Your Opinion Of Zimerman Now?

[TomServo92]

As one who has worked in the tech industry for over a decade, yeah, I kinda can. It's not only about money. Could they physically store every voice call made? Possibly, at prohibitively high costs, but yeah, possibly. Unlikely, but it's physically possible. Now, the important part: would they be able to make any practical use of it? Probably not. The sheer volume of data would make it virtually impossible to extract any useful data in a timely manner. Even if you could process it via computer, you'd still need ridiculous hours of actual manpower to analyze any data that is extracted via computer processor. Even if physically possible (questionable), it simply would not be at all practical.

 

I work in information management and one of our problems is classifying the huge amount of data we generate on a daily basis. One of the emerging technologies is text analytics. It uses statistical pattern learning to convert unstructured text into high-quality information. With the assumed computing power available to the NSA, it's possible they could be able to tag conversations based on relevance to specific topics. I've seen demonstrations of software that could read a page of text and extract specific relevant information in milliseconds on a standard desktop PC. Imagine the volume of data a supercomputer could process.

[NickF1011]

No need to clarify. You are naive to think the federal government cannot use black programs to collect, maintain and operate a covert phone call collection system. We only hear about what they have been doing after they have been doing it.

SR-71, U-2, F-117A, B-2,.......

 

Billion dollar programs unknown for years and never contemplated by the overt ops world.

 

MP3 compression is easily capable of high compression when phone calls have narrow frequency bandwidth and sampling rate demands. Much less what secret algorithms are being used today. MP3 is old school.

 

Those super-secret lossless algorithms huh? Hell, mp3 is already a poor enough format for audio compression. You can only remove so many bits from a data stream before it becomes unintelligible garbage, no matter what kind of compression you use. That's the facts, jack.

 

But yes, if it makes you feel better to think that the government is interested in and has the capability of pursuing this immensely expensive and nearly impossible to administer strategy (if they have, what good has it done them so far?), maybe you should get rid of your phone already, or just be vewy vewy careful what words you use while ordering pizza. The guys in the black suits could show up at your door at any moment.

[NickF1011]

With the assumed computing power available to the NSA, it's possible they could be able to tag conversations based on relevance to specific topics.

You have to first convert all of those millions of hours of voice data into something the processor can actually understand first. That's where the processing bottleneck would be.

[FiredMotorCompany]

I work in information management and one of our problems is classifying the huge amount of data we generate on a daily basis. One of the emerging technologies is text analytics. It uses statistical pattern learning to convert unstructured text into high-quality information. With the assumed computing power available to the NSA, it's possible they could be able to tag conversations based on relevance to specific topics. I've seen demonstrations of software that could read a page of text and extract specific relevant information in milliseconds on a standard desktop PC. Imagine the volume of data a supercomputer could process.

Don't know if they ARE doing it. Just saying they COULD.

 

Like I said, they may not need to record the voice if they can establish their case based on the meta data. A GPS tracking your every move says a lot about your actions without knowing any words spoken.

[NickF1011]

Don't know if they ARE doing it. Just saying they COULD.

 

Like I said, they may not need to record the voice if they can establish their case based on the meta data. A GPS tracking your every move says a lot about your actions without knowing any words spoken.

Oh, I'm sure that they make use of analyzing meta data to hone in on particular targets of interest which they can explore more closely, but the government doesn't have unlimited resources (as often as they seem to think so) and likely need to be far more focused than any type of all-inclusive phone data analysis would allow. Frankly, it would be a waste of resources to try to even try to look at everything. Of course, the government is no stranger to wasting resources, but well, not usually on the scale that would require.

[FiredMotorCompany]

The government has been outed tapping into the internet of everyone, not just foreigners. Archiving all the data, though it is encrypted, then requesting the keys when they are discarded, allow unlimited access to data to prosecute future activity with evidence of past activity.

 

Have you declared ALL of your income? Paid ALL the taxes due for internet purchases? Violated any websites terms of use?

