[LINK] How does LinkedIn know my contacts?

Roger Clarke Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au
Mon Feb 11 14:12:32 AEDT 2013


At 14:02 +1100 11/2/13, grove at zeta.org.au wrote:
>But now, twice within a couple of weeks, I have seen LinkedIn offer me
>connections to people I have only dealt with peripherally, on a private
>basis. ...

How private, I wonder.

Below is a post to the privacy list from earlier today, which reports 
on developments in the social media surveillance industry.

And here's a para. from another post this morning:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-02-04/facebook-is-said-to-create-mobile-location-tracking-app.html
>  Facebook already records the GPS coordinates of users when they post
>  status updates or photos from their phones, or check in to a venue. With
>  the new app, the company would go a step further by tracking user
>  whereabouts in the "background" of Apple's mobile operating system, even
>  when other programs are running or the phone isn't in use, one person said.

So spyware is one possible answer, and mass surveillance is another.

___________

Raytheon develops social network surveillance system
Juha Saarinen
Feb 11, 2013 7:38 AM (54 minutes ago)
http://www.itnews.com.au/News/331894,raytheon-develops-social-network-surveillance-system.aspx

Can predict movements.

Online privacy advocates have raised concerns about a software tool 
developed to mine large amounts of data from social networks such as 
Facebook, Foursquare and Twitter to track people for surveillance 
purposes.

The software is called Raytheon Information Overlay Technology 
Content Management Framework (RIOT/CMF) and has been developed since 
2010 by the US defence contractor's Intelligence and Information 
Systems division, which last year employed 8,300 and earned revenue 
of US$3 billion.

According to an articel in The Guardian, which obtained a video 
presentation from Raytheon, the RIOT/CMF software can provide a 
snapshot of people's lives by analysing material they post to social 
networks, extracting GPS position data from photographs posted with 
smartphones to chart the places they have visited.

By working out regular movement patterns from the data, RIOT can be 
used to predict where people will be at given times.
Software like RIOT/CMF raise concerns about how large amounts of 
information can be covertly collected without oversight and 
regulation, the US privacy advocate group EPIC told the Guardian.

A Raytheon spokesperson told the Guardian that "RIOT is a big data 
analytics system design we are working on with industry, national 
labs and commercial partners to help turn massive amounts of data 
into usable information to help meet our nation's rapidly changing 
security needs."

The US company isn't alone in taking advantage of social networking 
sites for information gathering purposes however.

In August last year, Sydney University released version two of its 
Geometry for Maximum Insight or GEOMI tool, in development since 2005.

GEOMI is a data visualisation tool that lets police and security 
organisations map and analyse complex relationships in social 
networks, email and phone records.

Social networks are also mining their own data, with Facebook's new 
Graph Search for instance creating controversy over how it can be 
used to compromise users' privacy and in some cases, security.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has warned users to reassess their 
privacy settings on Facebook to avoid being caught up in potentially 
risky searches such as "family members of people who live in China 
and like Falun Gong [a religious movement whose members are 
persecuted by the country's government]". The EFF has called on the 
social network to allow people to opt out of Graph Search.


-- 
Roger Clarke                                 http://www.rogerclarke.com/

Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd      78 Sidaway St, Chapman ACT 2611 AUSTRALIA
                    Tel: +61 2 6288 1472, and 6288 6916
mailto:Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au                http://www.xamax.com.au/

Visiting Professor in the Faculty of Law               University of NSW
Visiting Professor in Computer Science    Australian National University



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