Federal Agents Urged to 'Friend' People on Social Networks, Memo Reveals

[American Patriot]

Technology

Federal Agents Urged to 'Friend' People on Social Networks, Memo Reveals


Published October 14, 2010
| FoxNews.com

REUTERS/Rick Wilking


Josh Mayeux, network defender, works at the Air Force Space Command Network Operations & Security Center at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs, Colorado July 20, 2010.



A privacy watchdog has uncovered a government memo that encourages federal agents to befriend people on a variety of social networks, to take advantage of their readiness to share -- and to spy on them. In response to a Freedom of Information request, the government released a handful of documents, including a May 2008 memo detailing how social-networking sites are exploited by the Office of Fraud Detection and National Security (FDNS).


As of Thursday morning, Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, and Digg had not commented on the report, which details the official government program to spy via social networking. Other websites the government is spying on include Twitter, MySpace, Craigslist and Wikipedia, according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), which filed the FOIA request.


"Narcissistic tendencies in many people fuel a need to have a large group of 'friends' link to their pages, and many of these people accept cyber-friends that they don't even know," stated one of the documents obtained by the EFF. "This provides an excellent vantage point for FDNS to observe the daily life of beneficiaries and petitioners who are suspected of fraudulent activities," it said.


According to the EFF, this memo -- which specifically details how the government evaluates potential citizen requests -- suggests there's nothing to prevent an exaggerated, harmless or even out-of-date offhand comment in a status update from quickly becoming the subject of a full investigation.



With this revelation, the government joins a growing list of groups using social-networking sites for purposes other than social networking. As these sites have gained popularity, scammers and spammers have become rampant, and hackers are increasingly turning to networks such as Facebook to spread viruses and Trojan Horses.



The EFF also uncovered efforts by the Department of Homeland Security to monitor social media during the inauguration of President Obama. According to the documents, the DHS collected a massive amount of data on individuals and organizations explicitly tied to the event.


The DHS notably attempted to ensure that its use of social networks was appropriate while gathering data online. The newly released documents cite the Fair Information Practices Principles, a 2008 policy memo by the Department of Homeland Security's chief privacy officer that set guidelines for ensuring online privacy during the collection of information.


Another government agency, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, denies using social networks to spy on people.


"USCIS does not permit agency personnel to attempt to 'friend' immigration petitioners and their beneficiaries on social networks in an effort to reveal fraud."


Still, the EFF worries that the DHS may be taking things too far. "While it is laudable to see DHS discussing the Fair Information Practice Principles as part of the design for such a project, the breadth of sites targeted is concerning," the watchdog group wrote on its website.


Among the networks specifically cited for analysis "were general social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and Flickr, as well as sites that focus specifically on certain demographic groups such as MiGente and BlackPlanet, news sites such as NPR, and political commentary sites DailyKos," the EFF wrote.

For more information, read the full report at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

FoxNews.com's SciTech section is on Twitter! Follow us @fxnscitech.

[American Patriot]

October 13th, 2010 http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/10...s-social-media

New FOIA Documents Reveal DHS Social Media Monitoring During Obama Inauguration

Deeplink by Jennifer Lynch


As noted in our first post, EFF recently received new documents via our FOIA lawsuit on social network surveillance, filed with the help of UC Berkeley’s Samuelson Clinic, that reveal two ways the government has been tracking people online: Citizenship and Immigration’s surveillance of social networks to investigate citizenship petitions and the DHS’s use of a “Social Networking Monitoring Center” to collect and analyze online public communication during President Obama’s inauguration. This is the second of two posts describing these documents and some of their implications.


In addition to learning about surveillance of citizenship petitioners, EFF also learned that leading up to President Obama’s January 2009 inauguration, DHS established a Social Networking Monitoring Center (SNMC) to monitor social networking sites for “items of interest.” In a set of slides [PDF] outlining the effort, DHS discusses both the massive collection and use of social network information as well as the privacy principles it sought to employ when doing so.



While it is laudable to see DHS discussing the Fair Information Practice Principles [PDF] as part of the design for such a project, the breadth of sites targeted is concerning. For example, among the key “Candidates for Analysis” were general social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and Flickr as well as sites that focus specifically on certain demographic groups such as MiGente and BlackPlanet, news sites such as NPR, and political commentary sites DailyKos. According to the slides, SNMC looks for “‘items of interest’ in the routine of social networking posts on the events, organizations, activities, and environment” of important events.


While the slides indicate that DHS scrutinized the information and emphasized the need to look at credible sources, evidence, and corroboration, they also suggest the DHS collected a massive amount of data on individuals and organizations explicitly tied to a political event.


In addition, while the slides do emphasize the minimization and elimination of “Personally Identifiable Information” (PII) from the public data, the slides note that “[o]penly divulged information excluding PII will be used for future corroboration purposes and trend analysis during the Inauguration period.” Thus, it is unclear whether or not the information was deleted permanently after the inauguration proceedings were complete. Moreover, there have been several recent studies and papers showing how, even without PII, comments and information about people online can be “re-identified” through the use of sophisticated computational techniques and thus create privacy concerns.


Finally, while there have been some reports in the past year of similar social network monitoring for large-scale public events, to date the public has not seen such detailed information about the government’s approach to monitoring, especially on its data preservation practices. As our FOIA lawsuit continues, we hope to learn more about such activities and help bring further transparency and accountability to the ways in which government agencies and law enforcement officials collect and analyze information about us online.


Related Issues: FOIA Litigation for Accountable Government, Privacy, Social Networks
Related Cases: FOIA: Social Networking Monitoring
[Permalink]

[Luke]

As if I needed more reason to be concerned;;;;

[American Patriot]

/chuckles

Yeah, I like that Petele. LOL

[Malsua]

When you consider that Facebook recently added "places" that identify where you are unless you specifically turn it off, it becomes quite sinister.

I was looking at my Sister's profile on FB and saw she was at her second home. I called her and told her to turn off places. heh.

[American Patriot]

I only friend people that I know. I don't friend random people, and when they request they get one chance.... I send them a message.

"How do I know you, where from, who are you?"

They rarely respond.

[Backstop]

Just so you know.

Heard this on the radio this morning.

Facebook Partners Exposed Violating Site's Privacy Rules
Jason Mick (Blog) - October 18, 2010 10:12 AM

Site shared users names and friends, including those with the strictest privacy settings

The Wall Street Journal's investigative staff have unleashed serious allegations against the world's largest network Facebook and its partners. According to the report, the site's partners have been intentionally and blatantly violating its privacy policies. Makers of some of the site's most popular apps have been sharing users names with advertisers, something strictly prohibited under the site's terms of service.

App makers reportedly have even shared the info of users who have their privacy set to the strictest settings. Users with less strict settings may also have had the list of their friends shared, which in turn could affect users with stricter settings, second-hand.

Reportedly over 10 million users were effected by the violation of terms of service.

[American Patriot]

Ok... Facebook


I'm on there. I have a lot of friends on there, about 100 of them. One person from the site here is friend - he knows who he is.

I do NOT play the games, use the apps, I ignore them all.

I use the messaging system to talk to some high school and military friends. I use the wall to post stupid sayings and make fun of things people put up.

Am I "at risk" for using it?

No.

I don't share a lot of information there.

Nothing wrong with facebook.