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Software Being Developed to Monitor Opinions of U.S.
nytimes.com — A consortium of major universities, using Homeland Security Department money, is developing software that would let the government monitor negative opinions of the United States or its leaders in newspapers and other publications overseas.
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- Trention, on 10/12/2007, -4/+34How do you ID potential threats by monitoring opinions in newspapers and probably blogs? This is just an Orwellian scheme to spy on Americans. Disgusting.
- reeder, on 10/12/2007, -3/+11Hooray! The great slide to the end of the world!! Wheeeeee!!!
- choicetoes, on 10/12/2007, -1/+20This should only worry you if you plan on thinking unamerican things!
Or frequenting Osama's massacheusettso-liberal-*****-abortion-pot-and-commie-jizzporium. - chris9902, on 10/12/2007, -1/+28I think it's a great idea
I think it's a crap idea
add that to your database, bitch! - theSarcastic, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Our sources tell us that Iran and North Korea are working jointly in developing software to monitor negative opinions from foreign media's. It is said they will be using Google News to power the software.
- thespace, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4@choicetoes - you forgot evolution
- mrASSMAN, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8Welcome to the new China.
- gormly, on 10/12/2007, -7/+1its called a poll, you ractionary boob
- dk911, on 10/12/2007, -10/+1Did you idiots even read the article?? From the very first few paragraphs, the point of this software is to analyze foreign newspapers or blogs and determine if there's something that should be actionable. This isn't something that monitors national papers and such, as there are enough polls that state what kind of a job the government is doing.
I would think that analyzing foreign press for things that might be viewed as negative towards the US is just another form of investigative reporting. But now you're all whining because you think that the government shouldn't even read the paper?? You people are anti-government-politically-driven morons. - choicetoes, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7dk911:
Wow, good catch! There is no way our government would spy on us! How could we be so dumb as to think that, thanks for calling me an idiot to convince me! - BrainInAJar, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4thespace: that's because it doesn't exist...
6 days people... read your Bible... first God created the animals, then man... and then in chapter 2, he made them at the same time... it's the inerrant truth - MindTrigger, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2If it can monitor newspaper articles online, it will be able to monitor everything else as well. It is all text.
- helchose, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10BREAKING NEWS
Nov 11th, 2008
Associated Press
"DHS agents, invoking federal Patriot Act II provisions, raided Digg.com headquarters yesterday and seized all servers and data equipment, shutting down the popular Digg.com news blog website. Digg.com was targeted in a 'sentiment analysis' investigation as a subversive force in U.S. and world politics. A DHS official is quoted as saying 'America will soon be safe from the political insurgency that has gripped our nation over the past 4 years. A dragnet of insurgent 'diggers'--as they are called--is being conducted and we expect thousands of arrests.' The President offered no comment."
- EntropyMan, on 10/12/2007, -1/+23Netflix can't even recommend a movie reliably and yet we want to track complex political opinions?
Okay. Maybe we can use AI to finally answer the question of which way the media is more biased, left, right, or corporate.
I can see it now. After million of compute-hours, it finishes and turns out the final conclusive answer: "Based on your 300 million political opinions, we recommend: Death to Smoochie."- Andy.D, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8This a very good point, but I would add that the powers that be don't really think in "complex" terms. You're either for or against, right? It's all black and white these days/
- Cl1mh4224rd, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3EntropyMan wrote: "I can see it now. After million of compute-hours, it finishes and turns out the final conclusive answer:"
42 - escheppa, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3"and the secret ingredient is ..... LOVE!! who's been messing with the machine?"
- ShrimpCrackers, on 10/12/2007, -2/+14Good! Now they'll definitely know how unhappy we are with things.
- williamdyer, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Thanks to the NSA, we finally have a government that listens to the people.
- tont0r, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11Its called a gallup poll
- vandread, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6and probably be as innacurate as a gallup pole too. Last gallup pole I listened too said that Kerry was going to win in a landslide.
- pumacub, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9@ vandread
Yea, those gallup polls can be really inaccurate when someone fixes the election. - vandread, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Or when they tilt the poll. You can tilt a poll to say anything. During that time frame I could have polled 1000 people in the midwest and got an overwhelming support for Bush to be on the poll or I could poll 1000 people in California or New York and get overwhelming support for Kerry.
That's why I don't trust polls, everyone who does one now seems to have a slant on it. I've been a participant in a poll they did over the phone and they start out by saying that they have 3 questions, I answered the first question and they said ok thanks that's all they needed to know and hung up. I guess I answered the first question wrong. After an experience like that I really don't believe in any polls or program used to do polls because they are too easily slanted by the person doing them to say anything they want.
