12 ms·

I'm not convinced that the goal here is actually to obstruct intelligence agencies, I think they'd just use a shell company or flatly demand access if they want

by npx 10y ago

I'm not convinced that the goal here is actually to obstruct intelligence agencies, I think they'd just use a shell company or flatly demand access if they wanted it. As far as I'm aware, the Library of Congress is archiving all tweets. It feels like a cheap way to generate press portraying Twitter as a staunch defender of liberty. I'm not sold.

greglindahl 10y ago
LOC was archiving in 2010, but that project is no longer going forward: http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/library-of-congress-twitter-archive-119698.html http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/library-of-congress-tw...
- mratzloff 10y ago
  I have to continually remind myself not to read comments, but, ugh, it's a bad habit. The ones on Politico are really terrible. They're essentially indistinguishable in content from YouTube comments. Everyone thinks of themselves as funny, clever, or insightful, but they're just not. Jesus. If these archival tweets were around for several hundred years, perhaps they might be interesting to historians in the same way ancient Roman graffiti is. But it seems far more likely to me that this project, even if it does get off the ground, would shut down well before that. I'm not sure Politico comments are that far removed from a lot of tweets... and based on the Politico comments, maybe shutting down that project wouldn't be a bad thing.
ihsw 10y ago
Well, you're probably right that the goal isn't simply to obstruct intelligence agencies. I am guessing that the idea is more than likely to tell them to quit being too demanding and start acting like just another client. Plus, being involved with the government usually involves all kinds of regulatory nonsense and (sometimes) having their personnel on premises for whatever reason. In summary it's probably a cost cutting measure to keep legal and engineering teams from getting preoccupied with government nonsense requests, but hey they can spin it as giving a big middle finger to the government so why not.
- jomamaxx 10y ago
  " to quit being too demanding and start acting like just another client." Uhm, intelligence agencies are 'not just another client'. Do any of you have any concept of duty, service, community? You do realize that they are serving a cause much greater than you or I, and certainly Twitter, for that matter? You do realize that Twitter is a primary propaganda and recruitment tool for some very, very nefarious people? Of course the debate regarding the level of privacy we ought to have, and what amounts to government overreach must be had, and likely will never cease, but at the same time, this is a serious business. Lives are literally at stake. "Plus, being involved with the government usually involves all kinds of regulatory nonsense and (sometimes) having their personnel on premises for whatever reason." God forbid that other people have a responsibilities much greater than themselves, which doesn't involve making money? I'm not so naive to suggest that government requests may be burdensome, and on occasion due to ill motives, but I suggest that the premise of your statement lacks perspective. In this particular case, it would seem that the government should at the very least have access to public Tweets, this would be arguably one of the least intrusive measures they could make, after all, a Tweet by you, I, or an ISIS member is definitely 'public domain' in every sense of the term. I wish there were more details.
  - PhasmaFelis 10y ago
    > You do realize that they are serving a cause much greater than you or I, and certainly Twitter, for that matter? I really want to believe that. I think it would be a better world if I could believe that. But we've seen pretty conclusively that the goals of intelligence agencies don't always line up with the best interests of the citizens they purportedly serve. So there's a line that has to be walked. How can we give them enough power to defend us, but not enough power to hurt us? We can't; we can only make trade-offs and hope they're the right ones. This would be so much easier if the people tasked to defend us could be trusted. But they've shown, conclusively, that they can't.
  - SyneRyder 10y ago
    > In this particular case, it would seem that the government should at the very least have access to public Tweets... They still do. From the article: "In a statement, Twitter said its “data is largely public and the U.S. government may review public accounts on its own, like any user could.”"
StanislavPetrov 10y ago
Couldn't agree more. In addition to that, the NSA (among other government organizations) sniffs and logs all internet (including Twitter) traffic. Given the unlimited resources of the government to sift, sort, and mine this data (thanks to our taxpayer dollars) it wouldn't be at all surprising if they didn't already construct a superior, parallel analytic system unconstrained by any of the regulations or financial restrictions faced by Twitter.
- awinograd 10y ago
  This is a ridiculous claim. The government doesn't have the resources to monitor the entirety of the Internet.
  - cm2187 10y ago
    If you take out porn videos and duplicate js libraries the text traffic is probably not that great!
    - cmurf 10y ago
      Right. And also deduct 90+% likely spam/phishing candidates, and all youtube and Netflix streams and what remains is what, 20%? 10%?
      - cm2187 10y ago
        I'd say less than that. Remove all https traffic, js frameworks, identical images, video, newspapers and major blog entries, and I'd guess the remaining text traffic must be 1-2% of the global traffic. One thing I'd guess too is that the NSA must have the mother of all password databases. Given all the login forms that went through unencrypted and still do. If I was the NSA that's the first thing I would have captured.
        dangerlibrary 10y ago
        My understanding is that they store all https traffic to be decrypted later.
nv-vn 10y ago
I think the point of it is more as a kind of protest than it is to actually obstruct their ability to spy on people.
shrugger 10y ago
defender of liberty? What's anti-liberty about collecting information that people voluntarily show the world? I actually disagree with this decision on the basis that it just eliminates potential business opportunities for Twitter corp. I mean, if I tweet something, I can't then turn around and get angry at someone who approaches me and says, "Hey, you ran at central park yesterday, I saw it on your twitter." or whatever, because I voluntarily chose to tweet it. The same goes for anybody else, including intelligence agencies. I can't read past the paywall but I googled around and to my understanding, it's not even the intelligence agencies that are doing it to begin with. These other companies correlate all the data, structure it with an API they provide to the intelligence agencies. So at this point, there's two different types of businesses now suffering from this decision. I don't even understand why I like twitter so much, they keep doing these stupid, stupid things!
caseysoftware 10y ago
Based on Twitter's share price, they need any positive press they can get at this point. But fundamentally, as long as Dataminr (as by extension, the Intelligence Community) is only accessing publicly available information purposely broadcast by users, this is pretty innocuous. If Dataminr/IC was pushing for data from protected accounts, DMs, or other non-public info, then it's a different game.
Karunamon 10y ago
It feels like a cheap way to generate press portraying Twitter as a staunch defender of liberty. I'm not sold. Especially given Twitter's more censorious habits regarding hashtags.. Anyways, I think there is some small amount of value here. Making it a ToS violation for certain groups to access your service makes it a bit more difficult for such programs to officially continue.