[NickF1011]

The government has been outed tapping into the internet of everyone, not just foreigners. Archiving all the data, though it is encrypted, then requesting the keys when they are discarded, allow unlimited access to data to prosecute future activity with evidence of past activity.

 

Have you declared ALL of your income? Paid ALL the taxes due for internet purchases? Violated any websites terms of use?

Yes, yes: the everybody-commits-a-felony-every-day thing. Frankly though, even the government usually has better things to do.

Edited July 23, 2013 by NickF1011

[FiredMotorCompany]

Yes, yes: the everybody-commits-a-felony-every-day thing. Frankly though, even the government usually has better things to do.

Really?

 

Like prosecuting an exonerated man?

 

Wonder what convinced Supreme Court Justice Roberts to vote against past practice and tradition on Obamacare?

 

Know something harmful to the president? Maybe you might reconsider when a 6" stack of case files are laid on your lap with your name on the tab.

[NickF1011]

Really?

 

Like prosecuting an exonerated man?

 

Wonder what convinced Supreme Court Justice Roberts to vote against past practice and tradition on Obamacare?

 

Know something harmful to the president? Maybe you might reconsider when a 6" stack of case files are laid on your lap with your name on the tab.

Citations needed.

 

Does it happen? Perhaps. Does it ruin my day? Not particularly. I mean if you want to live frightened by the ominous shadow of Big Brother, go right ahead. I'm not going to spend my time worrying about it though.

[FiredMotorCompany]

Citations needed.

 

Does it happen? Perhaps. Does it ruin my day? Not particularly. I mean if you want to live frightened by the ominous shadow of Big Brother, go right ahead. I'm not going to spend my time worrying about it though.

First they came...

 

First they came for the

communists

,

and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.

Then they came for the

socialists

,

and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a socialist.

Then they came for the

trade unionists

,

and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.

Then they came for me,

and there was no one left to speak for me.

[NickF1011]

 

Citations needed.

 

Does it happen? Perhaps. Does it ruin my day? Not particularly. I mean if you want to live frightened by the ominous shadow of Big Brother, go right ahead. I'm not going to spend my time worrying about it though.

First they came...

 

First they came for the communists,

and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.

Then they came for the socialists,

and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists,

and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.

Then they came for me,

and there was no one left to speak for me.

Preach it!

 

If you want to be an activist, go on right ahead. I'm not going to deny you that right.

 

Frankly though, on the list of things that I foresee possibly ruining my day, the government tapping into its super-secret database of things I've done wrong since 1977 to arrest me for throwing out a piece of mail addressed to the person who lived in my house before me is pretty far down.

[FiredMotorCompany]

Preach it!

 

If you want to be an activist, go on right ahead. I'm not going to deny you that right.

 

Frankly though, on the list of things that I foresee possibly ruining my day, the government tapping into its super-secret database of things I've done wrong since 1977 to arrest me for throwing out a piece of mail addressed to the person who lived in my house before me is pretty far down.

No doubt if it's a individual the odds are low. But, as a whole, it's like the odds of getting hit by lightning.

 

Do you avoid golf in thunderstorms? Hide under a tree? Fly a kite?

[TomServo92]

You have to first convert all of those millions of hours of voice data into something the processor can actually understand first. That's where the processing bottleneck would be.

Voice to text is pretty common now. Heck, somebody makes an add-on for Microsoft OneNote that will convert voice to text so students don't have to actually take lecture notes. Again, with the NSA's assumed computing horsepower, I believe it's possible.

[NickF1011]

No doubt if it's a individual the odds are low. But, as a whole, it's like the odds of getting hit by lightning.

 

Do you avoid golf in thunderstorms? Hide under a tree? Fly a kite?

