6 ms·

The questionnaire seems pretty fair, to be honest. If someone has access to weapons, tried to travel to a terrorist training camp, has mental instability issue

The questionnaire seems pretty fair, to be honest. If someone has access to weapons, tried to travel to a terrorist training camp, has mental instability issues, supports use of violence as well as using religion as a justification for violence and follows all the ISIS social media accounts, I'd be pretty worried. I didn't see any questions about "does the individual holds a significant distrust of government and institutions?" or "does the individual own multiple anarchism books?". All the questions are very specific and practical.

zeroer 10y ago
Using encryption? Seems pretty dubious. Also, camping and survivalism? These seem fairly orthogonal as well.
- ucaetano 10y ago
  There's nothing indicating that any of those factors by itself would make you a person of interest. And I'd guess the FBI would be a really bad service if "uses encryption" or "camping" by itself would be considered as a strong signal. The noise would be too big. Now talk about someone who has a history of violence, takes long camping trips with a large arsenal, suddenly dropped all non-encrypted means of communication and is obsessed about books on chemical warfare and terrorist attacks. If it were your call, would you dedicate attention to that person?
  - arebop 10y ago
    The penalty for misclassifications is higher for false negatives than false positives. In fact, what happens if the FBI exhausts its budget investigating the positives from this classifier? Do they try to improve the classifier accuracy or do they seek a larger budget along with the prestige of playing a bigger role in the War on Terrorism?
  - Sophistifunk 10y ago
    More importantly, it's probably used to screen out people who don't belong. You can be damn sure anybody who is an actual terrorist uses encryption. Most harmless religious camping enthusiasts do not.
    - Godel_unicode 10y ago
      Exactly, think bloom filter. Used to rule out.
    - owenversteeg 10y ago
      Actually, a surprisingly large amount of terrorists do not use encryption (or at least not on purpose.) For a recent example, after news media widely reported that the Paris attackers used encryption, it turned out that they actually did not [0], and instead simply used common messaging apps. That didn't stop the FBI from using the attacks to denounce encryption, of course. In reality, using encryption isn't going to help you all that much if a government entity thinks you're suspicious. It may make it marginally harder for them to be suspicious of you, but that's about it. If they want something, and 'encryption' is in the way, 99.9% of the time they have a way around it. A very relevant, and very hilarious article on this: [1] [0] http://bgr.com/2016/03/22/paris-attacks-iphone-encryption/ http://bgr.com/2016/03/22/paris-attacks-iphone-encryption/ [1] https://www.usenix.org/system/files/1401_08-12_mickens.pdf https://www.usenix.org/system/files/1401_08-12_mickens.pdf
  - zeroer 10y ago
    I don't think camping fits. Take out camping and you get a person with a history of violence, a large arsenal, obsessed with terrorist books. Still pretty scary. Technically speaking I really doubt interest in camping is any higher amongst terrorists than the population.
    - ucaetano 10y ago
      The actual wording is: Has the subject participated in activities that simulate military or operational environments? So motorhome and marshmallows with your family at Big Bear Happy Camp probably wouldn't count, unless you're planning to kill everyone by making them eat s'mores until their blood sugar spikes.
- mehwoot 10y ago
  Presumably none of this is taken in isolation. If all you do is use encryption and camp I doubt they're going to think you're a terrorist.
  - zeroer 10y ago
    Why is camping in there at all? Do terrorists go camping more often than the population average?
    - ThrustVectoring 10y ago
      Perhaps terrorists with camping skills have a higher threat potential? It's not just about P(terrorism | camping) - they also care about the expected value of terrorism plots involving particular suspects. Like, I'm not even sure that terrorists are more likely to be known to own guns. The EV of terrorist plots involving gun ownership are higher, though, so more investigation ought to go there.
      - zeroer 10y ago
        You make a great point about expected value of damage done, rather than focusing on the probability of an attack. But I think an attack with guns has a low upper limit on the number of people you can kill (maybe around 100, plus or minus?) before an armed response is mobilized. Things like nuclear, chemical, biological attacks or bombs bringing down buildings scare me more from a statistical standpoint.