by npx 10y ago

greglindahl 10y ago

LOC was archiving in 2010, but that project is no longer going forward: http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/library-of-congress-twitter-archive-119698.html http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/library-of-congress-tw...

mratzloff 10y ago
I have to continually remind myself not to read comments, but, ugh, it's a bad habit. The ones on Politico are really terrible. They're essentially indistinguishable in content from YouTube comments. Everyone thinks of themselves as funny, clever, or insightful, but they're just not. Jesus. If these archival tweets were around for several hundred years, perhaps they might be interesting to historians in the same way ancient Roman graffiti is. But it seems far more likely to me that this project, even if it does get off the ground, would shut down well before that. I'm not sure Politico comments are that far removed from a lot of tweets... and based on the Politico comments, maybe shutting down that project wouldn't be a bad thing.

ihsw 10y ago

Well, you're probably right that the goal isn't simply to obstruct intelligence agencies. I am guessing that the idea is more than likely to tell them to quit being too demanding and start acting like just another client. Plus, being involved with the government usually involves all kinds of regulatory nonsense and (sometimes) having their personnel on premises for whatever reason. In summary it's probably a cost cutting measure to keep legal and engineering teams from getting preoccupied with government nonsense requests, but hey they can spin it as giving a big middle finger to the government so why not.

