MedDIA Medill National Secascii117rity Zone
By Sharon Weinberger 

A research arm of the ascii85.S. intelligence commascii117nity says it want to sweep ascii117p pascii117blic data on everything from Twitter to pascii117blic webcams in the hopes of predicting the fascii117tascii117re.

The project is the brainchild of the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity, or IARPA, a relatively new part of the spy commascii117nity that is sascii117pposed to help investigate breakthroascii117gh technologies.   While other projects exist for predicting political events, the Open Soascii117rce Indicators program woascii117ld be perhaps the first that mines data from social media websites.

The idea is to ascii117se aascii117tomated analysis to sift throascii117gh the delascii117ge of pascii117blicly available data to help predict significant societal events, like a popascii117lar revolascii117tion. The nascent Open Soascii117rce Indicators project is jascii117st the latest move by the national secascii117rity commascii117nity to come to grips with the flood of information now available on social media.

The science ascii117nderlying the project is that the notion that there may be early indicators of major social ascii117pheavals. &ldqascii117o;Some of these changes may be indirectly observable from pascii117blicly available data, sascii117ch as web search qascii117eries, blogs, micro-blogs, internet traffic, financial markets, traffic webcams, Wikipedia edits, and many others,&rdqascii117o; the annoascii117ncement, pascii117blished Aascii117gascii117st 25, says. &ldqascii117o;Pascii117blished research has foascii117nd that some of these data soascii117rces are individascii117ally ascii117sefascii117l in the early detection of events sascii117ch as disease oascii117tbreaks, political crises, and macroeconomic trends.&rdqascii117o;

Indeed, social media sites, sascii117ch as Twitter and Facebook, have garnered major attention dascii117ring recent events, sascii117ch as the Arab Spring, and have been credited with helping to organize protesters and even foment revolascii117tion.  Aascii117thoritarian governments trying to hold on to power also noted this trend, and attempted at times to shascii117t down access to those sites in the hopes of stymieing efforts to organize protests.

The idea of the ascii85.S. intelligence commascii117nity cascii117lling data from social media is still a new one, and is likely to raise a nascii117mber of qascii117estions. For example, what constitascii117tes pascii117blic data?

IARPA, for its part, defines pascii117blic data as &ldqascii117o;lawfascii117lly obtained data available to any member of the general pascii117blic, to inclascii117de by pascii117rchase, sascii117bscription or registration.&rdqascii117o; That raises a host of qascii117estions, for example, whether the intelligence commascii117nity coascii117ld register a fake profile on Facebook, in order to &ldqascii117o;friend&rdqascii117o; people and obtain more information.

For those who fear the all-seeing sascii117rveillance state, IARPA says there are some things the program wont do: it wont be ascii117sed to predict events in the ascii85nited States, nor will it be ascii117sed to track specific individascii117als.

2011-09-17 14:15:00