Does DHS really have a list of "trigger" words? [Solved]

[DMcCunney]

What I want to know is, who in the government is reading all the stuff those monitoring programs must flag? There must be a billion e-mails a day that contain at least one trigger word. What's the point of looking for trigger words if there's not enough people to read all the crap that turns up?

Don't assume any human being is.

I concur with Pizzasgood. I'd have automated filters with progressively finer levels of discrimination. And I wouldn't even attempt to sniff all mail. I'm not certain that would be technically possible, nor worth it if it was.

I'd start sniffing particular email streams if something else gave me an idea there might be traffic worth looking at. And my filters would be designed to flag only stuff likely to be important enough to pay attention to.

The mere presence of the trigger word is meaningless. It's the context in which the words are used that is key, and analyzing context is a more difficult matter. (And it's that analysis of context to determine if something is a threat that would employ human readers.)
______
Dennis

[Ibidem]

(Not that I think MS includes a backdoor intentionally. I have trouble believing they would be that stupid. A lot of very BIG ROLLERS rely on Windows (for whatever absurd reason), and must be able to trust that their systems are secure. Of course, they likely have multiple layers of security to avoid things like vendor-induced backdoors on their core systems, as DMcCunney mentioned.)

Well, I can't tell if it's true of Windows 2000 or later, but here's something to chew on, from 1999: http://www.heise.de/tp/r4/artikel/5/5263/1.html

It sounds like it was Win 4.x (later 95, 98, & NT4); NT4 was the base code of 2000 (NT 5) & xp (NT 5.1); large portions of code, especially legacy (Win 3.x) were re-written for Vista & 7 (NT 6.0, 6.1). So it may have been removed (or may not).

[Nican Tlaca]

Let me just put it this way:

What would YOU do if you ran the world's most powerful empire?
Seriously.


The boundaries of our thinking have already been pre-selected for us (just turn on the TV, radio, CNN.com, etc). And trust me, being grouchy over your government's corruption is not enough to get you "traced". Join the club.

Nobody needs to hack your PC. All your life's info is already collected at the grocery store. You think someone's gonna waste expensive satellite time on YOU?

What's the basis of my claims? More than you would think. Less than your imagination would think. But bottom line, not nice.

All the worst stuff you imagine is true (and worse). It's just not directed at you, because you believe in this "Faith-based" system. You're not that important as a Grouchy Believer.

The greatest "surveillance" is done pre-emptively, by pre-selecting the range of thoughts you can have (e.g. Conservative vs. Liberal, Fox vs CNN, Coke vs. Pepsi).
Again, what would YOU do if you were in charge of an Empire?

Kind of like that movie "Total Recall". The main stuff is done before you have "your" thought, not after.

[PaulBx1]

I agree. None of us will be very interesting to the ruling class, until we start to threaten them. I do think there are programs out there like Echelon though. The ruling class collects information reflexively; that is the way they are. Think of Stasi, filling paper files with reams of uninteresting reports about everyone.

Also it is interesting to have a little bit of dirt about everyone, so they can apply blackmail later if they need to.

Claire Wolfe used to advise everyone to put a trigger word into every email just to fill up the snoops computers with useless garbage.

I don't really see how they can automate the filtering of this stuff. What would be the basis of a decision, in a program, for throwing out one email that has the word "nuke", and keeping another.

Of course it is all pretty silly. Anyone serious about terrorism is going to use encryption and/or use code words for what the trigger words would be. But then governments are not interested in stopping terrorism; they are interested in propagating it. So it doesn't matter that terrorists use encryption. It's all part of a game.

[2byte]

Some very astute comments have been made in this thread. Surveillance is done in large part to control the populace, what they think and believe. Keeping tabs on what people are discussing gives an early warning when unapproved thoughts begin to propagate throughout the country/world, and who the instigators are. For starters, research the USS Liberty, see if you can find the show that the BBC did a few years back. Look for similar scenarios for WW1 and WWII. Look up an interview with Aaron Russo, Zeitgeist and Bob Boyce. Research where related links take you. You will have to spend some time and use your common sense to filter out the wackos and blatant disinformation, but truth is there.

Are we under surveillance? Heck, even alienjeff 's web site seems to be attracting the DHS and DOJ.

There should be enough key phrases in this post to ring alarms all over the place. I'll let you know if I start seeing black SUVs with dark windows. If I don't disappear or suddenly pass away that is.
.

[Pizzasgood]

Of course it is all pretty silly. Anyone serious about terrorism is going to use encryption and/or use code words for what the trigger words would be.

Sure, but then, idiots can sometimes be more dangerous than the competent people.

2byte makes a good point. A large motivation (perhaps the primary motivation) in running something like Echelon would be to help them keep a good feel on the current state of the populace. It could help them realize when people are becoming riled up about something and likely to cause problems. If they detect an abnormally large volume of people talking about how they want to bomb X company/location/activity, it can help to indicate where they should increase their security. Even if most of the people are just venting, the more people who threaten it, the more likely it is that some idiot will actually do it. It could even become a positive feedback situation, where all the empty threats actually encourage people to act out those threats when they wouldn't have otherwise done so.