Meet PRISM’s little brother: Socmint

[mike_c]

Source: wired.co.uk

The PRISM scandal engulfing US and UK intelligence agencies has blown the debate wide open over what privacy means in the digital age and whether the Internet risks becoming a kind of Stasi 2.0. The extent of the UK's involvement in this type of mass surveillance—which already appears exhaustive—shows just what a potential intelligence goldmine social media data can be.

But the monitoring of our online trail goes beyond the eavesdroppers in GCHQ.

For the past two years, a secretive unit in the Metropolitan Police has been developing the tools for blanket surveillance of the public's social media conversations. Operating 24 hours a day, seven days a week, a staff of 17 officers in the National Domestic Extremism Unit (NDEU) has been scanning the public's tweets, YouTube videos, Facebook profiles, and anything else UK citizens post in the public online sphere.

The intelligence-gathering technique—sometimes known as Social Media Intelligence (Socmint)—has been used in conjunction with an alarming array of sophisticated analytical tools.

Read more: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/06/meet-prisms-little-brother-socmint/

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More surveillance state news.

on edit: another sentence from the original article that bears repeating:

"It is suspected that protesters and political activists are bearing the brunt of the Met's Socmint surveillance program."

[intaglio]

1. 17 officers, 24 hours a day,

and they monitor all the tweets, Facebook profiles, You Tube videos and "anything else UK citizens post in the public online sphere"

At most 5 officers per 8 hour shift, one of whom will be a manager, so actually 4 officers at any given time except there will be holiday time, sickness leave, maternity leave. So more likely 3

All UK citizens online activity, all online public activity, 4 officers.

Yeh, that's really like the Stasi

[dixiegrrrrl]

2. How many Stasi monitored phone calls per 24 hour shifts????

[intaglio]

4. Several hundred, I believe

and that was with a very limited internal phone service.

Interesting that you post this non-story seemingly to grab the coat-tails of the Snowden debacle but ignore the real scandals of the special Demonstrations Squad and the smearing and monitoring of the Lawrence Family together with Duwayne Brooks

[mike_c]

5. had to Google it....

I wasn't aware of the Duwayne Brooks affair. You're right-- it's rather shocking, and I've just posted a link to a Guardian article about it in GD, as I wasn't sure whether or not it discussed new developments appropriate for LBN, since I'm unfamiliar with prior developments. Thanks for pointing the story out.

on edit-- Oh, it's also worth noting that the Stasi telephone monitoring you describe was physical eavesdropping, i.e. wire tapping. There is no other way to physically record and listen in on so many conversations that are confined to a specific connection, especially in West Germany 30+ years ago. Data mining digital social media, on the other hand, can be done mostly with automated analysis tools, needing humans primarily to check the output, follow potential leads, initiate case files, and the like.

[intaglio]

7. and the STASI were operating on insignificant volumes

compared to the amount of communication today

[mike_c]

8. see the comments I edited....

I think you're comparing apples to oranges with the Stasi telephone eavesdropping analogy.

[intaglio]

13. and that also applies to the equivalence made in the original OP n/t

[mike_c]

14. indeed....

Although I think that was meant more in the way of an analogy, like grammar Nazi.

[Pachamama]

21. I wouldnt call family members, friends, neighbors, teachers on Stasi payroll reporting activities is

...."insignificant in volume" in any way....

That is world East Germans in the former DDR faced under the Stasi...

The scars and mistrust among people still remains decades later....

[dixiegrrrrl]

16. What non-story did I post?????????

and how is asking YOU a question demonstrate that I ignored anything?

[intaglio]

17. The non-story that is the original OP.

[dixiegrrrrl]

20. I didn't post that story.

If you look at the very top left hand side of a post, you will find the name of the person who posted it.

and you did not answer my other question, so I will repeat it:

how is asking YOU a question demonstrate that I ignored anything?

[mike_c]

3. may I presume you didn't actually read the article?

It discusses analysis tools that filter social media content and extract information of interest to the police. Yes, a relative few personnel are apparently able to handle that traffic. Further, the SYSTEM runs 24/7. There is no contention that it is staffed 24/7. I think it's far more likely that all those monitors are on the day shift.

