nelson_p@apollo.uucp (04/19/88)
>I believe that calls to all eastern block (bloc) countries are monitored >or at least examined, after the fact, with the idea that specific keywords >or projects need to be "noticed". For example, if there's a code word for >"particular type of nuclear sub" and it keeps being mentioned in a call to >Moscow, well, that's interesting to the NSA. Just out of curiosity, why do you believe this to be the case? Did you read it somewhere (where?), did a friend tell you this, or what? I'm not saying it's true or not; it's come up before on the net, but nobody has ever presented any verifiable facts. I *would* like to call attention to a book called 'The Choking Doberman'. This is about 'urban folklore' such as spider-eggs-in-the-bubble-gum, kangaroo-meat-in-hamburger, the-lady-who-dried-her-poodle-in-the- microwave, or Proctor-and-Gamble-being-satanists. These and many others are stories which everyone has heard and which have made the rounds for years but for which nobody can claim a reliable source. The study of such (usually false) stories has become a whole academic field within anthropology. --Peter Nelson
nelson_p@apollo.uucp (04/19/88)
>In _The_Puzzle_Palace_ Bamford asserts that all long-distance >communications in and out of the country are indeed monitored, >and cites his reasons for asserting this. Crimethinkers have >always taken comfort from the fact that there is simply too much >traffic for human snoops to completely monitor, but .. > >Bamford also says that the NSA tries to stay 5 years ahead of the >state of the art. The "state of the art" is that machines are >very close to recognizing (and so transcribing) connected speech, >or at least keywords. What does this mean, 'tries to stay 5 years ahead of the state of the art'? It sounds like a contradiction in terms. Right now there is a a great deal of research going on in speech recognition both in academia and in business. IBM has had a major research program in this area for some time. There's a $bundle to be made in this by whoever comes up with something decent, first. Are you saying that everybody is just wasting their time because the government can already do this? And they're too stupid to know it? Are you saying that the government can keep a secret of this magnitude? Are you saying that they could attract the research talent to pull this off and still keep it quiet? Also, Bamford's book was published in September of 1983. His info had to be at least a little older than that. Yet here it is in 1988 and we still can't process connected speech of arbitrary speakers with much reliability. And then consider how many tens of thousands of overseas voice channels there are. There are not 1/10th that many Crays in the whole world. Count me as skeptical. --Peter Nelson
sullivan@vsi.UUCP (Michael T Sullivan) (04/20/88)
In article <3b8abbf2.44e6@apollo.uucp>, nelson_p@apollo.uucp writes: > > Are you saying that everybody is just wasting their time because > the government can already do this? And they're too stupid to > know it? Are you saying that the government can keep a secret of > this magnitude? Are you saying that they could attract the research > talent to pull this off and still keep it quiet? Also, Bamford's Suffice to say that the government has many secrets that you just don't know about. If you knew about them they wouldn't be secrets, would they? The government kept the atomic bomb a secret, didn't they? Lots of talent and quite secret. You need only look at some recent history to see that the "intelligence community" (no flames about that phrase) is quite capable of keeping its collective lips closed. -- Michael Sullivan {uunet|attmail}!vsi!sullivan sullivan@vsi.com HE V MTL
nelson_p@apollo.uucp (04/26/88)
>> A while back, some >>people started deliberately filling their signature files with USSR, >>ASSASSIN, HIJACK, etc. etc. etc., with the explicit intention of >>swamping any such monitoring device. >I've noticed this too, and I've oftened wondered exactly what those >people were trying to do. Presumably, they object to the US form of >government and want to see America infiltrated/weakened/whatever. >So, to those of you out there who do this: am I right? Or won't you >admit to being anti-US? I assume that they're trying to improve the process. After all, REAL spies, terrorists, drug dealers, etc. aren't going to send messages with words like 'submarine', 'hijack', 'cocaine' and so forth. So if the CIA or FBI is stupid enough to monitor words like that they *should* get swamped so they'll be forced to think about it and do it right! >(Yes I realize I'm going to get flames about this... I'm expecting >it.) There. Happy now? --Peter Nelson