Listening to Bulls & Bears on Fox this a.m., some of the discussion was regarding the US Congress wanting to pass a bill that would require social
media companies to report terror related activity, identify potential terrorists and report them to the government.
Here's Wiki's definition of Encrypted:
In an encryption scheme, the intended communication information or message, referred to as plaintext, is
encrypted using an encryption algorithm, generating ciphertext that can only be read if decrypted. For technical reasons, an encryption scheme usually
uses a pseudo-random encryption key generated by an algorithm.
Definition of Algorithm:
A process or set of rules to be followed in calculations or other problem-solving operations, especially by a
computer.
How much time should private media employees devote to web "monitoring"? It's impractical that any private technical company monitor the web in
this way. The messages are many times encrypted. How could anyone know the meaning of code words and metaphors much less encrypted messages?
There are infinite possibilities of encryptions, codes, and algorithms. Wasn't it part of the purpose of the mega data collection, to catch
terrorists and keep us safe? Gary B. Smith made some good points. There are 500,000,000 tweets a day. FB users upload 153,000 photos PER SECOND.
The NSA has approximately 180,000 employees and a multitude of government agencies at their disposal and look what they've missed. It's been stated
that Malik and Forook communicated for years about Jihad, so what's all this about the investigators looking for a hard drive in a lake? Don't they
have all the info somewhere in their mega-data backups?
Why should it be a law and not voluntary? Why let the terrorists know there's a law which would direct them to find other avenues of communication,
use the dark web etc? What is the liability to the private company? Would it be applicable to smaller internet service providers such as
Ranchwireless or Wi-five which also give you your own email account? Is it even possible to monitor the volume of digital communication? Private
online chats, phone calls, Skype etc., it doesn't seem possible, not for private companies to do, not for the NSA.
And what is a terrorist? There are 150 definitions in US law. What would the criteria be? We can't even shut down all the child pornography sites,
much less pull an online sentence from a private chat or text regarding an attack, in code such as "Let's go", which was used in the Paris attacks.
What's next, social media users required to report suspicious communiques they view or receive? Would a tweet that the burger you grilled for lunch
was "the bomb" or emailing a Google search link for "Jihad in the US out of control" to a buddy or "terrorists plots in the US today" searched
for your own research result in a visit from the men in black?
One thing the whole debacle of the NSA's mega data collection has proven to me, is how easy it is to avoid detection if one puts a small amount of
effort into the task.