Big Brother is watching

 Posted by on 29 June 2009  Modern Life
Jun 292009
 

big brother Everything I’ve ever read about the NSA (National Security Agency) has felt like the creation of an author of thriller novels — a large, faceless government agency brimming with unimaginable technology and power.  Because of the unbelievable projects that are purportedly undertaken by this agency, I’ve always felt that what is reported about the NSA is more rumor than fact.

This article from Nova is no exception. The undertakings it claims the NSA are involved in range well into what should be the realm of science fiction:

With the entire Internet and thousands of databases for a brain, the device will be able to respond almost instantaneously to complex questions posed by intelligence analysts. As more and more data is collected—through phone calls, credit card receipts, social networks like Facebook and MySpace, GPS tracks, cell phone geolocation, Internet searches, Amazon book purchases, even E-Z Pass toll records—it may one day be possible to know not just where people are and what they are doing, but what and how they think.

Seriously?  With enough information about my online activities, purchase history and physical movements, it is possible to know what and how I think?  From a theoretical point of view, I can see how that idea could be debated, but from a realistic point of view, I rarely know what I’m thinking myself.  I refuse to believe that a computer will be able to predict what I will be thinking based on my past.  Humans are simply not consistently rational.

As this project expands, they plan on including newpaper information, historical data and other inputs that will allow this computer to have predictive capabilities:

Unregulated, they could ask it to determine which Americans might likely pose a security risk—or have sympathies toward a particular cause, such as the antiwar movement, as was done during the 1960s and 1970s. The Aquaint robospy might then base its decision on the type of books a person purchased online, or chat room talk, or websites visited—or a similar combination of data.

The implications such a machine would have on personal privacy are immense.  And completely terrifying.

T. Keith Edmunds

  • Colin Corneau

    I think it’s entirely plausible.

    People are creatures of habit, and tend to follow fairly predictable routes.

    You’re also forgetting that marketing companies and advertising agencies use information much like this to ‘narrow-cast’ messages tailored to increasingly-specific groups, tribes and sub-cultures.

  • http://www.absurdintellectual.com/ Grant Hamilton

    I tend to agree with Colin here — I’ve read of some research that shows how humans are much more driven by unconscious impulses that we aren’t even aware of, and not conscious motivations. In fact, some experiments show that the conscious brain, at least partially, comes up with rationalizations and excuses for our behaviour after we do things, not before.

    Given that, I wouldn’t be all that surprised by computers that could come up with patterns of behaviour on an individual level — and this could be as finely grained as political leanings, etc.

    Nossir, I don’t like it.

  • Colin Corneau

    At least this is relatively innocuous.

    Just wait until they mesh that sort of intelligence with giant clanking robots!