Dataminr Presented to Foreign Buyers Through Illegal Means
April 4, 2017
One thing that any company wants is more profit. Companies generate more profit by selling their products and services to more clients. Dataminr wanted to add more clients to their roster and a former Hillary Clinton wanted to use his political connections to get more clients for Dataminr of the foreign variety. The Verge has the scoop on how this happened in, “Leaked Emails Reveal How Dataminr Was Pitched To Foreign Governments.”
Dataminr is a company specializing in analyzing Twitter data and turning it into actionable data sets in real-time. The Clinton aide’s personal company, Beacon Global Strategies, arranged to meet with at least six embassies and pitch Dataminr’s services. All of this came to light when classified emails were leaked to the public on DCLeaks.com:
The leaked emails shed light on the largely unregulated world of international lobbying in Washington, where “strategic advisors,” “consultants,” and lawyers use their US government experience to benefit clients and themselves, while avoiding public scrutiny both at home and overseas.
Beacon isn’t registered to lobby in Washington. The firm reportedly works for defense contractors and cybersecurity companies, but it hasn’t made its client list public, citing non-disclosure agreements. Beacon’s relationship with Dataminr has not been previously reported.
The aide sold Dataminr’s services in a way that suggest they could be used for surveillance. Beacon even described Dataminr as a way to find an individual’s digital footprint. Twitter’s development agreement forbids third parties from selling user data if it will be used for surveillance. But Twitter owns a 5% stake in Dataminr and allows them direct access to their data firehose.
It sounds like some back alley dealing took place. The ultimate goal for the Clinton aide was to make money and possibly funnel that back into his company or get a kickback from Dataminr. It is illegal for a company to act in this manner, says the US Lobbying Disclosure Act, but there are loopholes to skirt around it.
This is once again more proof that while a tool can be used for good, it can also be used in a harmful manner. It begs the question, though, that if people leave their personal information all over the Internet, is it not free for the taking?
Whitney Grace, April 4, 2017
Whither the Tech Industry Under Trump Administration?
March 30, 2017
The Silicon-Valley-based tech industry has done quite well under the Obama administration, we’re reminded in the Hill’s article, “Tech’s Power Shifts as Obama fades to Trump.” Lobbying efforts by internet companies have escalated over the past eight years, catching up to the traditional telecommunications industry. Writers Ali Breland and David McCabe quote a mysterious source:
‘Everybody is amazed by Google’s sort of cozy relationship with the White House,’ said one communications industry insider who asked to remain anonymous. ‘They don’t even try to hide it.’
Ah, dear Google. What now?
The writers cite Noah Theran, of the Internet Association—a group that represents Google, Twitter, and Amazon—as they emphasize the importance of working closely with government. If policy makers don’t understand what is happening in the tech industry, it will be nigh impossible for them to regulate it sensibly.
To complicate matters, apparently, these upstart internet companies have ruffled the feathers of the old-school telecoms, who seem to believe the FCC and Obama administration unfairly favored their new rivals, Google in particular. The article continues:
The tension wasn’t always present. Silicon Valley at one point had famously dismissed Washington, D.C., assessing that it could be the new capital of change in the U.S. That attitude shifted as the tech industry saw a greater need to work with Washington. A touchstone was the Justice Department antitrust suit against Microsoft. After having to appeal an initial order to break into two separate business, Microsoft quickly learned that it needed to have a Washington, D.C. presence if it wanted to preemptively ease regulatory problems later on. …
Trump’s presidency may change how the battles play out for the next four to eight years, however. Trump has had a rockier relationship with some tech companies, including Apple. He at one point during the campaign suggested a boycott of the company’s products over its encrypted phone.
Hoo boy. Hang on to your hats, technology-supporters; this could be a bumpy ride.
Cynthia Murrell, March 30, 2017
The Government Has a Sock Puppet Theater
January 13, 2017
Law enforcement officials use fake social media accounts and online profiles to engage with criminals. Their goal is to deter crime, possibly even catching criminals in the act for a rock solid case. While this happened way back in 2011, the comments are still coming. In light of the recent presidential election and the violent acts of the past year, it is no wonder the comments are still fresh. Tech Dirt talked about how the, “US Military Kicks Off Plan To Fill Social Networks With Fake Sock Puppet Accounts.”
The goal was for a company to develop a software that would allow one person to create and manage various social media profiles (including more than one profile on the same platform). These accounts will then, and we are speculating on this given how dummy accounts have been used in the past, to catch criminals. The article highlights how the government would use the sock puppet accounts:
Apparently a company called Ntrepid has scored the contract and the US military is getting ready to roll out these “sock puppet” online personas. Of course, it insists that all of this is targeting foreign individuals, not anyone in the US. And they promise it’s not even going to be used on US-based social networks like Facebook or Twitter, but does anyone actually believe that’s true?
