.

But why are such devices relegated to niche use? Why would anyone want a promiscuous telephone that accepts disruptions from every drive-by caller? In a sane world, previously unknown callers should go straight to voice mail, no ringing required! And that is the only thing that can save the telephone from its popularity tailspin. I await the next generation of truly smart phones, with built-in caller white listing.

The era of humans running to catch the phone is over. How long before the the telephone (as we know it) is truly dead?

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Twitter Bot responds to climate skeptics

Submitted by bsfootprint on Thu, 11/04/2010 - 07:03
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Automated responses to climate catastrophe skeptics on Twitter? Sure, why not.

Nigel Leck, a software developer by day, was tired of arguing with anti-science crackpots on Twitter. So, like any good programmer, he wrote a script to do it for him.

The result is the Twitter chatbot @AI_AGW. Its operation is fairly simple: Every five minutes, it searches twitter for several hundred set phrases that tend to correspond to any of the usual tired arguments about how global warming isn't happening or humans aren't responsible for it.

It then spits back at the twitterer who made that argument a canned response culled from a database of hundreds. The responses are matched to the argument in question -- tweets about how Neptune is warming just like the earth, for example, are met with the appropriate links to scientific sources explaining why that hardly constitutes evidence that the source of global warming on earth is a warming sun.

The article is interesting for its use of ad hominem derogatory terms describing AGW/catastrophic climate change skeptics: anti-science nonsense, crackpots, tired arguments. Ahem.

The database began as a simple collection of responses written by Leck himself, but these days quite a few of the rejoinders are culled from a university source whom Leck says he isn't at liberty to divulge.

So, an unknown university source is collaborating in an effort to auto-respond to climate change skeptics? Very interesting, indeed.

Just another reason to be skeptical of tweets... Are you engaging a human being, or an automated agent? I can't imagine it would be difficult to know you're dealing with a bot -- the 'Eliza-like responses' should be a dead-giveaway. Continue reading or add a comment»

Sources: 
Chatbot Wears Down Proponents of Anti-Science Nonsense (www.technologyreview.com)
Twitter Bot Proves AGWers’ Mindless Attitude, Explains Their Vast Numbers Among The Educated Classes (omniclimate.wordpress.com)
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Notre Dame student dies shortly after tweeting about his precarious situation

Submitted by bsfootprint on Thu, 10/28/2010 - 13:16
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This would be funny if it wasn't so sad. A Notre Dame student tweeted about high winds and scary conditions atop a scissor lift, moments before being killed when the lift toppled:

A Notre Dame student killed Wednesday in a tower collapse tapped out two chilling Twitter posts before his fatal 30-foot plunge.

Note to self: if it's dangerous atop a tower, first climb down, then tweet about it.

Sources: 
Declan Sullivan, Notre Dame student killed after video tower collapse, tweeted twice before fall (www.nydailynews.com)
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