8 ms·

German foreign intelligence agency wants to access social media in realtime

71 points by rosser 12y ago

spacemanmatt 12y ago
Just to look for criminals, of course. For now.
- kuschku 12y ago
  A satirical video about this topic from 2009 when the BKA wanted to do the same thing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdIA0jeW-24 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdIA0jeW-24
na85 12y ago
I'm interested to see the reaction from the German public. Will it be as negative as it was towards the Snowden revelations?
- tmalsburg2 12y ago
  I'm interested in the reaction of the US public. Will they suddenly start to be concerned about total surveillance? Reading German tech forums, I get the impression Germans are just as concerned about German surveillance as they are about US surveillance. It's very unpopular and seen as a waste of tax money. Biased sample, though.
  - agapos 12y ago
    IMHO, more than half of the US folks can't even place Germany on the map, so how or why would they be afraid of something they don't know about?
thegeomaster 12y ago
Living in an underdeveloped country like mine is fiddled with inconveniences, but at least the intelligence agencies are off our backs. The authorities' cybercrime awareness is abysmally low, and I remember seeing Serbia colored the "not-monitored-at-all" color on that Snowden-related surveillance map. It is a little concerning to see things like this happen near me, but for now I am grateful for the lack of pressure on me personally. I would love if the pressure ended everywhere, though, but it seems like it will only escalate in the future.
- purringmeow 12y ago
  Could you please link to the map? And how are you 100% sure that you aren't being watched by your ISP at least? :)
  - MichaelGG 12y ago
    And while there might not be a mass surveillance system, in such countries, it might be easier to bribe an ISP or otherwise compromise them.
    - thegeomaster 12y ago
      It's harder than you might think. It all depends on who and how high-profile you are. Serbia's got around 7 500 000 residents and it takes a serious company with a serious infrastructure to interconnect them all and provide them with Internet access. Of course, it's incomparably easier to do than with U.S. ISPs, but then again, in the U.S. there are more powerful instances with an interest in bribing the providers than here. After all, who knows? Maybe we're watched as much as others, but I like to think we're (for now, until they catch up) safe from some more tyrannic forms of surveillance.
      - MichaelGG 12y ago
        I know nothing about Serbia, but what are personal bribes like? I know that in Central America and Africa, bribing telecom employees to do things is relatively straightforward. It probably is "easy" in the US, too, but I'd imagine it'd cost a lot more as people seem to be rather concerned about being caught.
        thegeomaster 12y ago
        Well, if someone does not give a shit about their job, they will be easy to bribe. I don't know about people working in tech here, but bribing someone to get a job, or have something done "off the record" in the administration is considered normal, and often the only way to achieve something due to even courts and judges being corrupt. Corruption is actually one of our biggest problems, and new governments are focusing their campaigns on that a lot.
nemothekid 12y ago
OTOH, if its just public social media data, its naive to think that this wouldn't have happened. If Coke can access social media in realtime through a service such as topsy, why not big brother?
- a3n 12y ago
  The theoretical answer is that they are a government agency and therefore answerable to us. If we tell them not to drive down even numbered streets they supposedly are supposed to obey that. Of course, we've gone beyond the point where anyone thinks they answer to anybody.
  - nemothekid 12y ago
    Your theoretical answer doesn't even seem satisfactory. Given that you are American why should the German government be answerable to you? Lets say Japan's people are a-ok with the mass social media surveillance. Theres nothing stopping the Japan government from harvesting your (public) social media data the same way Sony does in order to gauge your interest in Playstation.
crmd 12y ago
Total information awareness is the first truly strategic capability since the development of nuclear weapons 70 years ago. Now it's an arms race. I'm appalled by mass surveillance, and with my limited knowledge of game theory, at this point I don't see any way we can put the shit back in the horse.
- stcredzero 12y ago
  Total information awareness is the first truly strategic capability since the development of nuclear weapons 70 years ago. Where the analogy falls down: It's probably 10X more effective to spy on your own people than to spy on a foreign power. This will result in a magnetic draw towards spying domestically and corruption. Perhaps a better analogy is the greater effectiveness of WWII bombing against civilian populations over industry and military installations, with the result that bombing ended up being aimed primarily against civilian living areas.
- dm2 12y ago
  (Devil's advocate) The opposite is also true and might warrant such extreme actions. The internet is the most powerful weapon ever conceived in a terrorist's arsenal. It allows for instant and private communications with every person on the planet and unlimited knowledge can be shared, there is also the ability to actually gain direct access to some of the governments systems and they could impersonate, spy, leak, or even cause physical damage to the nation.
stcredzero 12y ago
If you look at any historical movement of resistance against the powers that be, ever, the primary source of resistance power is embodied in networks of people bound by personal and cultural ties. By gaining detailed intelligence about these networks, governments can potentially place themselves into the position of the perfect oppressors. Online Social Networks are possibly the means by which rebelling AIs will enslave and exterminate the human race. The advance of technology means that eventually the power available to individuals in the future comes to rival that of small nations today. Then, the only way to avoid calamity would be to use total surveillance to feed AIs that figure out who will become a terrorist before the terrorists themselves realize it. Skynet/The Forbin Project won't be build by the Department of Defense. It will be built by the NSA. And it won't machine gun us to death. It will manipulate culture and society such that Homo sapiens voluntarily stops reproducing and dies out. How about the AIs pretend to implement brain-uploading of people into a virtual paradise, but it turns out to be a put-on to trick us all into shoving our heads voluntarily into nano disassemblers.

