[HN Gopher] The FBI's Contract to Buy Mass Internet Data
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       The FBI's Contract to Buy Mass Internet Data
        
       Author : leotravis10
       Score  : 116 points
       Date   : 2023-03-27 19:34 UTC (3 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.vice.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.vice.com)
        
       | advisedwang wrote:
       | Which ISPs are giving our traffic data to Team Cymru? We need
       | them named and shamed.
        
         | soupfordummies wrote:
         | Absolutely agree. However, even then, what am I gonna do, go to
         | the ONE other alternative in my neighborhood?
        
       | greyface- wrote:
       | The document:
       | https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/23722785/fbi-team-cym...
        
       | worrycue wrote:
       | I wonder if this will be the silver lining of AI-generated spam.
       | Online information might plummet in value due to reduced signal-
       | noise ratio. People will become harder to read and manipulate.
        
         | ShamelessC wrote:
         | People don't care enough for it to matter.
        
       | costco wrote:
       | It's only $35k a month? I think we can all assume that basically
       | any government has this now.
        
         | kube-system wrote:
         | Or criminal group, blackmailers and harassers, private industry
         | looking to extract more money from you, etc.
        
       | Syonyk wrote:
       | Of course they did. And they'll keep doing it, because they can.
       | And because knowledge like that is power, and they like power.
       | 
       | At this point, you can safely assume that anything muttered by a
       | "tin foil hat nutter" sort in about 2005-2010 about the internet,
       | computers, three letter agencies, and the like is correct. It's
       | sure heading in that direction.
        
         | mattpallissard wrote:
         | > At this point, you can safely assume that anything muttered
         | by a "tin foil hat nutter" sort in about 2005-2010 about the
         | internet, computers, three letter agencies, and the like is
         | correct.
         | 
         | As one of the few software/tech guys for hundreds of miles I
         | get a lot of "I suspect they're doing X, but that's probably
         | not even possible". In regards to BigBrother/BigCo.
         | 
         | I correct them all. Not possible, probable.
        
         | LesZedCB wrote:
         | good thing everything is hidden cleverly behind this
         | impenetrable username!
        
       | fallingknife wrote:
       | It's time to think about extending certain constitutional
       | restrictions to corporations. It's becoming all to common that
       | the government contracts out its rights violations to the private
       | sector.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | DueDilligence wrote:
       | [dead]
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | cronix wrote:
       | Oh, you mean ISP's sell data to whoever has money to buy it,
       | including the FBI.
        
       | justapassenger wrote:
       | "Mass Internet Data" and $35k per month?
       | 
       | Anyone who dealt with government contracts and/or internet knows
       | that those 2 statements don't align in any way. This data has to
       | be extremely, extremely, extremely limited and/or useless.
        
         | spydum wrote:
         | I have had access to this type of data before commercially for
         | purpose. It's useful for knowing "who" has established
         | connections to "who", but at just an IP level. Powerful for
         | combining with other analysis on either the sender or receiver.
         | You won't know what they said, but you know what ports they
         | used.
         | 
         | So if I see a sudden spike in IP addresses geocoded as being in
         | the United States, and the destination is an unusual but
         | specific port hosted in Belarus, it might be worth looking at a
         | new C2 malware.
        
           | justapassenger wrote:
           | Yeah, I know those types of datasets.
           | 
           | But did you see data, sold for $35k, to a government? I
           | didn't, but I'm fairly confident in assuming it doesn't have
           | much in it.
        
       | xfitm3 wrote:
       | Ah yes, at my company many years ago we sold data to law
       | enforcement when they didn't have a warrant but had a case
       | someone really wanted to pursue. They were happy to pay quite
       | high prices, and on a semi regular basis because we were a large
       | "small business" that handled a lot of data.
       | 
       | We'd allow them to come in and image disks, span ports, modify
       | software, you name it.
        
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       (page generated 2023-03-27 23:00 UTC)