Then the comments roll in a conversation that a span of five years the commentators argue about what it means to be American, reaffirming that the US government spies on its citizens, and making fun of sock puppets.
Whitney Grace, January 13, 2017
Yahoo Takes on ISIS, in Its Way
January 9, 2017
The article on VentureBeat titled Yahoo Takes Steps to Remove Content Posted From ISIS and Other Terrorist Groups remarks on the recent changes Yahoo made to its community guidelines. The updated guidelines now specify that any content or accounts involved with terrorist organizations, even those that “celebrate” violence connected to terrorist activity are up for deletion or deactivation. The article speaks to the relevance of these new guidelines that follow hard upon the heels of Orlando and San Bernardino,
Twitter has responded as well, “suspending over 125,000 accounts” related to terrorism. Messaging app Telegram has also blocked 78 channels that engaged in ISIS-related activity. Kathleen Lefstad, Yahoo’s policy manager for trust and safety, wrote that this new category is in addition to other types of content that are flagged, including hate speech, bullying or harassment, and sharing adult or sexualized content of someone without their consent.
ISIS has grown infamous for its social media presence and ability to draw foreign supporters through social media platforms. Yahoo’s crackdown is a welcome sign of awareness that these platforms must take some responsibility for how their services are being abused. Priorities, folks. If Facebook’s machine learning content security can remove any sign of a woman’s nipple within 24 hours, shouldn’t content that endorses terrorism be deleted in half the time?
Chelsea Kerwin, January 9, 2017
Twitter Fingers May Be Sharing News Story Links but That Does Not Mean Anyone Read the Article
December 14, 2016
The article on ScienceDaily titled New Study Highlights Power of Crowd to Transmit News on Twitter shows that Twitter is, in fact, good at something. That something is driving recommendations of news stories. A study executed by Columbia University and the French National Institute found that the vast majority of clicks on news stories is based on reader referrals. The article details the findings:
Though far more readers viewed the links news outlets promoted directly on Twitter… most of what readers shared and read was crowd-curated. Eighty-two percent of shares, and 61 percent of clicks, of the tweets in the study sample referred to content readers found on their own. But the crowd’s relative influence varied by outlet; 85 percent of clicks on tweets tied to a BBC story came from reader recommendations while only 10 percent of tweets tied to a Fox story did.
It will come as no shock that people are getting a lot more of their news through social media, but the study also suggests that people are often sharing stories without reading them at all. Indeed, one of the scientists stated that the correlation between likes, shares, and actual reads is very low. The problem inherent in this system is that readers will inevitably only look at content that they already agree with in a news loop that results in an even less informed public with even more information at their fingertips than ever before. Thanks Twitter.
Chelsea Kerwin, December 14, 2016
Tor Comes to the Rescue of Turkish Online Activists
November 29, 2016
Authorities in Turkey have effectively banned the use of social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. Tor, however, has to come to the rescue of users, particularly online activists who want to get the word out about the social unrest in the country.
Motherboard in a report tiled Turks Are Flocking to Tor After Government Orders Block of Anti-Censorship Tools says:
Turkish Internet users are flocking to Tor, the anonymizing and censorship circumvention tool, after Turkey’s government blocked Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. Usage of Tor inside of Turkey went up from around 18,000 users to 25,000 users on Friday, when the government started blocking the popular social media networks, according to Tor’s official metrics.
Apart from direct connection to the Tor Network through TOR browser, the network also allows users to use bridge relays that circumvent any access restrictions by ISPs. Though it’s not yet clear if ISPs in Turkey have also banned Tor access; however, the bridge relay connections have seen a spike in number since the ban was implemented.
It is speculated that the Government may have notified ISPs to ban Tor access, but failed to tell them to do so effectively, which becomes apparent here (a Tweet by a user):
I believe the government just sent the order and didn’t give any guide about how to do it,” Sabanc? told Motherboard in an online chat via Twitter. “And now ISPs trying to figure it out.
This is not the first time Tor has come to the rescue of online activists. One thing though is sure, more and more people concerned about their privacy or do not want to be repressed turning towards anonymous networks like Tor.
Vishal Ingole, November 29, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
AI to Profile Gang Members on Twitter
November 16, 2016
Researchers from Ohio Center of Excellence in Knowledge-enabled Computing (Kno.e.sis) are claiming that an algorithm developed by them is capable of identifying gang members on Twitter.
Vice.com recently published an article titled Researchers Claim AI Can Identify Gang Members on Twitter, which claims that:
A deep learning AI algorithm that can identify street gang members based solely on their Twitter posts, and with 77 percent accuracy.
The article then points out the shortcomings of the algorithm or AI by saying this:
According to one expert contacted by Motherboard, this technology has serious shortcomings that might end up doing more harm than good, especially if a computer pegs someone as a gang member just because they use certain words, enjoy rap, or frequently use certain emojis—all criteria employed by this experimental AI.
