Steve_

So it seems fairly obvious now that it was the NSA who called the LAX tip line about this couple last year.

Just in case anyone is naive enough to believe the NSA keeping and analyzing all this information will not cause you a problem.

sir_eccles

...and they are probably reading this forum too then. Baloney, rhubarb, trigger word, schnell schnell kartoffelkopf.

Sally Redux

Reminds me I need to shoot up the town later.

Boomhauer

I wondered what would happen if people in the US and all over the world kept spamming trigger words.

sir_eccles

One assumes it is more sophisticated than that. However, a friend did sow the seed of doubt in my mind regarding the technical feasibility of the whole endeavor. When you consider the number of phone calls, texts, messages, emails, tweets being propagated.

Speedwell

I recently moved over to project management from a position maintaining a database, and what I know about both is not flattering to the NSA. The more complicated and wide-reaching a project is, and the more data it needs to manage, the more certain it is to be badly managed and badly maintained.

paddingtongreen

Regardless of what the government say, this program was formed so that our money would go in large chunks to Booz Allen Hamilton, a major owner of politicians.

sir_eccles

I couldn't possibly condone such actions, but it seems someone had the same idea...

http://trollthensa.com/

Sally Redux

Yes, the sums of money involved are incredible.

Steve_

They actually showed some of the software used by GCHQ on something I was watching on BBC World News awhile back, you might be able to find it if you search the web (using presumably Yandex).

Basically they feed in the call registers, e-mail addresses, etc. and create a spiderweb with known bad guys highlighted and analyze the links between them, how many calls to which number, etc.

As for scanning e-mail, Google et al do it en masse every day with spam, all the NSA has to do is use a custom spam filter, link it into this other program and viola, they not only have the links but the information too.

Technologically it's quite easy, I can't see how you could overload it because without the actual links to the bad guys it doesn't rate you as highly.

If you live in the US, this is yet another reason to become a US citizen ASAP because you have more protections.

Steve_

They're not actually, when you consider USPS lost $16 billion last year, the NSA reckons PRISM cost only $20 million, which is less than USPS loses in a day.

Sally Redux

That isn't the total cost of all this surveillance.

zargof

So, after the NSA have read your posts on here, do you reckon you're on the list Sal?

Sally Redux

You ain't seen me, right.

Pulaski

So about 6¢/head. I want to know why the US isn't doing more to look for the bad guys? .... Luckily there are many other programs and initiatives.