Total Information Awareness Project Undergoes First Test

Information Week ^ | 4/10/03 | Aaron Ricadela

[Pro-Bush]

Pentagon (news - web sites) researchers this month completed the first set of test data for the controversial Total Information Awareness system, a key technologist for the project says.

Lt. Col. Doug Dyer, a program manager at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa), said at an IBM-sponsored conference on data privacy in Almaden, Calif., this week that Americans must trade some privacy for security. "Three thousand people died on 9/11. When you consider the potential effect of a terrorist attack against the privacy of an entire population, there has to be some trade-off," Dyer says.

Total Information Awareness, an experimental computer system being developed by Darpa under Vice Adm. John Poindexter, seeks to scan information about passport, visa, and work-permit applications, plus information about purchases of airline tickets, hotel rooms, over-the-counter drugs, and chemicals--both here and abroad--to discern "signature" patterns of terrorist behavior. Congressional leaders have criticized the system's potential to spy on Americans and agreed to restrict further research and development without consulting Congress.

Signals of potential terrorist activity are likely to be weak amid a field of data "noise," Dyer says. TIA is designed to seek patterns that could indicate terrorist behavior while preserving people's anonymity, he adds. "We're testing our hypothesis on nothing but synthetic data."

Total Information Awareness, the keystone project of Darpa's Information Awareness Office, incorporates language-translation, data-searching and pattern-recognition, and decision-support technologies, according to the project's Web site. According to Dyer, the system won't scan "irrelevant" personal information about Americans, such as medical records, but could consider records of over-the-counter drug purchases, which could indicate planning of a bioterrorist attack.

Dyer says the initial experiment data set, completed this month, could also consider relationships between purchases of certain chemicals, whether the buyer or a family member was involved in an activity such as farming that could explain a benign reason for the purchase, and where the purchase was made.

[dirtboy]

he did take away with him a couple of mandatory forms, wherein I was compelled to provide account numbers for my business bank accounts, along with my merchant bank account number.

IMO tax collection efforts are a far greater threat to privacy than the national security proposals. I think TIA will be doomed by both the incredible scale of the project and the sheer ineptness of government systems development - seriously, the Pentagon can't even keep track of their civilian contractors, to whom they issue checks, and they think they can run TIA? But tax collection efforts are continually expanding the information they gather and the intrusiveness of their efforts.

[MineralMan]

"I've matched data from large sets for a living, and 80 percent is a good match rate - fine for marketing, but completely inadequate for an investigative tool. "

In an ideal world, you would be correct. But perfection is in no way the goal, when it comes to things like CAPPS II or TIA. It's a matter of no concern to those implementing these things that you are held up for a flight. They don't care. They don't know you.

If 20% are held up, well, there it is. This is the danger with such schemes, IMO. By casting a broad net, such programs will slow things down, but won't have any positive effect.

Your numbers are good, but the folks working on these issues don't care if they get a 99% match rate. They care even less than the telemarketer or junk mail marketer does. It's no skin off their noses, to be quite frank, if you're prevented from boarding your plane because you have the same name as some mad bomber. Your recourse is limited, and in the future. You will miss your flight. John Ashcroft does not care if you miss your flight.

[dirtboy]

It isn't just business where the tax collectors are getting too nosy. I moved to a rural township in Pennsylvania last year - and within a week I had a questionnaire in my mailbox (lord knows how they found out I was newly in the township) asking, among other things, my occupation and where I had moved from. PA has an occupation tax that is only charged by a few townships, and townships that levy an income tax cannot collect occupation tax. Since the township where I live collects income tax, I called up the collector and told her that she didn't need to gather that information. She said I had to provide it. I said I wasn't going to provide it because the township legally couldn't collect the tax in the first place. And I told her I wasn't providing information as to where I moved from, and she said I didn't have to provide that - had she insisted, I would have asked her to cite the PA Code that authorized her to gather the info.

A lot of this battle is standing up to these creeps where you can.

[AAABEST]

Your #40 is well put.

I'll go one step further. It's none of the CA's effen business how much you sell. America was never supposed to be a nation where some slimebag tax bureaucrat can look up a private person/business owner's ass any time he feels like it, just because he can.

