I have herd/read rumors about some system or another that monitors all the electronic information coming into, going out of, and circulating within the USA. I personally think its a crock of do-do myself, but a thread I was reading last week in which some bone head teacher gave his class the assignment of creating an e-mail with the words “KILL THE PRESIDENT” and the resultant chatter about how that was a stupid thing to do got me to thinking, how could such a system be possible. Seriously. With all the info flowing to and frow, I just cant see how they could possibly filter it all. Even the stuff that was in English, and not encoded. I concede that you could build the mother of all key word filtering systems for the net, but with all the idiosyncrasies involved with the human voice, how could they go about monitoring phone and radio communication, forget about snail mail. Even if a filter for such things as key words on the Internet were in use, who reads the avalanche of reports that must spew forth every second of every day and determines if it’s worth a follow up. Who does the follow up. I cant believe there is enough manpower available to monitor all this information. Or is there? Please set me straight. Are we being * monitored* if so, how?
BTW – I really am looking for a rational, factual answer, lets save comments about my tin foil helmet for IMHO, thanks.
I am working with a call recording vendor for some call center work. With their technology, I can key in a word like… “cancel” . Their software will scan thousands of hours of digitaly recorded data for useage of the word “cancel”. It is about 80-90% effective.
I checked out the web site, very informative (in a happy fun squad sort of way).
Just enough info to offer solutions, but vague enough to make you wonder.
For instance, are the words you look for recorded voices, or instances where a representative keyed in the word “cancel” (lets say). And who wants to know, are you monitoring/searching for a specific client company on a closed system, or could a government entity aim your software at all the communications there are in a given set of systems. Do all the systems share information? See, I know the technology exists, but for all the forms of communication, 24/7? This takes me back to the avalanche of information idea. So then I have to ask, if this program is limited to a given system or set of systems, what are the chances that the odd e-mail to my mom, or phone call to my employer is being put through the filters? Very informative BTW, Thanks.
Ok, I can see that, I wonder how long this list is, and again, if we are talking about world wide communications, well, again – who actually reads this stuff. I imagine you would have to narrow your search area down a bit, to say, specific channels on specific satellites, or a specific band width. I mean does some decide “Today we are going to record EVERYTHING that floats across the southern hemisphere, and pick out all the instances of the words “No Vacas”, * then, * find out the origins of each usage, *then, * track down who used those words, then, launch an investigation as to why they were used (covert mind you)”. Sorry. Un-employment world wide is just to high for me to swallow this. Maybe in specific situations, with specific targets in mind, but not * all *communications, all the time. If I’m wrong, tell me why. BTW, how long till I get a strange clicking sound on my phone?
I key the word “cancel” and the system searches voice data for all instances of the word. Usually, the inaccuracies are not missed instances, rather they are the system picking up words like cancer, etc.
Most users of the system are large operations that truly care about their customer service. This software gives our managers the opportunity to try an defuse any potentially bad customer service issues.
The Govt. has regulated that certain items be recorded during certain transactions. This software insures compliance with most of those regs.
Absolutely not!
The potential is there to install this software at local telco switching centers. Every call could be recorded and could be analyzed. Major privacy issues though…
This is in limited systems today, but the bottom line is that the technology exists in commercial applications. It would not be difficult to extend the reach into more nefarious pursuits.
Ohhhhh Reeeallly. Any way you could let us know what these * certain items * are, is it just mundane stuff like billing info and what not, or is it the aforementioned key words. I am being a bit tongue in cheek here, but honestly, what I was trying to do was dispel my brother in laws notions that we are being monitored all the time. Now if the government requires that * certain items * be reported, well, there is a big part of the national filtering system right there. So he may be right?
What is being recorded is when customers agree to make financial transactions over the phone. Their acceptance of the “deal”, or their approval of whatever charges will hit their credit card is typically what the govt wants kept for safekeeping.
These are recorded but not given to the govt. or anything. It is more of a CYA issue, albeit federally mandated.
So I guess that about wraps it up. It could be happening, but there is no evidence that it is happening, at least, on the scale that my BIL is thinking.
