4 hrs.
Have you ever wondered if the government?? or more specifically, the Department of Homeland Security?? is monitoring your Twitter or Facebook posts? If the answer's "yes," give yourself a pat on the back because you're right and?not simply paranoid. There's even a list of keywords for which?subcontractors hired by the DHS check social networks.
Joel Johnson of Animal was among the first to notice that?the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) obtained internal Department of Homeland Security (DHS) documents which explain the "items of interest" (IOI) for which the agency monitors social networks such as Facebook and Twitter.
Technically this monitoring is not done by the DHS, but?subcontractors who are specifically hired to "monitor social networks?use to generate real-time IOI reports," of course. Internal policies demand that those reports are stripped of?most personally identifiable information (PII), though there are plenty of exceptions such as status updates or tweets involving "potential life or death circumstances" or public statements by U.S. or foreign government officials.
So what sort of words and phrases are the DHS subcontractors looking for while monitoring social media sites?
They're looking for mentions of words and phrases related to government agencies ("Department of Homeland Security," "Homeland Defense," "agent," "task force," air marshal"),?domestic security ("assassination," "attack," "cops," dirty bomb," "shooting"), hazardous materials ("hazmat," "nuclear," "chemical spill," "leak") and health concerns ("flu," "ebola," "contamination," "virus," "small pox").?
Also on the list of IOI are terms related to?infrastructure security ("airport," "subway," "critial infrastructure," "transportation security"), Southwest border violence ("drug cartel," "drug," "gang," "decapitated"),?terrorism ("Pakistan," "target," "weapons grade," "biological weapon," "Taliban," "suicide attack"),?emergency situations ("hurricane," "extreme weather," "brush fire," "power outage," "blizzard"), and cyber security ("malware," "virus," "trojan," "phreaking," scammers").
The words listed above are just some of the IOI-related keywords listed in the documents obtained by EPIC. You can check out the full list on ?Animal, where Joel Johnson has compiled all the relevant terms.
Just try to avoid laughing when you notice that yes, "the Department of Homeland Security is searching social media for ? "social media.""
Want more tech news, silly puns, or amusing links? You'll get plenty of all three if you keep up with Rosa Golijan, the writer of this post, by following her on?Twitter, subscribing to her?Facebook?posts, or circling her?on?Google+.
pepper spraying cop pepper spraying cop somaya reece padma lakshmi juelz santana juelz santana greg halman
The Gillmor Gang ? Robert Scoble, Kevin Marks, John Taschek, and Steve Gillmor ? inaugurated a new title format where the topic replaces the date of the show release (it's in the URL). Today's topic: what it always is, Apple's relentless march toward encircling Windows in a sea of HD-quality iOS devices. In the latest update to OS X, push notification, the Twitter social bus and AirPlay come to the TV by way of the full complement of iOSish devices, now including the Mac. With iPad 3 just weeks away, Apple has made it retinal clear that the company has no intention of allowing anybody to catch up to the economic juggernaut where premium products sell out at prices that can't be undercut. The realtime global social network fuels demand for the iOS pervasive screen architecture (and coopetive partners such as Android and Amazon) to such a viral extent that the resulting momentum keeps competitors from realizing Apple's supply chain economies of scale.
Online video service Brightcove has just made its public debut on the NASDAQ under the symbol 'BCOV', with an opening trade of $14.50. This is up over 30 percent from the company's original pricing of $11 per share, after setting the range of 
