INDECT EU Project to monitor message boards?

Amhran Nua

I'm not sure if someone posted this already, but I happened across this site the last day. Can someone explain to me the justification or rationale behind the EU needing such a system?

* to develop a platform for: the registration and exchange of operational data, acquisition of multimedia content, intelligent processing of all information and automatic detection of threats and recognition of abnormal behaviour or violence,
* to develop the prototype of an integrated, network-centric system supporting the operational activities of police officers, providing techniques and tools for observation of various mobile objects,
* to develop a new type of search engine combining direct search of images and video based on watermarked contents, and the storage of metadata in the form of digital watermarks,

The main expected results of the INDECT project are:

* to realise a trial installation of the monitoring and surveillance system in various points of city agglomeration and demonstration of the prototype of the system with 15 node stations,
* implementation of a distributed computer system that is capable of acquisition, storage and effective sharing on demand of the data as well as intelligent processing,
* construction of a family of prototypes of devices used for mobile object tracking,
* construction of a search engine for fast detection of persons and documents based on watermarking technology and utilising comprehensive research on watermarking technology used for semantic search,
* construction of agents assigned to continuous and automatic monitoring of public resources such as: web sites, discussion forums, UseNet groups, file servers, p2p networks as well as individual computer systems,
* elaboration of Internet based intelligence gathering system, both active and passive, and demonstrating its efficiency in a measurable way.

Now this isn't a UK based initiative, its a proper trans-EU project. I mean the repercussions are clear, if I wanted to post up for example (and purely for example) "Brian Cowen is a swine who'd be better off getting run out of the country on a rail", that will be tagged, flagged, and noted for pursual.

Since they will presumably have access at DNS root level they will therefore be able to RIPE me straight back home. Echelon and carnivore have nothing on this creation, because they aren't contextual, they just filter the streams as they get them. This thing actually goes out and looks for information. This puts a hundred thousand eyes on the internet attached to one brain, that does exactly what its told by who knows who. And whats more its not just the net, its hooked into CCTV systems and "mobile object tracking" devices - real enemy of the state stuff.

Even the stated mission is alarming enough, and this is important, in the hands of a group intent on suppressing dissent, it would be devastating, and we have exactly zero guarantees that such a group will not rise to prominence in the EU in the future, since such guarantees are impossible to give.

No, my worry is what exactly such a move says about the EU right now, and the direction it is intended to go. We won't need to worry about whether or not big brother is sitting looking over our shoulders any more, we'll have an official agency dedicated to that purpose, with its own website and all.

Generally speaking I personally am ambivalent towards the EU. There is some good, a lot of mediocre, and some bad. The worst about it was as with all beaurocracies its love for a growing mountain of finnicky interwoven rules, still mostly benign. It was the doddering but cared for uncle with his mass of newspaper clippings.

This project puts an entirely different light on the subject, and frankly I'll be checking into this and the people behind it a lot more intensively before feeling any way relaxed towards the EU again. Is it some beaurocrat's wet dream or is there a more organised structure here?

ei.sdraob

That UK big brother/cctv mania for you

look whose on the partner list...

Police Service of Northern Ireland (United Kingdom)

Amhran Nua

ei.sdraob wrote: »

That UK big brother/cctv mania for you

look whose on the partner list...

Its not just the UK though, which is why I am worried. Look who else is on the list:

INDECT Partners

1. AGH Univeristy of Science and Technology (Poland) - Project Coordinator http://www.agh.edu.pl/en
2. Gdansk University of Technology (Poland) http://www.pg.gda.pl
3. InnoTec DATA G.m.b.H. & Co. KG (Germany) http://www.innotec-data.de
4. Grenoble INP (France) http://www.grenoble-inp.fr
5. MSWIA - General Headquarters of Police (Poland) http://www.policja.pl/
6. Moviquity (Spain) http://www.moviquity.com/webingles/index.htm
7. PSI Transcom GmbH (Germany) http://www.psi.de/
8. Police Service of Northern Ireland (United Kingdom) http://www.psni.police.uk/
9. Poznan University of Technology (Poland) http://www.put.poznan.pl
10. Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (Spain) http://www.uc3m.es
11. Technical University of Sofia (Bulgaria) http://www.tu-sofia.bg
12. University of Wuppertal (Germany) http://www.uni-wuppertal.de
13. University of York (Great Britain) http://www.york.ac.uk
14. Technical University of Ostrava (Czech Republic) http://www.vsb.cz
15. Technical University of Kosice (Slovakia) http://www.tuke.sk/tuke?set_language=en&cl=en
16. X-Art Pro Division G.m.b.H. (Austria) http://www.x-art.at
17. Fachhochschule Technikum Wien (Austria) http://www.technikum-wien.at

ei.sdraob

Amhran Nua wrote: »

