NSA: THE DECISION PROBLEM

By A Guy Called LULU on Sat, 07/27/2013 - 9:37pm |

The ultimate goal of signals intelligence and analysis is to learn not only what is being said, and what is being done, but what is being thought.

URL:

http://www.edge.org/conversation/nsa-the-decision-problem

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And, as if to discount disclaimers by the NSA that they are only capturing metadata, Turing, whose World War II work on the Enigma would make him one of the patron saints of the NSA, was already explicit that it is the metadata that count. If Google has taught us anything, it is that if you simply capture enough links, over time, you can establish meaning, follow ideas, and reconstruct someone's thoughts. It is only a short step from suggesting what a target may be thinking now, to suggesting what that target may be thinking next.

http://www.edge.org/conversation/nsa-the-decision-problem

This quoted paragraph is not a thesis statement for the liked text but only a part of framing the problem. The piece from EDGE is well worth reading.

by A Guy Called LULU on Sat, 07/27/2013 - 9:45pm

I read the article and appreciate the point made that people don't spy to simply gather data but to know what 'some' people are thinking.

One aspect of the Turing quotes and history that stood out for me is remembering that Turing didn't have to figure out who the enemy was; They were in his face, taking real estate and subjecting populations.

The map of alliance and betrayal is much more complex now. I propose that the methods of analysis have exceeded the capabilities of the people charged to use them in the present situation.

by moat on Sat, 07/27/2013 - 11:04pm

One aspect of the Turing quotes and history that stood out for me is remembering that Turing didn't have to figure out who the enemy was; They were in his face, taking real estate and subjecting populations.

I'm not sure if you're referring to the Nazis our his own country who had him chemically castrated for being a homosexual…

OK, I'm guessing you're referring to the Nazis, because as far as I know, he never laid out the scorn for his own country for what they did to him.

(I realize this isn't very relevant to the topic at hand, it's just every time I hear about Turing, I think about the grave injustice done to him.)

by Verified Atheist on Sun, 07/28/2013 - 9:40am

Good point. His problems weren't as straightforward as I made out.

by moat on Sun, 07/28/2013 - 11:10am

The map of alliance and betrayal is much more complex now. I propose that the methods of analysis have exceeded the capabilities of the people charged to use them in the present situation.

Your distinction between knowing the enemy and looking for an enemy is an important one. Using metadata to analyze a person's thoughts turns the data into a sort of Rorschach test which I have always believed is more revealing of the analyst's thoughts and beliefs than of the subjects'. Learning what subject a person is thinking about is a far cry from then knowing the nature of that person's thinking about that subject.

by A Guy Called LULU on Sun, 07/28/2013 - 11:20am

I really like your Rorschach analogy. I've worked in data mining, and the less reliable the data is, the more one's initial assumptions can affect the conclusions.

by Verified Atheist on Sun, 07/28/2013 - 11:34am

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