Data Mining. Silly, sad, data mining.

The FBI is using grocery store data to try to find Iranian Terrorists (via Wired).  From the article:

The idea was that a spike in, say, falafel sales, combined with other data, would lead to Iranian secret agents in the south San Francisco-San Jose area.

This feeds directly into what I was discussing about data shadows.

Clearly the situation isn’t necessarily identical.  I’m talking about publicly available information, and making a public face to the world.  This is distinct from intelligence gathering.  But there is a common underlying principle.  To wit, that there exists a vast amount of information about every individual, and that information can be utilized by anyone with sufficient access.  And that data is largely randomly generated.

The logical conclusion is taking action to actively shape that information.  For job hunting, that means a website.  For counter-intelligence, it means taking action that deliberately skews the data mining.  Kind of the asymmetric warfare equivalent of ordering 12 pizzas for you neighbor, unbeknown to him.

Posted in Law