I mean I could ask 100,000 people if they think violence in video games causes murders, if 5000 people say yes then in my pole size I could use out of 6000 people 5000 said yes if I include the 5000 people that said yes in my 6000 person survey group. So I don't trust polls. They have proven they can be slanted and they can be faked too easily.
- mwheeler1982, on 10/12/2007, -10/+27bool restOfTheWorld::doTheyHateUs( void )
{
// determine if the rest of the world hates us
while (weContinueToBeAssholes)
{
return true;
}
}
that was easy.- slois50, on 10/12/2007, -3/+3You're stuck in an infinite loop. I think that is why you are getting modded down.
- VTmruhlin, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11It's not an infinite loop. It can only execute once since it's returning, so it's an obfuscated if statement.
And in the event that the world stops hating us, you really need to return false there. Your compiler's not going to be happy about that one.
/or just:
bool restOfTheWorld::doTheyHateUs( void )
{
return weContinueToBeAssholes;
} - dicroce, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9That could be better written as:
bool restOfTheWorld::doTheyHateUs( void )
{
return (weContinueToBeAssholes)?true:false;
}
And if weContinueToBeAssholes is a bool you could just return it (instead of the ternary operator).
Also, your variable naming conventions suck. - petertrepan, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9$foreign_opinion = (((x* y)^(pub_opin/soc_const)) / (total_pop ^ edu_coeff));
echo "Foreign opinion is:".$user_input.".";
// Republican Party supplies $user_input
// 2006 Diebold - slois50, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1@VTmruhlin
Doh! Noticed that on revisiting the thread. Regardless, I like your method better. Perhaps he is compensated based on SLOC? - VTmruhlin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4@petertrepan
You really need some error handling there for all the countried where total_pop==0 after we bomb the crap out of them. The last thing we need is for Big Brother to core dump.
- Langford, on 10/12/2007, -1/+13This will end up being used by politicians, and I can understand why they want to know what the population thinks, but it all seems a little backwards. We are supposed to be electing officials based on whether they already agree with us, not electing the ones who know what we want and pretend to agree. How about telling the truth instead of using psycological tricks to see which phrases people like to hear? Better yet, how about developing a system to tell the population what politicians actually think, so that we can elect different people to begin with.
- adam84a, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7I like your plan better!
- Jawood, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6You know what's funny? All of the pundits are criticizing Clinton for having governed by what the polls said. And now everyone wants to do it. Which means, our republic will turn into mob rule if this comes into effect. You'll see.
President: "The polls say that folks want a Theocracy"
Congress: "You're right! We'll make a law and you pass it."
President: "Great! And while you're at it, give me a lifetime term."
Congress: "You got it! The polls are in favor!"
Mr. Burns: "Excellent." - vandread, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7Since our representatives meet what, 90 something days out of the year? Wouldn't it be better for them to find out what their constituents want by walking down streets and asking them the other 270 something instead of getting computerized polls?
I guess that would probably eat up too much of their golfing time on their months off and make too much sense.
- dirka, on 10/12/2007, -5/+20Heres a tip Mr. Bush.....I've lived throughout Europe for the last year, and have not found one person who agrees with the American government.
#1 question asked to Americans...Why did you vote for Bush?- billyboobs34, on 10/12/2007, -9/+9I've lived in America for my entire life and have not found one person who agree's with the American government (Discounting Fox news, they are simply an extension of the government).
- xshaisu, on 10/12/2007, -13/+7"I've lived throughout Europe for the last year, and have not found one person who agrees with the American government. "
Awesome! But I don't care what Europe thinks. - Sirocco, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7>> #1 question asked to Americans...Why did you vote for Bush?
Why did you vote for Blair? Or Merkel? Or Harper? - yonis, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8When will the rest of the world realize that half of us *didn't* vote for Bush?
- atillatheliger, on 10/12/2007, -3/+8I moved from Europe and now live in the USA just so I can vote for the next Bush.
- yonis, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4In fact, expanding on my comment a bit, we should have a system in place where the world elects the US's leaders. As of the past couple of decades (with the *possible* exception of Clinton), we can't seem to make the right decision ourselves. :-/
- InetRoadkill, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5We didn't. Diebold voted for him.
- jeremycobert, on 10/12/2007, -3/+13since when do we Americans care what others think ?
- thespace, on 10/12/2007, -2/+11Since we voted a bunch of facists into the White House
- zelig, on 10/12/2007, -1/+13Can't they monitor publications already? By reading them?
