FBI releases plans to monitor social networks

The US Federal Bureau of Investigation has quietly released details of plans to continuously monitor the global output of Facebook, Twitter and other social networks, offering a rare glimpse into an activity that the FBI and other government agencies are reluctant to discuss publicly. The plans show that the bureau believes it can use information pulled from social media sites to better respond to crises, and maybe even to foresee them.

The information comes from a document released on 19 January looking for companies who might want to build a monitoring system for the FBI. It spells out what the bureau wants from such a system and invites potential contractors to reply by 10 February.

The bureau's wish list calls for the system to be able to automatically search "publicly available" material from Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites for keywords relating to terrorism, surveillance operations, online crime and other FBI missions. Agents would be alerted if the searches produce evidence of "breaking events, incidents, and emerging threats".

Agents will have the option of displaying the tweets and other material captured by the system on a map, to which they can add layers of other data, including the locations of US embassies and military installations, details of previous terrorist attacks and the output from local traffic cameras.

The document suggests that the bureau wants to use social media to target specific users or groups of users. It notes that agents need to "locate bad actors...and analyze their movements, vulnerabilities, limitations, and possible adverse actions". It also states that the bureau will use social media to create "pattern-of-life matrices" -- presumably logs of targets' daily routines -- that will aid law enforcement in planning operations.

The use of the term "publicly available" suggests that Facebook and Twitter may be able to exempt themselves from the monitoring by making their posts private. But the desire of the US government to watch everyone may still have an unwelcome impact, warns Jennifer Lynch at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco-based advocacy group.

Lynch says that many people post to social media in the expectation that only their friends and followers are reading, which gives them "the sense of freedom to say what they want without worrying too much about recourse," says Lynch. "But these tools that mine open source data and presumably store it for a very long time, do away with that kind of privacy. I worry about the effect of that on free speech in the US".

The document also suggests that the FBI thinks it can use social media to peer into the future. It notes that agents need to use social media to "[p]redict likely developments in the situation or future actions taken by bad actors (by conducting, [sic] trend, pattern, association, and timeline analysis)".

The bureau declined to immediately comment on how this analysis might work, or on any other aspect of the document, but the idea of turning agents into digital soothsayers is plausible: researchers working at Facebook and in academia have shown that social media can be used to infer many things about an individual, including the existence of friendships that are not declared on social networking sites and the location of users who have not revealed where they are based.

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North Korea threatens to punish mobile-

phone users as 'war criminals'

Kim Jong-il died on December 17 after suffering a heart attack that North Korean media has reported was brought on by overwork

 

North Korea has warned that any of its citizens caught trying to defect to China or using mobile phones during the 100-day mourning period for Kim Jong-il will be branded as "war criminals" and punished accordingly.

There are reports from within the isolated state that food supplies are again dwindling and that there has been an increase in the number of people attempting to cross the border into China. Many of those that do manage to cross the frontier eventually manage to reach South Korea, where an estimated 23,000 defectors have now settled.

The Workers' Party has issued the stern warning in an effort to deter more from attempting the already perilous journey, apparently in an effort to ensure the stability of the new regime of Kim Jong-un, who took over from his father, according to Good Friends, a South Korean relief group.

People who are caught attempting to flee the poverty and political oppression in the North, as well as those detained in China and sent back over the border, usually end up in the North's network of hard labour camps, human rights groups have reported, while repeat offenders can expect to be executed.

Kim Jong-il died on December 17 after suffering a heart attack that North Korean media has reported was brought on by overwork. He was 69.

The regime has been weakened by years of economic mismanagement and stagnation and there are apparently fears in Pyongyang that the death of Kim could trigger public unrest.

Any discontent would be encouraged by reports sent into the country by mobile phone about conditions outside North Korea, as well as coverage of the popular uprisings in the Middle East last year that toppled long-ruling dictators.

The Eurasia Group, the US-based research and consulting firm, has this week identified North Korea as the fifth-biggest threat to international stability in the world in 2012.

In a report, the firm said a "lack of information about events" in North Korea and its new leader is a risk that is being "severely underplayed." 

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A lot of Shit about Shit

And don’t forget about November 19^th, World Toilet Day.

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The Westboro Baptist Church "Endorses" Obama

 

In an interview with the Huffington Post, Timothy Phelps had this to say about the Republican candidates and President Obama:

He's a liar, thief, and adulterer... that's Newt Gingrich, the so-called "champion" of the conservative party. These people claim to be Christian, New Gingrich and Mitt Romney and some of them others. They aren't pure followers of Jesus Christ. I wouldn't trust [any] of them with a handful of change to go get me some bubble gum. There's nothing of any value in [any] of those human beings. I would rather have Obama.”