The shortcomings do not end here. The data on Twitter is being analyzed in a silo. For example, let us assume that few gang members are identified using the algorithm (remember, no location information is taken into consideration by the AI), what next?
Is it not necessary then to also identify other social media profiles of the supposed gang members, look at Big Data generated by them, analyze their communication patterns and then form some conclusion? Unfortunately, none of this is done by the AI. It, in fact, would be a mammoth task to extrapolate data from multiple sources just to identify people with certain traits.
And most importantly, what if the AI is put in place, and someone just for the sake of fun projects an innocent person as a gang member? As rightly pointed out in the article – machines trained on prejudiced data tend to reproduce those same, very human, prejudices.
Vishal Ingole, November 16, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Iceland Offers the First Human Search Engine
November 8, 2016
Iceland is a northern country that one does not think about much. It is cold, has a high literacy rate, and did we mention it was cold? Despite its frigid temperatures, Iceland is a beautiful country with a rich culture and friendly people. shares just how friendly the Icelanders are with their new endeavor: “Iceland Launches ‘Ask Guðmundur,’ The World’s First Human Search Engine.”
Here is what the country is doing:
The decidedly Icelandic and truly personable service will see special representatives from each of Iceland’s seven regions offer their insider knowledge to the world via Inspired By Iceland’s social media platforms (Twitter, Facebook and YouTube). Each representative shares the name Guðmundur or Guðmunda, currently one of the most popular forenames in the country with over 4,000 men and women claiming it as their own.
Visitors to the site can literally submit their questions and have them answered by an expert. Each of the seven Guðmundurs is an Icelandic regional expert. Iceland’s goal with the human search engine is to answer’s the world’s questions about the country, but to answer them in the most human way possible: with actual humans.
A human search engine is an awesome marketing campaign for Iceland. One of the best ways to encourage tourism is to introduce foreigners to the locale people and customs, the more welcoming, quirky, and interesting is all the better for Iceland. So go ahead, ask Guðmundur.
Whitney Grace, November 8, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Posting to the Law Enforcement Database
October 28, 2016
The article titled Police Searches of Social Media Face Privacy Pushback on Underground Network discusses the revelations of an NPR article of the same name. While privacy laws are slow to catch up to the fast-paced changes in social media, law enforcement can use public data to track protesters (including retroactive tracking). The ACLU and social media networks are starting to push back against the notion that this is acceptable. The NPR article refers to the Twitter guidelines,
The guidelines bar search companies from allowing law enforcement agencies to use the data to “investigate, track or surveil Twitter’s users (…) in a manner that would require a subpoena, court order, or other valid legal process or that would otherwise have the potential to be inconsistent with our users’ reasonable expectations of privacy.” But that policy is very much open to interpretation, because police don’t usually need legal orders to search public social media…
Some police departments have acknowledged that fuzziness around privacy laws puts the onus on them to police their own officers. The Dunwoody, Georgia police department requires supervisor approval for social media searches. They explain that this is to prevent targeting “particular groups” of people. According to the article, how this issue unfolds is largely up to police departments and social media giants like Twitter and Facebook to decide. But social media has been around for over a decade. Where are the laws defining and protecting our privacy?
Chelsea Kerwin, October 28, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
How to Find an Email Address
October 27, 2016
Like any marketers, search engine optimizers must reach out to potential clients, and valid email addresses are important resources. Now, Search Engine Journal explains “How to Find Anyone’s Email Address in 60 Seconds or Less.” Anyone’s, really? Perhaps that’s a bit of an exaggeration.
SEO pro, Joshua Daniels discusses six techniques to quickly find an email address. He writes:
If you’re a specialist in SEO or link acquisition, then you’ll know that generic email addresses are as much use as a chocolate fireguard when it comes to outreach. You need to develop personal connections with influencers, regardless of whether you work in PR or SEO, it’s always the same. But finding the right person’s email address can be a draining, time-consuming task. Who has time for that?
Well, actually, it’s not so difficult, or time-consuming. In this post, I’m going to walk you through the exact step-by-step process our agency uses to find (almost) anyone’s email address, in 60 seconds or less!
For each suggestion, Daniels provides instructions, most with screen shots. First, he recommends LinkedIn’s search function paired with Email Hunter, a tool which integrates with the career site. If that doesn’t work, he says, try a combination of the Twitter analyzer Followerwonk and corporate-email-finder Voila Norbert.
The article also suggests leveraging Google’s search operators with one of these formats: [site:companywebsite.com + “name” + contact] or [site:companywebsite.com + “name” + email]. To test whether an email address is correct, verify it with MailTester, and to target someone who posts on Twitter, search the results of All My Tweets for keywords like “email” or “@companyname.com”. If all else fails, Daniels advises, go old school—“… pick up the phone and just ask.”
Cynthia Murrell, October 27, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
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