<story><title>There&apos;s So Much Data Even Spies Are Struggling to Find Secrets</title><url>https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-01-29/flood-of-personal-data-makes-life-tough-for-nsa-cia</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>carlmcqueen</author><text>Anecdotal, and old now: I worked with an ex-NSA agent when I worked at a big bank who worked out of a some of middle east offices in early 2000s.  He talked about how new agents often struggle with the size of data (even then) but most good agents work immediately to look at the lack of normal data.  Criminals&amp;#x2F;targets have their own signal of data and by filtering traditional data patterns you&amp;#x27;re left with a smaller dataset of the targets you&amp;#x27;re there to find.  He used the same patterns to find financial white collar cheaters in bank data.&lt;p&gt;(example: phones off during day, on from 1am-5am then shut off again, no facebook browsing at all, etc.)</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>creshal</author><text>Germany has been doing this since 1979, when mainframes were used to &amp;quot;find terrorists&amp;quot; – i.e., grab a bunch of companies&amp;#x27; billing data, and filter for people who were &amp;quot;suspicious&amp;quot; by paying their bills in cash and couldn&amp;#x27;t be cross-referenced with other government databases, to find people who were (allegedly, surely) using fake identities.&lt;p&gt;Highly illegal, and put about 18,000 innocent people in the crosshairs of police investigations, but it&amp;#x27;s for The Greater Good, so nobody ever got punished for it, and today it&amp;#x27;s done by police agencies for such world-shaking crimes as speeding tickets, participation in legal demonstrations, and substance abuse.</text></comment>
<story><title>There&apos;s So Much Data Even Spies Are Struggling to Find Secrets</title><url>https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-01-29/flood-of-personal-data-makes-life-tough-for-nsa-cia</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>carlmcqueen</author><text>Anecdotal, and old now: I worked with an ex-NSA agent when I worked at a big bank who worked out of a some of middle east offices in early 2000s.  He talked about how new agents often struggle with the size of data (even then) but most good agents work immediately to look at the lack of normal data.  Criminals&amp;#x2F;targets have their own signal of data and by filtering traditional data patterns you&amp;#x27;re left with a smaller dataset of the targets you&amp;#x27;re there to find.  He used the same patterns to find financial white collar cheaters in bank data.&lt;p&gt;(example: phones off during day, on from 1am-5am then shut off again, no facebook browsing at all, etc.)</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>evilduck</author><text>Phones off during the day and on during evening hours would describe the behaviors of NSA employees who aren&amp;#x27;t allowed to carrying phones into their office, are less likely to share or participate with their personal details on social media and is a workforce comprised disproportionately of people with unique quirks like odd sleeping habits.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m sure that&amp;#x27;s not lost on them either, but their signals they seek could be finding other intelligence agents and not criminals.</text></comment>