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Tom Ryan wanted to build something that could identify criminal behavior inside massive mobile networks, stock trading services, ecommerce sites, and other online operations. So he turned to a pair of familiar names for help: Facebook and the NSA.

He didnt exactly knock on Facebooks front doorlet alone the NSAs. But he did adopt a pair of sweeping software systems built by these giants of the online age, systems that help them juggle the massive amounts of digital information streaming into their computer data centers.

Ryan grabbed an NSA tool called Accumulo, which likely plays a key role in the agencys notoriously widespread efforts to monitor internet traffic in the name of national security, and he paired it with a Facebook tool called Presto, used to quickly analyze the way people, ads, and all sorts of other things behave on the worlds largest social network. Both Facebook and the NSA, you see, have open sourced their software, meaning these tools are freely available to the world at large.

Ryan is the CEO of a small Silicon Valley startup called Argyle Data. Over the past sixteen months, he and his engineering team used Accumulo and Presto to fashion software that can root out fraud inside todays massive online operations, and theyve already deployed the thing with at least a few companies, including Vodafone, the British telecommunications giant that runs mobile phone networks across Europe.

Argyle is a nicely rounded metaphor for the recent evolution of the data-juggling technologies that drive our modern businesses. Over the past several years, massive web companies such as Google and Facebookas well as similarly ambitious operations like the NSAhave built a new breed of software that can store and analyze data across tens, hundreds, and even thousands of machines, and now, these software tools are trickling down to the rest of the business world. As a startup, Ryan says, you want to build on whats new, not whats old.

The poster child for this movement is a software system called Hadoop, which was inspired by work originally done at Google. But Hadoopat least as it was originally conceivedis now giving way to tools that operate at much faster speeds. Hadoop is a batch system, meaning you assign it a task and then wait a good while for the answer to come back. Newer systems are much better at operating at speed.

Argyles software is a prime example. Using machine learning and whats called deep packet inspection, it analyzes the individual packets of data that stream across a network, and if a piece of data meets certain criteriai.e. sets off certain flagsit gets shuttled into Accumulo, a massive database that can extend across myriad machines. It helps us scan tens of millions to hundreds of millions of transactions a second, Ryan says. Companies can then use a version of Presto to further analyze this data, executing specific queries in near real-time.

Christopher Nguyen, the CEO of a data analysis startup called Adatao who once worked with similar big data software inside Google, says that Arygles method isnt necessarily the best way to analyze such massive amounts of information at speed. But he agrees that this is part of a much much larger movement towards real-time big data tools, tools that also include something called Spark, developed at the University of California at Berkeley, and various other software contraptions.

At the same time, Argyles story underlines another aspect of this movement. At the NSA, you see, Accumulo is likely part of a surveillance effort that underpins our online privacy, and as the tools like this make it easier to collect and analyze such enormous amounts data, they may help push us towards a world where privacy is eroded even further. Vodafone, after all, is using Argyles software to closely analyze data streaming across European wireless networks used by the general public.

According to Seth Schoen, a staff technologist with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, laws typically allow companies to use tools along the lines of Argyleincluding deep packet inspectionto do things like fight fraud. But in the end, their affect on privacy boils down to the policy of each individual company. The good news with Argyle, as Ryan points out, is that the NSA built Accumulo so that organizations can closely control who, within their operation, has access to each individual piece of data. Its a trade off, Ryan says. Privacy is so important. But with more data-enrichment, you can improve the results of your analytics.

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Startup Fights Fraud With Tools From Facebook, NSA

FILE - In this file image made from video released by WikiLeaks on Oct. 11, 2013, former National Security Agency systems analyst Edward Snowden speaks in Moscow. Faced with congressional inaction to curtail the NSA?s bulk collection of Americans? telephone records, civil liberties groups are looking to cases already in the courts as a quicker way to clarify just what surveillance powers the government should have. Three appeals courts are hearing challenges to the National Security Agency phone records program, creating the potential for an eventual Supreme Court review. Judges in lower courts are grappling with the admissibility of evidence gained through the NSA?s warrantless surveillance. The flurry of activity follows revelations last year by former contractor Edward Snowden of once-secret intelligence collection programs. (AP Photo, File)(The Associated Press)

WASHINGTON While Congress mulls how to curtail the NSA's collection of Americans' telephone records, impatient civil liberties groups are looking to legal challenges already underway in the courts to limit government surveillance powers.

Three appeals courts are hearing lawsuits against the bulk phone records program, creating the potential for an eventual Supreme Court review. Judges in lower courts, meanwhile, are grappling with the admissibility of evidence gained through the NSA's warrantless surveillance.