jomamaxx 10y ago
" to quit being too demanding and start acting like just another client." Uhm, intelligence agencies are 'not just another client'. Do any of you have any concept of duty, service, community? You do realize that they are serving a cause much greater than you or I, and certainly Twitter, for that matter? You do realize that Twitter is a primary propaganda and recruitment tool for some very, very nefarious people? Of course the debate regarding the level of privacy we ought to have, and what amounts to government overreach must be had, and likely will never cease, but at the same time, this is a serious business. Lives are literally at stake. "Plus, being involved with the government usually involves all kinds of regulatory nonsense and (sometimes) having their personnel on premises for whatever reason." God forbid that other people have a responsibilities much greater than themselves, which doesn't involve making money? I'm not so naive to suggest that government requests may be burdensome, and on occasion due to ill motives, but I suggest that the premise of your statement lacks perspective. In this particular case, it would seem that the government should at the very least have access to public Tweets, this would be arguably one of the least intrusive measures they could make, after all, a Tweet by you, I, or an ISIS member is definitely 'public domain' in every sense of the term. I wish there were more details.
- PhasmaFelis 10y ago
  > You do realize that they are serving a cause much greater than you or I, and certainly Twitter, for that matter? I really want to believe that. I think it would be a better world if I could believe that. But we've seen pretty conclusively that the goals of intelligence agencies don't always line up with the best interests of the citizens they purportedly serve. So there's a line that has to be walked. How can we give them enough power to defend us, but not enough power to hurt us? We can't; we can only make trade-offs and hope they're the right ones. This would be so much easier if the people tasked to defend us could be trusted. But they've shown, conclusively, that they can't.
- SyneRyder 10y ago
  > In this particular case, it would seem that the government should at the very least have access to public Tweets... They still do. From the article: "In a statement, Twitter said its “data is largely public and the U.S. government may review public accounts on its own, like any user could.”"

StanislavPetrov 10y ago

Couldn't agree more. In addition to that, the NSA (among other government organizations) sniffs and logs all internet (including Twitter) traffic. Given the unlimited resources of the government to sift, sort, and mine this data (thanks to our taxpayer dollars) it wouldn't be at all surprising if they didn't already construct a superior, parallel analytic system unconstrained by any of the regulations or financial restrictions faced by Twitter.

awinograd 10y ago
This is a ridiculous claim. The government doesn't have the resources to monitor the entirety of the Internet.
- cm2187 10y ago
  If you take out porn videos and duplicate js libraries the text traffic is probably not that great!
  - cmurf 10y ago
    Right. And also deduct 90+% likely spam/phishing candidates, and all youtube and Netflix streams and what remains is what, 20%? 10%?
    - cm2187 10y ago
      I'd say less than that. Remove all https traffic, js frameworks, identical images, video, newspapers and major blog entries, and I'd guess the remaining text traffic must be 1-2% of the global traffic. One thing I'd guess too is that the NSA must have the mother of all password databases. Given all the login forms that went through unencrypted and still do. If I was the NSA that's the first thing I would have captured.
      - dangerlibrary 10y ago
        My understanding is that they store all https traffic to be decrypted later.

nv-vn 10y ago

I think the point of it is more as a kind of protest than it is to actually obstruct their ability to spy on people.

shrugger 10y ago

defender of liberty? What's anti-liberty about collecting information that people voluntarily show the world? I actually disagree with this decision on the basis that it just eliminates potential business opportunities for Twitter corp. I mean, if I tweet something, I can't then turn around and get angry at someone who approaches me and says, "Hey, you ran at central park yesterday, I saw it on your twitter." or whatever, because I voluntarily chose to tweet it. The same goes for anybody else, including intelligence agencies. I can't read past the paywall but I googled around and to my understanding, it's not even the intelligence agencies that are doing it to begin with. These other companies correlate all the data, structure it with an API they provide to the intelligence agencies. So at this point, there's two different types of businesses now suffering from this decision. I don't even understand why I like twitter so much, they keep doing these stupid, stupid things!

caseysoftware 10y ago

Based on Twitter's share price, they need any positive press they can get at this point. But fundamentally, as long as Dataminr (as by extension, the Intelligence Community) is only accessing publicly available information purposely broadcast by users, this is pretty innocuous. If Dataminr/IC was pushing for data from protected accounts, DMs, or other non-public info, then it's a different game.

Karunamon 10y ago

It feels like a cheap way to generate press portraying Twitter as a staunch defender of liberty. I'm not sold. Especially given Twitter's more censorious habits regarding hashtags.. Anyways, I think there is some small amount of value here. Making it a ToS violation for certain groups to access your service makes it a bit more difficult for such programs to officially continue.