Its not just the UK though, which is why I am worried. Look who else is on the list:

they can research away, its a waste of money I tell you (from my technical expertise) and wont work


Ireland doesn't have to join any such initiative anyways

this would be analogous to us worrying about UK having the most number of cctv cameras per head of population

we cant tell them what to do, they cant tell us what to do


but to answer your original question


"what is the need for such a system?"

fighting crime would be the answer



tho once again its a waste of money and would end up a failure

Amhran Nua

ei.sdraob wrote: »

they can research away, its a waste of money I tell you (from my technical expertise) and wont work

That wasn't the main problem I have with this. What does it say that four of the largest countries in the EU are pumping research skills and funds into this project?

ei.sdraob wrote: »

Ireland doesn't have to join any such initiative anyways

Doesn't matter, we'll still be subject to it, as its highly doubtful that INDECT will stop monitoring at the borders of any given country. Mix it up with this and you have a very interesting picture.

In any case, I can't imagine Irish authorities having any problems with jumping on board the system once its set up.

ei.sdraob wrote: »

fighting crime would be the answer

You can justify a lot of things by saying you are fighting crime, including mandatory search and seizure. Doesn't mean they are good ideas. This sounds a lot like, if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear.

ei.sdraob

Amhran Nua wrote: »

That wasn't the main problem I have with this. What does it say that four of the largest countries in the EU are pumping research skills and funds into this project?


Doesn't matter, we'll still be subject to it, as its highly doubtful that INDECT will stop monitoring at the borders of any given country. Mix it up with this and you have a very interesting picture.

In any case, I can't imagine Irish authorities having any problems with jumping on board the system once its set up.


You can justify a lot of things by saying you are fighting crime, including mandatory search and seizure. Doesn't mean they are good ideas. This sounds a lot like, if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear.

hey look I dont like this either

but the EU is not a single federal state like the US

if a group of states decide to go on a fools quest then thats their problem, they cant force it on us and vice versa

there are other things some EU countries are involved that are much more serious like the Iraq/Afgan wars

once again since EU is nothing more than a loose alliance of states, mostly economic and barely political, there aint much we can do

if this bothers you raise it with your MEP or Foreign Ministry

im surprised that I have to explain how the EU operates to you



btw there are other things i dont like that EU does such as paying so much money to farmers, i wish my business was subsidized and got paid for doing nothing

but hey thats life


anyways I asked you before in another thread

what is the policy of your party towards EU and the Lisbon Treaty

you avoided answering and still seem to be sitting on fence

chancing your way as opportunities arise is called opportunism, you dont want to end up in the same shelf as Ganley now do yee?

Scofflaw

It's a research project, not an initiative, and the amount of funding is, in terms of serious framework funding, small. It's part of the general exploration by the member states of anything that might provide them with early warning on terrorist attacks - and before one dismisses that as negligible, there were 515 known planned attacks in the EU in 2008 (397 of them by 'separatist movements').

Talk of 'monitoring of message boards' conjures up the picture of your every online conversation being analysed, and a profile built up of you, to be stored in a secret database somewhere. That's totally unrealistic, and would require human intervention - instead, a project like this is likely only to be looking at patterns of activity, and monitoring for certain keywords.

None of that is to say either that I like the growth in mass surveillance, or that any project like this will ever get beyond the research stage. However, if you'd like to panic about shadowy organisations having detailed profiles of you personally, I suggest you have a long hard look at Tescos or any other major retailer.

cordially,
Scofflaw

ei.sdraob

Scofflaw wrote: »

It's a research project, not an initiative, and the amount of funding is, in terms of serious framework funding, small. It's part of the general exploration by the member states of anything that might provide them with early warning on terrorist attacks - and before one dismisses that as negligible, there were 515 known planned attacks in the EU in 2008 (397 of them by 'separatist movements').

Talk of 'monitoring of message boards' conjures up the picture of your every online conversation being analysed, and a profile built up of you, to be stored in a secret database somewhere. That's totally unrealistic, and would require human intervention - instead, a project like this is likely only to be looking at patterns of activity, and monitoring for certain keywords.

None of that is to say either that I like the growth in mass surveillance, or that any project like this will ever get beyond the research stage. However, if you'd like to panic about shadowy organisations having detailed profiles of you personally, I suggest you have a long hard look at Tescos or any other major retailer.

cordially,
Scofflaw

or google for that matter

they are tracking you now with the adverts on this page

and the google analytics script embedded in all pages

thats on top of any searches people perform here and on google

and email chat etc etc

:cool:


Privacy and Net Neutrality are huge issues for me btw

Amhran Nua

ei.sdraob wrote: »

if a group of states decide to go on a fools quest then thats their problem

Can you link me to the page where it states this is not a project approved from the top down? I want to know who is responsible for this.

ei.sdraob wrote: »

btw there are other things i dont like that EU does such as paying so much money to farmers, i wish my business was subsidized and got paid for doing nothing

but hey thats life

No, thats war proofing. Its uncomfortable but it makes sense, although I might suggest an alternative.

ei.sdraob wrote: »

what is the policy of your party towards EU and the Lisbon Treaty

That has been comprehensively responded to in that other thread, as you are well aware. I find it even more worrying that you might want to try to change the subject like that.

