{"id":114894,"date":"2014-04-28T14:34:30","date_gmt":"2014-04-28T14:34:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=114894"},"modified":"2014-04-28T14:34:30","modified_gmt":"2014-04-28T14:34:30","slug":"pre-crime-systems-now-actively-monitoring-internet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/latest-news\/pre-crime-systems-now-actively-monitoring-internet\/","title":{"rendered":"Pre-Crime Systems Now Actively Monitoring The Internet"},"content":{"rendered":"

With revelations that the National Security Agency has collected some20 trillion phone calls and emails<\/a>\u00a0via an expansive nationwide surveillance network, most Americans have already come to the realization that everything they do is being monitored.<\/p>\n

But many shrug off Big Brother\u2019s prying eyes by suggesting that, since they aren\u2019t doing anything wrong, they have nothing to worry about.<\/p>\n

That may have been true several years ago, but the digital surveillance systems of today are far more advanced than most people understand. No longer are these machines simply recording the data and storing them in some historical archive to be pulled at a later date should the government ever have reason to take a closer look at your personal life.<\/p>\n

The next generation of systems are being used to\u00a0actively<\/em>\u00a0monitor your digital interactions, surfing habits, conversations and daily sentiment in an effort to predict your future behavior. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the systems currently operating within the social media sphere.<\/p>\n

Researchers at the University of Virginia funded by the U.S. Armyrecently demonstrated<\/a>\u00a0that they can not only gather information from your personal Twitter account just like the NSA, but also aggregate and analyze that information with advanced predictive algorithms designed to determine what you\u2019re going to do next. In this case, the researches focused specifically on predicting crime by individuals, as well as in crime \u201chot spots\u201d around the country.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the kicker. The algorithms being used don\u2019t just look for obvious keyword phrases associated with criminal activity like \u201cI\u2019m going to kill you\u201d or \u201cmeet me later and we\u2019ll give him a beat down,\u201d but focus in on routine activities, geo-location, and aggregate historical information to calculate the chance of a particular individual being involved in a crime at some point in the future.<\/p>\n

Researchers at the University of Virginia demonstrated\u00a0tweets\u00a0could predict certain kinds of\u00a0crimes\u00a0if the correct analysis is applied.<\/p>\n

A research paper published in the scientific journal Decision Support Systems last month said the analysis of geo-tagged tweets\u00a0can be useful in predicting 19 to 25 kinds of crimes, especially for offenses such as stalking, thefts and certain kinds of assault.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The results are surprising, especially when one considers that people rarely tweet about crimes directly, said lead researcher Matthew Gerber of the university\u2019s Predictive Technology Lab.<\/p>\n

Gerber said\u00a0even tweets that have no direct link to crimes may contain information about activities often associated with them.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2026<\/p>\n

Gerber said Twitter data can be relatively easy to use because tweets are publicly available, and many of them are tagged with location information.<\/p>\n

In addition, researchers, themselves, do not need to go into the high-crime areas to study the information.<\/p>\n

Instead, \u201cI send our algorithms to these locations and see what people are talking about,\u201d Gerber said.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cThe computer algorithm learns the pattern and produces a prediction.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

The study was funded by the US Army, which Gerber said uses similar techniques to determine threats in places such as Iraq and Afghanistan.<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It\u2019s no surprise then, that police departments all over the country are interested in the new technology. The New York Police Department has already showed asked for a demonstration.<\/p>\n

To give you an idea of how this technology can be used to not only predict traditional crimes but domestic terrorism related activity, consider an earlier report out of Auburn, NY which indicates that the Department of Homeland Security is asking local businesses to\u00a0keep an eye out for terrorists<\/a>\u00a0going so far as to provide retailers with ashopping list of possible items a terrorist might purchase<\/a>\u00a0such as MRE\u2019s (Meals Ready to Eat), flashlights and other products readily available at local surplus shops and camping stores. The implications of these new algorithms, which will be taught that anyone discussing the purchase or ownership of these types of items should be flagged for review and visited by Homeland Security personnel as a person of interest, are staggering.<\/p>\n

With the definitions for domestic terrorism being expanded to include everyone from kids\u00a0making gun-like gestures<\/a>\u00a0with their hands to Americans\u00a0joining a large protest against government<\/a>\u00a0over-reach, it\u2019s only a matter of time before just about every American with a gripe or opposing view is flagged, investigated and incarcerated for a \u201ccrime\u201d that they \u201cmay\u201d commit in the future.<\/p>\n

Though the notion may seem far fetched to some, this technology is being designed for a reason. Given the ever expanding intervention and interference of government into our lives on every level by way of relentlessly supplanting our protections under the U.S. Constitution, are we to believe these developing technologies won\u2019t be used strike fear and compliance into the hearts and minds of Americans?<\/p>\n

\n

\n

by Mac Slavo at\u00a0www.SHTFplan.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With revelations that the National Security Agency has collected some20 trillion phone calls and emails\u00a0via an expansive nationwide surveillance network, most Americans have already come to the realization that everything they do is being monitored. But many shrug off Big Brother\u2019s prying eyes by suggesting that, since they aren\u2019t doing anything wrong, they have nothing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":114895,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-114894","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-latest-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114894","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=114894"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114894\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/114895"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=114894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=114894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=114894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}