[Air-l] FW: [chineseinternetresearch] National Science Foundation to help CIA spy on IRC chatrooms

Mon Nov 29 08:24:19 PST 2004

Actually, last year, I was contacted by two people in various
places in the DOD, based on things I either wrote or posted. 
They were very friendly and self-disclosing about their
objectives.
I

---- Original message ----
>Date: Sun, 28 Nov 2004 15:14:28 -0500
>From: John McNutt <mcnuttjg at netzero.com>  
>Subject: RE: [Air-l] FW: [chineseinternetresearch] National
Science Foundation to help CIA spy on IRC chatrooms  
>To: "'air-l at listserv.aoir.org'" <air-l at listserv.aoir.org>
>
>What makes you think that they don't come to these things? 
Intelligence 
>agencies from every nation try to keep up with new
development and academic 
>conferences would seem like a perfect opportunity to do that.
 While we 
>tend to equate intelligence with James Bond and the like, a
lot of what 
>intelligence agencies do is the same thing that we
do--analyze data. Why 
>wouldn't they want our take on all of this? John McNutt
>
>
>On Sunday, November 28, 2004 1:14 PM, Charles Ess
[SMTP:ess at uni-trier.de] 
>wrote:
>| So shall we invite the CIA to the next AoIR conference? (smile)
>|
>| In seriousness, I thought this report would be of
considerable to many
>| Airists who know something about chatroom research and how
easy it is to
>| profile users... (_not_ smiling this time...)
>|
>| Charles Ess
>| Fall '04: Fulbright Senior Scholar
>| Universitat Trier
>| Fachbereich II
>| Fakultaten der Medienwissenschaft, Sinologie
>| Universitatsring 15
>| 54296 Trier (Germany)
>| Office phone: (49) (0)651-201-3744
>|  Sekretariat: (49) (0)651-201-3203
>|          Fax: (49) (0)651-201-3741
>|
>| Distinguished Research Professor, Interdisciplinary Studies
>| Drury University
>| 900 N. Benton Ave.              Voice: 417-873-7230
>| Springfield, MO  65802  USA       FAX: 417-873-7435
>|
>| Home page:  http://www.drury.edu/ess/ess.html
>| Co-chair, CATaC: http://www.it.murdoch.edu.au/catac/
>|
>| Exemplary persons seek harmony, not sameness. -- Analects 13.23
>|
>|
>| ------ Forwarded Message
>| From: George Lessard <media at web.net>
>| Reply-To: <chineseinternetresearch at yahoogroups.com>
>| Date: Sun, 28 Nov 2004 10:05:50 -0700
>| To: Chinese Internet Research List 
><chineseinternetresearch at yahoogroups.com>
>| Cc: L mediamentor <mediamentor at yahoogroups.com>
>| Subject: [chineseinternetresearch] National Science
Foundation to help 
>CIA
>| spy on IRC chatrooms
>|
>| 
><http://management.silicon.com/government/0,39024677,39126120,00.htm>htt

>p://
>| management.silicon.com/government/0,39024677,39126120,00.htm
>|
>| CIA checks out chatrooms
>| November 25 2004
>| by Declan McCullagh
>|
>| [Excerpts]
>|
>| In April 2003, the CIA agreed to fund a series of research
projects
>| that the documents indicate were intended to create "new
capabilities
>| to combat terrorism through advanced technology". One of those
>| projects is research at the Rensselaer Polytechnic
Institute in Troy,
>| N.Y., devoted to automated monitoring and profiling of the
behaviour
>| of chatroom users.
>|
>| Even though the money ostensibly comes from the National
Science
>| Foundation, CIA officials were involved in selecting
recipients for
>| the research grants, according to a contract between the
two agencies
>| obtained by the Electronic Privacy Information Center
(EPIC) and
>| reviewed by silicon.com sister site CNET News.com.
>|
>| EPIC director Marc Rotenberg, whose nonprofit group
obtained the
>| documents through the Freedom of Information Act, said the
CIA's
>| clandestine involvement was worrisome. "The intelligence
community is
>| changing the priorities of scientific research in the US,"
Rotenberg
>| said. "You have to be careful that the National Science
Foundation
>| doesn't become the National Spy Foundation."
>|
>| A CIA representative would not answer questions, saying the
agency's
>| policy is never to talk about funding. The two Rensselaer
Polytechnic
>| Institute researchers involved, Bulent Yener and Mukkai
>| Krishnamoorthy, did not respond to interview requests.
>|
>| Yener and Krishnamoorthy, both associate professors of computer
>| science, wrote that their research would involve writing a
program
>| for "silently listening" to an Internet Relay Chat (IRC)
channel and
>| "logging all the messages".
>|
>| A June 2004 paper they published, also funded by the NSF,
described a
>| project that quietly monitored users of the popular
Undernet network,
>| which has about 144,000 users and 50,000 channels. In the
paper,
>| Yener and Krishnamoorthy predicted their work "could aid [the]
>| intelligence
>| community to eavesdrop in chatrooms, profile chatters and
identify
>| hidden groups of chatters in a cost-effective way" and that
their
>| future research will focus on identifying "topic-based
information".
>|
>|
>|
>| --
>| --
>|
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= = =
>| Via / By / Excerpted / From / Tip from / Thanks to:
>|
>| JULES SIEGEL Apdo. 1764 77501-Cancun Q. Roo Mexico
>| http://www.cafecancun.com/portfolio
>|
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