- earl507, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3You forget that W can't read.
- billyboobs34, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11"overseas" yeah right!
Everyone already knows what people overseas think of America
The real purpose is to catch Americans on our own soil guilty of thought crime. - evilTak, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10I thought digg.com was already performing this function.
- lumnar, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8Maybe digg is secretly a government creation.
- drakethegreat, on 10/12/2007, -0/+14This just in the government spends 20 billion dollars to develop an RSS reader with search capabilities!
- SugarShake, on 10/12/2007, -4/+1This software is not going to do anything that 100's of man hours couldn't. The govt just needs to be careful to check the facts if the software alerts them to something.
- jaycliche, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Yeah KGB style. Put uranium on the feet of people who disagree and then follow them with a Geiger counter. That will stop those who don't agree with Corporatism
GO USA!
- jaycliche, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Yeah KGB style. Put uranium on the feet of people who disagree and then follow them with a Geiger counter. That will stop those who don't agree with Corporatism
- Arclight, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9My tax dollars at work. :-/
- oxyrubber, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7Your tax dollars going towards the benefit of the two large political parties.
Yay! </sarcasm> - lumnar, on 10/12/2007, -5/+1The government already does this (monitor foreign opinions). With software, it'll be more effecient. So as a taxpayer you win.
- mscman, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0@lumnar:
unfortunately, that requires the software to be written, which will take millions of dollars to begin with, since the most expensive answer is always the best.
- oxyrubber, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7Your tax dollars going towards the benefit of the two large political parties.
- oxyrubber, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I bet this could just as easily be used to query for Q-Scores or brand-hype (both completely useless except to marketeres and management).
Unfortunately, I don't know that text-parsing AI these days is smart enough to decipher and weed out sarcasm, parody, or satire.- jaycliche, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0No, but you are smart enough to parse. Again, note the comment about digg. Just make it fun! I live in the Midwest, and people volunteer to WORK FOR FREE on the extreme makeover show. Jobs like security, parking lot. Zero overhead, just marketing.
- thespace, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8Just play Fox News backwards
- jaycliche, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I want the computer that can process that huge of a list!
- Travelsonic, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7No way... this has gotta be the biggest load of crap... if not, welcome to orwellia.
- Sirocco, on 10/12/2007, -7/+3Looks like more fearmongering from the NYT. This could be a very handy tool for letting government officials see what is happening both here and abroad. It's awfully hard to keep track of what you're doing right/wrong when you spend all your time hiding in D.C. going to lunch with lobbyists or engaging in pederasty.
Of course, since we're talking about the NYT this is obviously a republican plot to further subjugate the American people. Sure.- lumnar, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6Where the hell does it say anything about a "republican plot" or "subjugation" in the NYT article? The NYT is simply reporting a fact (the program exists). Facts are liberally biased? Geeze.
- tont0r, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2Im not sure if this is sarcastic or not. Didnt everyone just bash NYT for releasing classified info about what the govt is doing and call them leftist bastards?
- drakethegreat, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2I'm supposed to feel bad because the politicians chose to lose perspective on the issues by going to lunch with lobyists in order to deepen their pockets?
- Travelsonic, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3
"New York - The US government is sponsoring new software technology aimed at monitoring the world's press for negative opinions about the country, the New York Times reported Wednesday.
The 2.4-million-dollar project is being funded by the Department of Homeland Security and will be useful in identifying 'potential threats' to the nation, security officials said.
The programme would track the global news media to allow US officials 'to identify common patterns from numerous sources of information which might be indicative of potential threats to the nation,' according to a Homeland Security Department statement cited by the Times.
Currently researchers are refining the system's ability to process and understand natural language by feeding it hundreds of articles from 2002, including an editorial in response to President George W Bush's use of 'axis of evil' to describe Iraq, Iran and North Korea.
But press and privacy questioned the usefulness of the proposed system and said it could end up being used to monitor the articles of individual reporters or publications.
'That is really chilling,' Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Centre in Washington, told the paper. 'And it seems far afield from the mission of homeland security.'
© 2006 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur " - andron, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6If they're going to record a list of everyone who disagrees with the U.S. they are going to need a mighty big hard drive!
Mind you the UK already maintains such a list, we call it the phone book!- lumnar, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Fess up - someone had to have voted for Blair.
- organon, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1So the American government and American companies are doing things to everyone in the world, that are illegal in their own country for ethical reasons?
I can't imagine why anyone could hate them. - 1021, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1um...yeah - "monitor opinions of U.S" this already exists - they're called POLLS! They are used everyday by politicians like cigarrettes.