It's too bad our citizens have become so compliant and weak that they continue to allow such activities to continue.

[MineralMan]

"I'll go one step further. It's none of the CA's effen business how much you sell. "

Actually, I have no particular beef with sales taxes. They're a pain in the butt to deal with, but it takes me just a couple of hours once a year to calculate what I owe in sales taxes from my California sales and to fill out the form.

I don't even charge my CA customers sales tax. I just pay it for them. That way, they pay the same price as my out-of-state customers. It's a discount to them, but they'd shop somewhere else if I didn't do that.

I do object to having the state have access to my banking and credit card charge records, but I really can't do anything about it. Since I don't cheat at all on those taxes, it's no sweat off my back, but I dislike it on principle.

[servantoftheservant]

"Three thousand people died on 9/11. When you consider the potential effect of a terrorist attack against the privacy of an entire population, there has to be some trade-off," Dyer says.

Forget that the FBI could have stopped those guys beforehand. Use it as an excuse to violate the 4th amendment rights of every American. Notice how they take away liberty in the name of security, but they don't GUARANTEE security? There is no promise, no accountability.

Disgusting. Forget 'Give me liberty or give me death'. Now it's 'Take away my liberty, just tell me it'll all be OK.'

[AAABEST]

Much respect for you for taking a stand. It's a small thing, and it would have been easy to just fill out the stupid form.

Good for you brother.

[MineralMan]

"It isn't just business where the tax collectors are getting too nosy. I moved to a rural township in Pennsylvania last year - and within a week I had a questionnaire in my mailbox (lord knows how they found out I was newly in the township) asking, among other things, my occupation and where I had moved from. PA has an occupation tax that is only charged by a few townships, and townships that levy an income tax cannot collect occupation tax. "

An occupation tax? That's strange, I think. I've never heard of such a thing. Income taxes, sales taxes, property taxes, but an occupation tax? Do different occupations get charged different amounts? I'm gonna go look on Google for more info about this.

[dirtboy]

An occupation tax? That's strange, I think. I've never heard of such a thing. Income taxes, sales taxes, property taxes, but an occupation tax? Do different occupations get charged different amounts? I'm gonna go look on Google for more info about this.

It's a very, very old tax, and very few townships in PA collect it - and they do charge different flat rates for different occupations.

[dirtboy]

Thanks for the kind words. I couldn't for the life of me figure out the legal justification for asking where I had previously lived. Seemed like they were just being snoops.

[Destro]

The so called "Mark of the Beast" evangelicals have been screaming about? (my comment posted for the tin foil crowd-which ain't looking too crazy these days).

[MineralMan]

"It's a very, very old tax, and very few townships in PA collect it - and they do charge different flat rates for different occupations."

Fascinating. I looked it up, and found it to be very archaic. Washington State also has local and statewide Business and Occupation taxes, which are a tax of about .4% of _gross_ sales. No deductions.

I'm going to have to look very carefully before I move my portable business to another state.

Of course, here we have Business license fees, business property taxes, etc. I guess it's the same everywhere. One tax or another.

[dirtboy]

Washington State also has local and statewide Business and Occupation taxes, which are a tax of about .4% of _gross_ sales. No deductions.

Ouch. Considering how thin margins are in a lot of industries in this day and age, that's a nasty tax rate on gross.

[Doctor Stochastic]

...and 80 percent is a good match rate - fine for marketing, but completely inadequate for an investigative tool....

80% is fine for investigation; so is 8%. The experiences under the usual suspects (Russia, Germany, Iraq, etc.) have shown that all that counts is information, not whether the information is correct.

Besides, datamining is an excellent way to fish for probable cause. One can match up people with purchases or books checked out or restaurant choices and make a case for a warrent. It's not required to be good, useful, correct, etc., only to be fundable.

[MineralMan]

"Ouch. Considering how thin margins are in a lot of industries in this day and age, that's a nasty tax rate on gross."

Well, less than a half a percent is doable, I guess. My understanding is that WA doesn't have an income tax, so that would offset this little tax a bit, I guess. I do hate taxes on gross sales, though. I suppose they just get passed on to the consumer.

[Pagey]

A "Hell" Bump

[tpaine]

Spy -- Counterspy


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