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Texting While Walking

Texting While Walking: The filmmaker Casey Neistat explores the hazards of text messaging while walking in New York City.

Navigating the sidewalks of New York City can be as challenging as any rushing sport, like football or rugby.  But when your opponents are walking while text messaging, their field of view is impaired, and this can render a three-block walk to Starbucks somewhere between infuriating and life-threatening.

 

While there’s little current data about the number of people injured while texting, more than 1,000 pedestrians visited emergency rooms in 2008 after they were injured while using a cellphone to talk or text. That had doubled each year since 2006, according to a study conducted by Ohio State University.

I wanted to make a movie about this issue for years, and got started after a discussion with my friend Benny Safdie on the proper, courteous way to text while walking.   By mastering the etiquette of texting, I hope we can gain more control over our increasingly electronic lives.  Let’s stop acting like hollowed-out zombies, with BlackBerrys and iPhones replacing eye contact, handshakes and face-to-face conversations.  It’s time to live once again in the present and simply be where we are. 

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CNN: Law Enforcement Is Intimidated By Anonymous

 

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Angry Birds Coming to Facebook on Valentine’s Day

 

Peter Vesterbacka, the ‘Mighty Eagle’ of Rovio, and Henri Holm, the SVP of Rovio Asia, shared the company’s plan to release Angry Birds to more than 800 million people on Facebook. And what’s more, the company is planning its big launch to be held in Jakarta on February 14th. Why Jakarta? Well it’s obvious, Peter says, as Jakarta is the global capital of Facebook. Holding the launch here would be appropriate as it is a major Facebook hub.

Angry Birds has become a phenomenon in such a short time, and Rovio has been busy building the brand on top of the already successful game title. Now with over 700 million downloads (on its way to pass 1 billion this year) Rovio is becoming an entertainment company which will make comics, animations (it has acquired an animation company), and even plush toys to complete a full circle of online-offline engagement. With this, Rovio aims to have 1 billion fans instead of just 1 billion downloads

The Next Billion

While it has been the must-have game on iOS and Android phones or tablets, Rovio wants Angry Birds on every screen. They want it on every possible platform. To make this possible they’ve also worked with Samsung so that Angry Birds will be pre-installed on every new Smart TV and the 2010 and 2011 versions of the TV sets will get an update that will install Angry Birds. Not only that, they are bringing the Angry Birds experience to the next billion by reaching the feature phone market (working together with Nokia on its Asha series). In the near future, Rovio is also working to bring a seamless and connected experience through any platform you play Angry Birds on. For example, if you start playing Angry Birds on your iPad, you can continue your progress on your Samsung TV or on a PC in an internet cafe.

Angry Birds Power-Ups

So what’s so special about bringing Angry Birds to Facebook? Shown for the first time to the world outside their labs, Peter brings us through the Angry Birds experience on Facebook, showing its full screen capability and higher quality animation to maximize your playing experience. Rovio will also introduce new power-ups (e.g. an earthquake; or special, bigger, or stronger birds) which you can buy (for US$0.99) or earn while playing the game. Peter said that Rovio won’t introduce a product unless it’s a great one, and claims that 40 percent of users are actually interested in buying the power-ups, in contrast to just 3 to 4 percent in most other games.

Sociable Birds?

The next feature (and perhaps an obvious one) is social. Angry Birds on Facebook will have leaderboards so people can try to beat each other scores by buying power-ups to earn ‘bragging rights.’ When asked about the payment system in Indonesia, Peter said that rather than moaning about how they can’t make money because of it, they are bringing a solution to that problem.

Rovio also plans to release more games than it did last year (it released the Rio and Seasons variants in 2011) including making a more localized game with local content. Rovio released a Year of the Dragon update to Angry Birds Seasons for the Chinese New Year where it has a new theme, animations, and of course, a swooping dragon as a ‘power-up.’ The team is planning to do something like this in Indonesia, and that’s another part of the reason for the visit here. The forthcoming game will include local content such as Batik, Garuda, or even Komodo so that it has a more local touch filled with Indonesian cultural references. This looks set to be a separate, new Angry Birds game, and not just an update to Seasons.

Rovio also plans to recruit an intern by holding a game developer competition in Indonesia. The winner will earn an internship for a month to get to know how Rovio works – and in return, he or she can make a contribution to this localized version of Angry Birds. Rovio, though, is dismissing rumors that there’s any plan to have an office here – but it will have several local partners for the brand.

Angry Birds for Facebook will be released on February 14, 2012 worldwide, and as we heard from the Mighty Eagle himself, it will be launched in Jakarta. We encourage our readers not to get too carried away playing the game that you forget your normal Valentine’s Day responsibilities. Angry Birds are one thing, but angry girlfriends are a different game altogether.

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