- DaffyDuck, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2It's like a global focus group.
- memerot, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3They already have something like this at the State Department that I worked on, called Media Watch. All the stories are entered manually though. There's an entire staff that's there 24 hours a day flagging articles and tv news that would be of interest to the State Departments upper staff. When I was there Colin Powell used it daily to get a feel for opinions of the US being written about around the world. At least this system was better than the old system of every department having people whose job it was to manually clip articles from physical newspapers, and then photocopy them 1000 times :)
- airayn, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2No surprise here.
Its an article just based on fact. I think its funny how everyone is blaming the republicans or democrats... etc
I mean seriously, wake up. Ignore the news and pokes designed to get your to react but not think and just live life. All this is just fear mongering at this point. Act and vote for what you feel is right, stand up against hate, help those on the ground with a helping hand. Live
whats so hard about that?
wait because we are too afraid to do anything because of terrorism... becuase we are too busy pointing figures and in shock over the lies of everything being shown in the media...
So stop being a victim and live .
I mean find your Personal Tao and peacefully live life...
And if I sound new age or peace dreamy.. heck, i am just tired of the lies, and I am going to live by the truth of my own actions from now on. I dare anyone to do the same for a change of pace. - strebormj, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1This is what you get when you allow the government to grow, unrestricted and funded by taxes. If statist Kerry had been elected instead of statist Bush, the $2.4M would be going toward monitoring the world's press for negative opinions about Islamists.
Republican or Democrat: Either way, you get a humongous, self-righteous, terribly expensive, incompetent, and intrusive government pursuing whatever brand of global justice its donors are paying for. - 2Wrongs, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2The sadder implication is that we're pissing people off faster than the human mind can comprehend.
- haobaba1, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1dumb
- nvsocr7, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2soo the US will pretty much become censored like china...ggrreeeatttt
- cheekybastard, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4So this is how democracy ends. The infrastructure being put into place ( laws, policies, procedures and technology) will make any future abuses of the constitution plug and play. Plug in the next administration and watch them play. Tinfoil hat not required.
- Noods, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2"Did you idiots even read the article?? From the very first few paragraphs, the point of this software is to analyze foreign newspapers or blogs and determine if there's something that should be actionable. This isn't something that monitors national papers and such, as there are enough polls that state what kind of a job the government is doing.
I would think that analyzing foreign press for things that might be viewed as negative towards the US is just another form of investigative reporting. But now you're all whining because you think that the government shouldn't even read the paper?? You people are anti-government-politically-driven morons."
Have you seen V for Vendetta? There is a van that rolls around monitoring the public only to report the information back to the dictator and have subsequently have the media spin things to manipulate public opinion. The funny thing is, the major U.S. media outlet (Faux News) is in the current administrations pocket! Setting up another way to monitor the public only puts us closer to this scary reality. WAKE UP AND DONT BE SO ***** STUPID!!! THIS IS HAPPENING NOW!!! - nofrak1, on 10/12/2007, -2/+0Oh no! The government can read what I publish!!! ZOMFG, invasion of privacy!!! 1984!!!! BUSH CAUSED 9-11!!
grow up. - jkrobin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2similar story from a month or so ago over on shadowmonkey.net about a DHS program that targets anonymity and blogs (again, dhs-funded academic researchers). it's at: http://tinyurl.com/n52fw
- mythicflow, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Putting aside all the "Orwellian" possibilities, this seems like a waste of Homeland Security money, though it might be good for NLP technology. Tracking foreign opinion is a good idea, but expecting this effort to lead to info about specific threats is wishful thinking at best. Of course, if the intention is to find reasons to demonize individuals or countries, or drum up business for the Extraordinary Rendition industry, then this could be our ticket.
- shami, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0The should use http://www.techmeme.com/ and save their money:-)
- san1ty, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Easy way to find a foreign newspaper that is critical of the US:
Find a foreign newspaper. - calbff, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Jesus bloody Hitler-induced Lenin hell. How long will the US put up with the complete disregard of their rights and democratic state?
Not that I'm being smug...Canada may head down the same route if it's not stopped in the US soon. - Burritovision, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1The NSA is now your democracy?
- jajoh, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Anyone else notice how the 'journalist' threw in a reference to the US's role in "the coup attempt against President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela" (which in reality the US neither instigated nor encouraged.
Standard NYTimes journalism: throw in enough non-truths in a piece, and someone will assume it's the truth and repeat it as fact.
Feh. - JugularBean, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0BUSH DIE BOMB THREAT TALIBAN SWASTIKA
That should be fun :D
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