[intaglio]

6. How big do you think the UK is?

Perhaps you think it is like Vermont in size.

The software will put out alerts based on keywords and there will possibly some more careful examination of some known hate sites. 17 officer providing coverage of a 24 hour culture is laughably small.

And did you notice the fact that this is regarding PUBLIC posting. I have capitalised because you seem to have some problem noticing this word. PUBLICLY posted hate speech is hate speech, publicly posted incitement to commit violence is a crime. If you are not prepared to justify or defend what you post PUBLICLY online then you should not post it PUBLICLY

[mike_c]

10. did you also note that the article alleges that "protesters and political dissidents" are...

...likely the primary targets for surveillance? Is "let's meet in Piccadilly and protest the war" hate speech?

Also, the surveillance is run by the Metropolitan Police, so I'm presuming it's regional in scope, meaning primarily greater London.

[intaglio]

12. Yes, and this is new how?

When I was involved with union activism (70s and 80s) we all assumed that we were likely to be watched. You just were more careful and you never said or did anything that could not defend or justify. We all pretty much believe the Tzarist period axiom that in any group of three activists at least one was likely to be a police spy.

[mike_c]

15. so I presume that you're comfortable with surveillance without probable cause....

We disagree, obviously, but I can certainly respect your position. It's difficult for me to understand, though. I have a visceral bad reaction to the revelation that government agencies monitor my communications in case I might one day do something they don't approve of.

BTW, I'm also an officer in my union, and I must say that I take precautions to conceal some communications from management, I've never thought that the government might take an interest in our bargaining strategies or our grievances.

[intaglio]

18. Comfortable? No, but it was expected

If you are attempting to change the status quo then you expect those favoured by that status quo to defend themselves - or are only left-wing activists allowed to plot?

This cat and mouse game has gone on for centuries; what makes it wonderful is that sometimes, admittedly rarely, the mice win.

[dreamnightwind]

22. Algorithmic filtering

No doubt software does most of the filtering, bringing only certain things to the attention of those people. And that's actually a lot of man-hours that get devoted to this task, especially assuming (I would be almost certain of it) that most of the work is done by software before the flagged items are referred to the "officers".

There's no reason to believe those numbers (the staffing numbers) are the full story, or that they will not increase.

The main point here is that this is being done at all. The scale can and will change over time. It's another piece of info that we (at least I) didn't have before. And it doesn't appear to be terrorism related. Not good.

[Narkos]

26. I know, the ignorance on DU is quite astounding these days

[KittyWampus]

9. This sounds reasonable though. I WANT government monitoring the KKK members' public postings.

[mike_c]

11. how about protesters and political dissidents?

They seem to be the main target, and as far as I know KKK membership in the UK is pretty close to nil.

[intaglio]

19. I just hope that Farrage's lot are monitored

That 2 faced deceiver needs to be removed from public life.

[Politicub]

23. Meet the Girl Scouts' delicious treat

Thin mint.

[askeptic]

24. If you want to be virtual exhibitionist, don't be surprised at who is watching

just sayin'

[ReRe]

25. Socmint= UKs Social Media Intel

K&R

This is the bottom line: The intel agencies are betting that people are so addicted to social media (all of it), that John Q Public has no recourse, i.e. that he would rather be spied upon than give up our privacy. And of course, we needn't think that a little temper tantrum is going to change our government's minds. They have stolen our money with no accountability to build their snoop machine and by-damn they are going to use it whether we like it or not. They think.

What would happen if John Q DID go offline, say, 1 day a week. Everyone, all over the world, one day a week. Could we vow to not use any form of social media, say, one day a week, all on the same day? If gov'ts don't shut down the machine and start returning the money they stole within one month, then the next month the ante goes up. The second month, strike for two days each week. Also, prorate your social media cost at the end of the month and dock them for 4 days in the first month, i.e., don't pay them for those 4 days.

I have other ideas, but will stop there. We DO have recourse.