Scofflaw wrote: »

terrorist

We've had terrorists in Ireland for a long time, and we're still here. Do not use that word as justification for this yoke, please.

Scofflaw wrote: »

Talk of 'monitoring of message boards' conjures up the picture of your every online conversation being analysed, and a profile built up of you, to be stored in a secret database somewhere. That's totally unrealistic

That is almost word for word what their own website says. I'd love to be the paranoid jumping at shadows on this one but I'm taking a flat look at the stated objectives. Saying they will never achieve it is less than pointless, thats not the point.

Amhran Nua

ei.sdraob wrote: »

or google for that matter

Yeah, when tescos or Google can extradite and or prosecute you and create legislation, the comparison might hold some water.

ei.sdraob wrote: »

Privacy and Net Neutrality are huge issues for me btw

Why would you not be baying for this thing to be removed so?

evercloserunion

Just to supplement this discussion, we are also talking about it here, in anotherthread started by Amhrán Nua. The fact that I should have to be defended by another poster against crude ungrounded ad hominem attacks from the thread starter doesn't bode well for their potential as a force for positive change in Irish politics now does it?

K-9

Look, I don't like ideas like this or phone records being available to others either.

Nobody cares who I phone or text, unless they have good reason. Comes in handy in cases like Joe O'Reilly though.

Daftendirekt

I don't like this.

Would a legally binding Charter of Fundamental Rights put a block against anything like this becoming an initiative?

Scofflaw

Amhran Nua wrote: »

Can you link me to the page where it states this is not a project approved from the top down? I want to know who is responsible for this.

It's FP7 funding - proposals are all evaluated by a panel of relevant experts:

Participation is on an internationally collaborative basis and must involve European partners. There are no national quotas as the Programmes are operated on a competitive basis with proposals being evaluated by panels of independent experts against set criteria.

More here.

Amhran Nua wrote: »

We've had terrorists in Ireland for a long time, and we're still here. Do not use that word as justification for this yoke, please.

That probably explains the involvement of the PSNI - and, since you seem to have forgotten, not everyone is "still here" who would still be here in the absence of terrorism.

Amhran Nua wrote: »

That is almost word for word what their own website says. I'd love to be the paranoid jumping at shadows on this one but I'm taking a flat look at the stated objectives. Saying they will never achieve it is less than pointless, thats not the point.

I don't like the objectives, but if you work in IT, you tend to find this sort of thing rather less than impressive. It's entirely in line with other 'mass surveillance' techniques - most of which seek to avoid privacy issues by only monitoring patterns.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Scofflaw

Daftendirekt wrote: »

I don't like this.

Would a legally binding Charter of Fundamental Rights put a block against anything like this becoming an initiative?

You could certainly have a go at it under the "Protection of personal data", or the "Respect for private and family life", although the latter allows for:

There shall be no interference by a public authority with the exercise of this right except such as is in accordance with the law and is necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security, public safety or the economic well-being of the country, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.

A lot hinges on whether this kind of monitoring is "necessary". I would argue that it isn't, and that it's an unwarranted and disproportionate intrusion. Mostly, though, you'd fight it in the Parliament.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Captain Furball

Amhran Nua

INDECT EU
That's before Lisbon gets passed.What direction do you think they will go later on?

Captain Furball

Scofflaw wrote: »

It's a research project, not an initiative, and the amount of funding is, in terms of serious framework funding, small. It's part of the general exploration by the member states of anything that might provide them with early warning on terrorist attacks - and before one dismisses that as negligible, there were 515 known planned attacks in the EU in 2008 (397 of them by 'separatist movements').

Talk of 'monitoring of message boards' conjures up the picture of your every online conversation being analysed, and a profile built up of you, to be stored in a secret database somewhere. That's totally unrealistic, and would require human intervention - instead, a project like this is likely only to be looking at patterns of activity, and monitoring for certain keywords.

None of that is to say either that I like the growth in mass surveillance, or that any project like this will ever get beyond the research stage. However, if you'd like to panic about shadowy organisations having detailed profiles of you personally, I suggest you have a long hard look at Tescos or any other major retailer.

cordially,
Scofflaw

The point is Europe wont have borders anymore in that sense.
So these terrorist are ruining our freedoms are they?
Bollocks.