Advocates say the flurry of activity, which follows revelations last year by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden of once-secret intelligence programs, show how a post-9/11 surveillance debate once primarily hashed out among lawmakers in secret is being increasingly aired in open court not only in New York and Washington but in places like Idaho and Colorado.

"The thing that is different about the debate right now is that the courts are much more of a factor in it," said Jameel Jaffer, deputy legal director at the American Civil Liberties Union. Before the Snowden disclosures, he said, courts were generally relegated to the sidelines of the discussion. Now, judges are poised to make major decisions on at least some of the matters in coming months.

Though it's unclear whether the Supreme Court will weigh in, the cases are proceeding at a time when the justices appear increasingly comfortable with digital privacy matters including GPS tracking of cars and police searches of cellphones.

The cases "come at a critical turning point for the Supreme Court when it comes to expectations of privacy and digital information," said American University law professor Stephen Vladeck.

Revelations that the government was collecting phone records of millions of Americans who were not suspected of crimes forced a rethinking of the practice, and President Barack Obama has called for it to end.

Since then, the House has passed legislation that civil libertarians say did not go far enough. In the Senate, Vermont Democrat Patrick Leahy, the Judiciary Committee chairman, is seeking a vote on a stricter measure to ban bulk collection, and it has bipartisan backing and support from the White House.

As Congress considers the matter, the federal judiciary has produced divided opinions.

More here:
As Congress mulls reining in NSA phone records collection, attention turns to court challenges

Tom Ryan wanted to build something that could identify criminal behavior inside massive mobile networks, stock trading services, ecommerce sites, and other online operations. So he turned to a pair of familiar names for help: Facebook and the NSA.

He didnt exactly knock on Facebooks front doorlet alone the NSAs. But he did adopt a pair of sweeping software systems built by these giants of the online age, systems that help them juggle the massive amounts of digital information streaming into their computer data centers.

Ryan grabbed an NSA tool called Accumulo, which likely plays a key role in the agencys notoriously widespread efforts to monitor internet traffic in the name of national security, and he paired it with a Facebook tool called Presto, used to quickly analyze the way people, ads, and all sorts of other things behave on the worlds largest social network. Both Facebook and the NSA, you see, have open sourced their software, meaning these tools are freely available to the world at large.

Ryan is the CEO of a small Silicon Valley startup called Argyle Data. Over the past sixteen months, he and his engineering team used Accumulo and Presto to fashion software that can root out fraud inside todays massive online operations, and theyve already deployed the thing with at least a few companies, including Vodafone, the British telecommunications giant that runs mobile phone networks across Europe.

Argyle is a nicely rounded metaphor for the recent evolution of the data-juggling technologies that drive our modern businesses. Over the past several years, massive web companies such as Google and Facebookas well as similarly ambitious operations like the NSAhave built a new breed of software that can store and analyze data across tens, hundreds, and even thousands of machines, and now, these software tools are trickling down to the rest of the business world. As a startup, Ryan says, you want to build on whats new, not whats old.

The poster child for this movement is a software system called Hadoop, which was inspired by work originally done at Google. But Hadoopat least as it was originally conceivedis now giving way to tools that operate at much faster speeds. Hadoop is a batch system, meaning you assign it a task and then wait a good while for the answer to come back. Newer systems are much better at operating at speed.

Argyles software is a prime example. Using machine learning and whats called deep packet inspection, it analyzes the individual packets of data that stream across a network, and if a piece of data meets certain criteriai.e. sets off certain flagsit gets shuttled into Accumulo, a massive database that can extend across myriad machines. It helps us scan tens of millions to hundreds of millions of transactions a second, Ryan says. Companies can then use a version of Presto to further analyze this data, executing specific queries in near real-time.

Christopher Nguyen, the CEO of a data analysis startup called Adatao who once worked with similar big data software inside Google, says that Arygles method isnt necessarily the best way to analyze such massive amounts of information at speed. But he agrees that this is part of a much much larger movement towards real-time big data tools, tools that also include something called Spark, developed at the University of California at Berkeley, and various other software contraptions.

At the same time, Argyles story underlines another aspect of this movement. At the NSA, you see, Accumulo is likely part of a surveillance effort that underpins our online privacy, and as the tools like this make it easier to collect and analyze such enormous amounts data, they may help push us towards a world where privacy is eroded even further. Vodafone, after all, is using Argyles software to closely analyze data streaming across European wireless networks used by the general public.

According to Seth Schoen, a staff technologist with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, laws typically allow companies to use tools along the lines of Argyleincluding deep packet inspectionto do things like fight fraud. But in the end, their affect on privacy boils down to the policy of each individual company. The good news with Argyle, as Ryan points out, is that the NSA built Accumulo so that organizations can closely control who, within their operation, has access to each individual piece of data. Its a trade off, Ryan says. Privacy is so important. But with more data-enrichment, you can improve the results of your analytics.