        ThrustVectoring 10y ago
        I'm pretty sure that P(bombs|guns) > P(bombs), so my point stands. It's a mix of guns being dangerous, as well as gun possession being evidence of possession of other dangerous things.
        zeroer 10y ago
        Something like 30% of US households own guns. I'm not so sure gun ownership is higher amongst terrorists.
- ythn 10y ago
  How many non-technical people do you know that use encrypted email on their personal email accounts? There's nothing wrong with using PGP, for example, but if I found out my totally non-technical neighbor was using PGP, I would probably still give them the benefit of the doubt, but I would raise a flag in my mind and watch for other flags.
- tetha 10y ago
  Actually, I looked at the encryption question specifically. The question is: "Has the subject engaged in or discussed tradecraft to contextually hide their online activity different from previous activity?" So, if you're always encrypting everything, the answer here is no. Dude always encrypted everything, dude still encrypts everything. They are flagging if you suddenly start using an encrypted communication service for specific things, as another indicator something's going on. That's fair enough imo.
realo 10y ago
The guy (girl?) you describe in the second sentence is very obvious to identify. The problem is not there. I am in Quebec City. A terrorist killed 6 people here a few weeks ago. A young, quiet, white catholic guy with clean looks. He killed 6 muslims during their prayers. Would that questionnaire have identified that young, quiet, white catholic terrorist killer?
- surfmike 10y ago
  Perhaps not. Anders Brevik in Norway definitely checked a lot of the boxes in this questionnaire though.
- ucaetano 10y ago
  Most of the questions are not religious-related, but related to violence, mobilization, etc. So if the young, quiet white catholic terrorist was doing any of those, he could be identified. My guess is that the Columbine shooters could be flagged by the questionnaire. But it's just a wild guess.
- loeg 10y ago
  Does a test have to have 0% false negative rate for it to be useful? (I don't think so.)
  - jacquesm 10y ago
    If you apply a test like this to a few million people you will get tens of thousands of false positives. Those will clog up the works while in the meantime your quiet unassuming terrorist will walk right by under the radar and quite possibly will kill a bunch of people. Bad tests are worse than no tests.
    - ThrustVectoring 10y ago
      Uhm, what? The alternative is to have a few million people that you're concerned about for some reason and then have no way to exclude the vast majority of them from investigative interest. The test is useful, just not useful enough to transform a random population into a list of suspects. It's useful for what the FBI says it's getting used for - determining how to allocate resources among a limited population that's already under suspicion. Eg, be more likely to assign an active agent if the case involves people with access to weapons.
backtoyoujim 10y ago
To be fair that describes a lot of people in the US Military.
noobermin 10y ago
No, but take a gander at 21). Does using encryption, "password-protected websites", IP Anonymization make me a terrorist? I think that describes a significant fraction of people here. Sure, that should be taken in context to the rest of the questions, but should that even be a flag? Should we regularly detain and question pentesters now if they have a middle-eastern background?
- Godel_unicode 10y ago
  That's hardly the only question like that. Many things on this list would, if taken in isolation, not be indicative of terrorist leanings. I'm assuming that's why there are many questions on this list.
  - noobermin 10y ago
    Alright, I was about to delete my comment above when I saw a reply to another comment which had similar sentiment to mine. I guess what we need then is what weight they assign to each of these. That "using encryption" is on the same level as a listing on "express[ing] a desire to travel overseas to engage violence"[0] doesn't inspire my confidence. It makes me think that this questionnaire won't be as effective. [0] according to the leaked document. If they weights are assigned by some other rubric in another document not leaked or part of this article at least, then I guess I am wrong.
    - ucaetano 10y ago
      But the document doesn't talk about "using encryption", it says: Has the subject engaged in or discussed tradecraft to hide their online activities contextually different from previous activity?
      - noobermin 10y ago
        After the "check all that apply" Encryption is listed on the next line.
- 10y ago