71 points by rosser 12y ago

spacemanmatt 12y ago

Just to look for criminals, of course. For now.

kuschku 12y ago
A satirical video about this topic from 2009 when the BKA wanted to do the same thing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdIA0jeW-24 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdIA0jeW-24

na85 12y ago

I'm interested to see the reaction from the German public. Will it be as negative as it was towards the Snowden revelations?

tmalsburg2 12y ago
I'm interested in the reaction of the US public. Will they suddenly start to be concerned about total surveillance? Reading German tech forums, I get the impression Germans are just as concerned about German surveillance as they are about US surveillance. It's very unpopular and seen as a waste of tax money. Biased sample, though.
- agapos 12y ago
  IMHO, more than half of the US folks can't even place Germany on the map, so how or why would they be afraid of something they don't know about?

thegeomaster 12y ago

Living in an underdeveloped country like mine is fiddled with inconveniences, but at least the intelligence agencies are off our backs. The authorities' cybercrime awareness is abysmally low, and I remember seeing Serbia colored the "not-monitored-at-all" color on that Snowden-related surveillance map. It is a little concerning to see things like this happen near me, but for now I am grateful for the lack of pressure on me personally. I would love if the pressure ended everywhere, though, but it seems like it will only escalate in the future.

purringmeow 12y ago
Could you please link to the map? And how are you 100% sure that you aren't being watched by your ISP at least? :)
- MichaelGG 12y ago
  And while there might not be a mass surveillance system, in such countries, it might be easier to bribe an ISP or otherwise compromise them.
  - thegeomaster 12y ago
    It's harder than you might think. It all depends on who and how high-profile you are. Serbia's got around 7 500 000 residents and it takes a serious company with a serious infrastructure to interconnect them all and provide them with Internet access. Of course, it's incomparably easier to do than with U.S. ISPs, but then again, in the U.S. there are more powerful instances with an interest in bribing the providers than here. After all, who knows? Maybe we're watched as much as others, but I like to think we're (for now, until they catch up) safe from some more tyrannic forms of surveillance.
    - MichaelGG 12y ago
      I know nothing about Serbia, but what are personal bribes like? I know that in Central America and Africa, bribing telecom employees to do things is relatively straightforward. It probably is "easy" in the US, too, but I'd imagine it'd cost a lot more as people seem to be rather concerned about being caught.
      - thegeomaster 12y ago
        Well, if someone does not give a shit about their job, they will be easy to bribe. I don't know about people working in tech here, but bribing someone to get a job, or have something done "off the record" in the administration is considered normal, and often the only way to achieve something due to even courts and judges being corrupt. Corruption is actually one of our biggest problems, and new governments are focusing their campaigns on that a lot.

nemothekid 12y ago

OTOH, if its just public social media data, its naive to think that this wouldn't have happened. If Coke can access social media in realtime through a service such as topsy, why not big brother?

a3n 12y ago
The theoretical answer is that they are a government agency and therefore answerable to us. If we tell them not to drive down even numbered streets they supposedly are supposed to obey that. Of course, we've gone beyond the point where anyone thinks they answer to anybody.
- nemothekid 12y ago
  Your theoretical answer doesn't even seem satisfactory. Given that you are American why should the German government be answerable to you? Lets say Japan's people are a-ok with the mass social media surveillance. Theres nothing stopping the Japan government from harvesting your (public) social media data the same way Sony does in order to gauge your interest in Playstation.

crmd 12y ago

Total information awareness is the first truly strategic capability since the development of nuclear weapons 70 years ago. Now it's an arms race. I'm appalled by mass surveillance, and with my limited knowledge of game theory, at this point I don't see any way we can put the shit back in the horse.

stcredzero 12y ago
Total information awareness is the first truly strategic capability since the development of nuclear weapons 70 years ago. Where the analogy falls down: It's probably 10X more effective to spy on your own people than to spy on a foreign power. This will result in a magnetic draw towards spying domestically and corruption. Perhaps a better analogy is the greater effectiveness of WWII bombing against civilian populations over industry and military installations, with the result that bombing ended up being aimed primarily against civilian living areas.
dm2 12y ago
(Devil's advocate) The opposite is also true and might warrant such extreme actions. The internet is the most powerful weapon ever conceived in a terrorist's arsenal. It allows for instant and private communications with every person on the planet and unlimited knowledge can be shared, there is also the ability to actually gain direct access to some of the governments systems and they could impersonate, spy, leak, or even cause physical damage to the nation.

stcredzero 12y ago

If you look at any historical movement of resistance against the powers that be, ever, the primary source of resistance power is embodied in networks of people bound by personal and cultural ties. By gaining detailed intelligence about these networks, governments can potentially place themselves into the position of the perfect oppressors. Online Social Networks are possibly the means by which rebelling AIs will enslave and exterminate the human race. The advance of technology means that eventually the power available to individuals in the future comes to rival that of small nations today. Then, the only way to avoid calamity would be to use total surveillance to feed AIs that figure out who will become a terrorist before the terrorists themselves realize it. Skynet/The Forbin Project won't be build by the Department of Defense. It will be built by the NSA. And it won't machine gun us to death. It will manipulate culture and society such that Homo sapiens voluntarily stops reproducing and dies out. How about the AIs pretend to implement brain-uploading of people into a virtual paradise, but it turns out to be a put-on to trick us all into shoving our heads voluntarily into nano disassemblers.