More here:
Startup Fights Fraud With Tools From FacebookAnd the NSA

AP

This June 6, 213 file photo shows the sign outside the National Security Agency (NSA) campus in Fort Meade, Md.

WASHINGTON While Congress mulls how to curtail the NSA's collection of Americans' telephone records, impatient civil liberties groups are looking to legal challenges already underway in the courts to limit government surveillance powers.

Three appeals courts are hearing lawsuits against the bulk phone records program, creating the potential for an eventual Supreme Court review. Judges in lower courts, meanwhile, are grappling with the admissibility of evidence gained through the NSA's warrantless surveillance.

Advocates say the flurry of activity, which follows revelations last year by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden of once-secret intelligence programs, show how a post-9/11 surveillance debate once primarily hashed out among lawmakers in secret is being increasingly aired in open court not only in New York and Washington but in places like Idaho and Colorado.

"The thing that is different about the debate right now is that the courts are much more of a factor in it," said Jameel Jaffer, deputy legal director at the American Civil Liberties Union. Before the Snowden disclosures, he said, courts were generally relegated to the sidelines of the discussion. Now, judges are poised to make major decisions on at least some of the matters in coming months.

Though it's unclear whether the Supreme Court will weigh in, the cases are proceeding at a time when the justices appear increasingly comfortable with digital privacy matters including GPS tracking of cars and police searches of cellphones.

The cases "come at a critical turning point for the Supreme Court when it comes to expectations of privacy and digital information," said American University law professor Stephen Vladeck.

Revelations that the government was collecting phone records of millions of Americans who were not suspected of crimes forced a rethinking of the practice, and President Barack Obama has called for it to end.

Since then, the House has passed legislation that civil libertarians say did not go far enough. In the Senate, Vermont Democrat Patrick Leahy, the Judiciary Committee chairman, is seeking a vote on a stricter measure to ban bulk collection, and it has bipartisan backing and support from the White House.

Continued here:
NSA surveillance challenges moving through courts

No serious defense of the surveillance state can ignores its anti-democratic abuses, its lawbreaking, and its record of punishing whistleblowers.

Eddie Keogh/Reuters

In a New Republic article on NSA surveillance, Yishai Schwartz defends the U.S. government against the critiques of whistleblower Edward Snowden and his supporters. This defense warrants close scrutiny, because several of the arguments offered echo misinformation spread by national-security state officials.

The article begins by analyzing scenes in the Laura Poitras documentary Citizenfour where Snowden is holed up in a Hong Kong hotel, anxious that authorities might burst through the door and arrest him at any moment. "The implication is that Snowden has been targeted and persecuted by the government because he is a dissenter," Schwartz writes. "This is false. Snowden is a dissenter, but he is also a law-breaker. And the latter is the reason he has been targeted .... The government seeks to punish Snowden in order to make an example, but it is an example to future law-breakers (and in particular, those who expose classified information), not to deter future dissenters. Snowden happens to fit into both categories, but most dissenters do not, and they have nothing to fear."

Tell that to NSA whistleblower William Binney. In 2007, a dozen FBI agents stormed into his house with weapons drawn. "One of them ran upstairs and entered the bathroom where Mr. Binney was toweling off after a shower, pointing a gun at him," The New York Times reported. "Agents carried away a computer, disks and personal and business records .... Mr. Binney spent more than $7,000 on legal fees. But far more devastating, he said, was the N.S.A.s decision to strip his security clearance ... costing him an annual income of $300,000."

'What the War on Terror Actually Looks Like': Laura Poitras on Citizenfour

Or consider Thomas Drake, who was careful to avoid revealing classified information in correspondence with a reporter about NSA waste, fraud, and abuse. Jane Mayer documents the trumped-up charges used to persecute him and destroy his career. Or ponder Jesselyn Radack's story.

Is Schwartz unaware of these people? Surely he is at least familiar with Poitras, whose film he is reviewing. She committed no crimes when making documentaries about Iraq and Gitmo, yet wound up on a secret government watch list, subjecting her to harassment, interrogations, and equipment seizures. The claim that lawful dissenters "have nothing to fear" is demonstrably false.

* * *

A bit later in Schwartz's article, he objects to the argument that "our surveillance programs are unnecessary, that increases in government capabilities inherently infringe on our liberty, and warns ominously that dictatorships begin their oppression with the collection of data," countering that "surveillance is essential to countering threats from both terrorists and state espionage in the world today."

More here:
Comforting the NSA and Afflicting Its Dissenters