zeroer 10y ago

Using encryption? Seems pretty dubious. Also, camping and survivalism? These seem fairly orthogonal as well.

ucaetano 10y ago
There's nothing indicating that any of those factors by itself would make you a person of interest. And I'd guess the FBI would be a really bad service if "uses encryption" or "camping" by itself would be considered as a strong signal. The noise would be too big. Now talk about someone who has a history of violence, takes long camping trips with a large arsenal, suddenly dropped all non-encrypted means of communication and is obsessed about books on chemical warfare and terrorist attacks. If it were your call, would you dedicate attention to that person?
- arebop 10y ago
  The penalty for misclassifications is higher for false negatives than false positives. In fact, what happens if the FBI exhausts its budget investigating the positives from this classifier? Do they try to improve the classifier accuracy or do they seek a larger budget along with the prestige of playing a bigger role in the War on Terrorism?
- Sophistifunk 10y ago
  More importantly, it's probably used to screen out people who don't belong. You can be damn sure anybody who is an actual terrorist uses encryption. Most harmless religious camping enthusiasts do not.
  - Godel_unicode 10y ago
    Exactly, think bloom filter. Used to rule out.
  - owenversteeg 10y ago
    Actually, a surprisingly large amount of terrorists do not use encryption (or at least not on purpose.) For a recent example, after news media widely reported that the Paris attackers used encryption, it turned out that they actually did not [0], and instead simply used common messaging apps. That didn't stop the FBI from using the attacks to denounce encryption, of course. In reality, using encryption isn't going to help you all that much if a government entity thinks you're suspicious. It may make it marginally harder for them to be suspicious of you, but that's about it. If they want something, and 'encryption' is in the way, 99.9% of the time they have a way around it. A very relevant, and very hilarious article on this: [1] [0] http://bgr.com/2016/03/22/paris-attacks-iphone-encryption/ http://bgr.com/2016/03/22/paris-attacks-iphone-encryption/ [1] https://www.usenix.org/system/files/1401_08-12_mickens.pdf https://www.usenix.org/system/files/1401_08-12_mickens.pdf
- zeroer 10y ago
  I don't think camping fits. Take out camping and you get a person with a history of violence, a large arsenal, obsessed with terrorist books. Still pretty scary. Technically speaking I really doubt interest in camping is any higher amongst terrorists than the population.
  - ucaetano 10y ago
    The actual wording is: Has the subject participated in activities that simulate military or operational environments? So motorhome and marshmallows with your family at Big Bear Happy Camp probably wouldn't count, unless you're planning to kill everyone by making them eat s'mores until their blood sugar spikes.
mehwoot 10y ago
Presumably none of this is taken in isolation. If all you do is use encryption and camp I doubt they're going to think you're a terrorist.
- zeroer 10y ago
  Why is camping in there at all? Do terrorists go camping more often than the population average?
  - ThrustVectoring 10y ago
    Perhaps terrorists with camping skills have a higher threat potential? It's not just about P(terrorism | camping) - they also care about the expected value of terrorism plots involving particular suspects. Like, I'm not even sure that terrorists are more likely to be known to own guns. The EV of terrorist plots involving gun ownership are higher, though, so more investigation ought to go there.
    - zeroer 10y ago
      You make a great point about expected value of damage done, rather than focusing on the probability of an attack. But I think an attack with guns has a low upper limit on the number of people you can kill (maybe around 100, plus or minus?) before an armed response is mobilized. Things like nuclear, chemical, biological attacks or bombs bringing down buildings scare me more from a statistical standpoint.
      - ThrustVectoring 10y ago
        I'm pretty sure that P(bombs|guns) > P(bombs), so my point stands. It's a mix of guns being dangerous, as well as gun possession being evidence of possession of other dangerous things.
        zeroer 10y ago
        Something like 30% of US households own guns. I'm not so sure gun ownership is higher amongst terrorists.
ythn 10y ago
How many non-technical people do you know that use encrypted email on their personal email accounts? There's nothing wrong with using PGP, for example, but if I found out my totally non-technical neighbor was using PGP, I would probably still give them the benefit of the doubt, but I would raise a flag in my mind and watch for other flags.
tetha 10y ago
Actually, I looked at the encryption question specifically. The question is: "Has the subject engaged in or discussed tradecraft to contextually hide their online activity different from previous activity?" So, if you're always encrypting everything, the answer here is no. Dude always encrypted everything, dude still encrypts everything. They are flagging if you suddenly start using an encrypted communication service for specific things, as another indicator something's going on. That's fair enough imo.

realo 10y ago

The guy (girl?) you describe in the second sentence is very obvious to identify. The problem is not there. I am in Quebec City. A terrorist killed 6 people here a few weeks ago. A young, quiet, white catholic guy with clean looks. He killed 6 muslims during their prayers. Would that questionnaire have identified that young, quiet, white catholic terrorist killer?

surfmike 10y ago
Perhaps not. Anders Brevik in Norway definitely checked a lot of the boxes in this questionnaire though.
ucaetano 10y ago
Most of the questions are not religious-related, but related to violence, mobilization, etc. So if the young, quiet white catholic terrorist was doing any of those, he could be identified. My guess is that the Columbine shooters could be flagged by the questionnaire. But it's just a wild guess.
loeg 10y ago
Does a test have to have 0% false negative rate for it to be useful? (I don't think so.)
- jacquesm 10y ago
  If you apply a test like this to a few million people you will get tens of thousands of false positives. Those will clog up the works while in the meantime your quiet unassuming terrorist will walk right by under the radar and quite possibly will kill a bunch of people. Bad tests are worse than no tests.
  - ThrustVectoring 10y ago
    Uhm, what? The alternative is to have a few million people that you're concerned about for some reason and then have no way to exclude the vast majority of them from investigative interest. The test is useful, just not useful enough to transform a random population into a list of suspects. It's useful for what the FBI says it's getting used for - determining how to allocate resources among a limited population that's already under suspicion. Eg, be more likely to assign an active agent if the case involves people with access to weapons.

backtoyoujim 10y ago

To be fair that describes a lot of people in the US Military.

noobermin 10y ago

No, but take a gander at 21). Does using encryption, "password-protected websites", IP Anonymization make me a terrorist? I think that describes a significant fraction of people here. Sure, that should be taken in context to the rest of the questions, but should that even be a flag? Should we regularly detain and question pentesters now if they have a middle-eastern background?

Godel_unicode 10y ago
That's hardly the only question like that. Many things on this list would, if taken in isolation, not be indicative of terrorist leanings. I'm assuming that's why there are many questions on this list.
- noobermin 10y ago
  Alright, I was about to delete my comment above when I saw a reply to another comment which had similar sentiment to mine. I guess what we need then is what weight they assign to each of these. That "using encryption" is on the same level as a listing on "express[ing] a desire to travel overseas to engage violence"[0] doesn't inspire my confidence. It makes me think that this questionnaire won't be as effective. [0] according to the leaked document. If they weights are assigned by some other rubric in another document not leaked or part of this article at least, then I guess I am wrong.
  - ucaetano 10y ago
    But the document doesn't talk about "using encryption", it says: Has the subject engaged in or discussed tradecraft to hide their online activities contextually different from previous activity?
    - noobermin 10y ago
      After the "check all that apply" Encryption is listed on the next line.
10y ago