I fail to see the analogy. If anything it goes to support the argument why I'm not particularly worried about a malicious government. Do I play golf in a thunderstorm? Of course not. Just like I don't raise the ire of the federal government by not filing tax returns or taking a piss on the steps of the Capitol. :shrug:

[NickF1011]

Voice to text is pretty common now. Heck, somebody makes an add-on for Microsoft OneNote that will convert voice to text so students don't have to actually take lecture notes. Again, with the NSA's assumed computing horsepower, I believe it's possible.

You're talking about one person, individually, and relatively slowly and inaccurately. Ever tried using Dragon speech-to-text? It's okay at best. One thing that currently holds back speech-to-text software considerably is that the programs really do a poor job of trying to determine the context of speech so it often translates in ways that, to a reader, make absolutely no sense even if it may have sounded correct based on perceived pronunciation. Yes, I'm sure there are applications out there being developed behind closed doors that do a much better job of this than any consumer software, but you're only compounding the processing requirements to do that effectively. Then back to the sheer volume...

[FiredMotorCompany]

Got lost in the weeds. We're a long way off track from Zimmerman.

 

But, keep the data today. Analyze tomorrow when you need to build the case. And processing power is available. Government owns supercomputers and those at universities receiving federal money are surely commandeered to do the work. Hell, the art of botnets could be used to do the background processing. It ain't THAT hard.

Edited July 23, 2013 by FiredMotorCompany

[NickF1011]

Got lost in the weeds. We're a long way off track from Zimmerman.

 

But, keep the data today. Analyze tomorrow when you need to build the case. And processing power is available. Government owns supercomputers and those at universities receiving federal money are surely commandeered to do the work. Hell, the art of botnets could be used to do the background processing. It ain't THAT hard.

It could be done, but in an efficient and timely manner to where it might be at all useful is another story. Then who's to say what happens to that information after it's extracted anyway? If NSA runs anywhere as smoothly as any other giant government beauracracy, then even if they do analyze all of this information the chances of any of it being used to accomplish anything good is pretty darn slim. Can't program out incompetency.

[cal50]

Reading some Hitachi -Seki manuals that were translated from Japanese to English was painful at best and pretty damn funny at times. I am sure they were transposed by a real person. Someone had to interpret and convert the information and I bet an algorithm would do just as good / bad a job as well.

 

I have no problem with the government grabbing records to investigate someone for e legit cause, doing a batch file grab of everyone's electronic, material if they can use it or not, is just not right.

 

If some in government feel compelled to capture all civilian traffic I think all of congress and the house members data should also be captured and reviewed by someone as well.

(Fat chance)

 

With more and more electronic hacking going on some Russian government agencies are going back to paper and pencil for secure data transfer. Its hard to hack something written down and physically secured.

[FiredMotorCompany]

the internet was the best (?) thing that ever happened to spying on civilians. (The spys know better)

[NickF1011]

the internet was the best (?) thing that ever happened to spying on civilians. (The spys know better)

Swings both ways though. The Internet is also the best thing that ever happened to information freedom. A lot of issues have arisen due to the speed at which it grew though, which nobody could have foreseen.

[FiredMotorCompany]

Swings both ways though. The Internet is also the best thing that ever happened to information freedom. A lot of issues have arisen due to the speed at which it grew though, which nobody could have foreseen.

Agreed.

 

Done with this diversion. You can make it a new topic or let it die. We have bypassed the subject by miles.

 

Back to topic.

[NickF1011]

Agreed.

 

Done with this diversion. You can make it a new topic or let it die. We have bypassed the subject by miles.

 

Back to topic.

 

 

Fair enough. At least it was something different. Not really sure where else this original topic can still go. What hasn't been beat to death already? :rip:

Edited July 23, 2013 by NickF1011

[RangerM]

the internet was the best (?) thing that ever happened to spying on civilians. (The spys know better)

The internet was the best thing that ever happened for voyeurism.

[NickF1011]

The internet was the best thing that ever happened for voyeurism.

But it was the worst thing that ever happened to the Star Wars kid.

 

[Mark B. Morrow]

Good thing he got out of his truck.

Good thing he didn't have his gun.