Here is a nice introduction to “data mining”. In this YouTube video on data mining, Dean West talks about Data Mining and how it is used by businesses and organizations.

Dean West discusses various aspects of data mining, including:

- What data mining is

- How businesses and organizations can use data mining to increase their competitive intelligence

- Sources of information that can be used for data mining efforts

- Problems and limitations of data mining and information analysis

- Where to begin with data mining

- Data mining techniques

With the right computer models and data sets, data miners and the numerati can determine a US citizen’s real name with just three pieces of seemingly unrelated information.

According to a Carnegie Mellon study, as many as 87 percent of US citizens can be identified by name, even if the only three things they disclose about themselves are 1) their gender, 2) their zip code and 3) their date of birth. [ source: book "The Numerati", page 13, by Stephen Baker ]

Yes, even if you withhold your real name, pieces of seemingly harmless personal information can be crunched and analyzed to identify you.

Think of how many times you provide even more personal information than that to people and organizations.

Sprint cellphone commercials illustrate how powerful data mining is to government and business.

A lesson on data mining is probably not what Sprint had in mind when they produced these commercials. However, Sprint’s recent tv ads for their cell phone network are a creative illustration of just how much personal information people unknowingly give away everyday about themselves.

Ubiquitous communication through the use of cell phones, GPS tracking, social networking, social media, web searches, internet surfing and other electronic devices provide powerful data that can be organized and analyzed by both government and business.

Data Mining as defined by WikiPedia –

“Data mining is the process of extracting patterns from data. As more data are gathered, with the amount of data doubling every three years, data mining is becoming an increasingly important tool to transform these data into information. It is commonly used in a wide range of profiling practices, such as marketing, surveillance, fraud detection and scientific discovery.”

Watch a video clip of one of Sprints TV commercials and think about all of the modern ways you reveal yourself, your thoughts and your interests to potential data miners or, as author Stephen Baker refers to them, “The Numerati”.

Video recording devices are virtually everywhere now, recording and catching everything from embarrassing indiscretions to violent crimes. These videos make great evidence in criminal hearings and are routinely posted to YouTube for all to see.

This TruTV clip shows how one violent criminal was caught on video attacking a blind woman on a Seattle bus as fellow passengers come to her rescue.

The Detroit News is reporting that local police departments are making millions of dollars in revenue from the wrongful seizure of property.

According to the article, the police seize the personal property suspected in crimes, but very often no charges were filed and sometimes the police even admit that no crime was ever committed.

The money raised by seizing property in the Detroit Metro area skyrocketed by more than 50% to $20.62 million dollars between 2003 and 2007, according to police records obtained by the Detroit News.

At some police departments, the amount of money collected went from tens of thousands of dollars to hundreds of thousands and, at one police department, went into the millions of dollars.

Innocent people whose property is seized by police still end up paying upwards of $1,000 or more to get their seized property back, so the police departments have a strong financial incentive to seize property for revenue purposes.

According to Jacque Sutton, a 21 year old college student whose car was seized by police during a raided party, this is nothing more than “legalized stealing.”

Sutton added “According to the law, I did nothing wrong — but they’re allowed to take my property anyway. It doesn’t make sense.”

Although courts typically uphold the government’s right to seize property involved in crimes, police seizures are a growing source of controversy in Michigan, especially since police departments are struggling to balance budgets.

Some law enforcement professionals excuse the increase in property seizures as a result of diligent ( victims might say overzealous ) law enforcement.

Police and local prosecutors profit from these seizures because people must either pay to get their seized property back or lose their property to the law enforcement agencies, which will auction off the seized property.

Seizure laws have expanded over the years to allow the seizure of personal property that was only loosely connected to an alleged crime.

Police can now seize property for minor infractions that would not have resulted in seizures before, including minor drug possession, gambling or even being near illegal activity.

Source: Detroit News

Another first for the Facebook social network: A Facebook status update posted on a person’s profile has been used as an alibi to effectively clear a teen of a crime.

Facebook status updated have broken up marriages, gotten employees fired, caused people to be arrested and convicted of crimes and now a man has had criminal charges against him dropped do to the date/time and location of a status update he posted to Facebook.

Rodney Bradford’s status update at 11:49 a.m. on October 17th on the social network was accepted by police and prosecutor as a legitimate alibi after he was arrested in connection with a mugging in NYC.

The district attorney subpoenaed Facebook to verify that the profile update was posted from a computer at the address of Bradford’s father in Harlem, where Bradford told police he was at the time of the crime.

However, criminal justice professionals warn that Facebook and other social network status updates should not be used for clearing people of alleged crimes, since anyone with a person’s username and password can access and update an online profile for someone.

Source: NY Times Blog

A Russian police officer turned whistleblower is posting a series homemade videos on YouTube that purport to blow the whistle on corruption and bureaucratic incompetence in Russian police departments while urging Russian Prime Minister Vladymir Putin to act.

Over the past week Russian officer Alexei Dymovsky has posted a series of three 2-7 minute personal videos that have racked up a total of 1 million hits on YouTube, and caused major controversy in Russia.

The videos immediately raised concerns about Dymovsky’s safety as well as the future of internet access and use in Russia.

The YouTube videos are extremely timely following an April 2009 massacre in a Moscow market, where a Russian cop went on a shooting spree against shoppers, injuring six people and killing three.

In addition, a Siberian police officer was sentenced to 12 years in prison for beheading a 20-year-old man after the two fought over 60 rubles ( approximately $2 ).

In Stravopol, another Russian police officer was brought before a court for allegedly killing a 17-year-old girl while drunk before dumping the body near her relatives’ house. The stories of Russian police brutality are numerous and notorious.

Dymovsky was fired soon after the videos spread across the internet, while a prosecutor has launched an investigation into libel. The Russian interior ministry initiated an investigation into the claims and the report is to be sent all the way up to Vladymir Putin.

You can watch one of the videos below, with english subtitles -
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Source: Global Post

Google announced yesterday that they will add enhanced people tracking and location tools to their Google Latitude search service.

The two new location features are “Google Location History” and “Google Location Alerts (beta)”.

“Google Location History” will allow Latitude users to review and store their past Latitude locations. Think of this feature as virtual electronic breadcrumbs that you can use to backtrack your past activities and travels. Google Location History can also help you visualize your travel history on both Google Maps and Google Earth or replay a recent trip in location order. Per Google, Latitude users can delete their location histories whenever they wish.

“Google Location Alerts” will now be able to recognize a user’s regular, routine locations and will send alerts for a friend’s location nearby only when a user is at an “unusual” location or when they are at a “routine” place at an unusual time.

Google cautions, it can take their system up to a week to learn a person’s “unusual” locations and start sending alerts.

To learn more about the Google Latitude application, you can watch their video below:

Source: Google Mobile Blog

The Telegraph is reporting that the UK will require all internet service providers and telecommunications companies to save and store all personal communications made by users for one year.

In addition, this stored personal information will be made available for use by 653 government departments and agencies including law enforcement, fire and other emergency services, the Financial Services Authority, prison personnel and local governments.

Shockingly, retrieving this personal information will not even require legal permission from a judge – permission from a department head is all that will be required.

The newly proposed legislation will drastically increase the amount of personal information that can be easily obtained by government employees and bureaucrats.

Under the proposed legislation all telephone calls, text messages, emails as well as web searches and other online activities by citizens will be saved for a year and will be made available for use by government bodies.

UK home secretary Chris Grayling warned that the new legislation has the potential for “mission creep,” where new powers enacted for one purpose “end up being used for completely different purposes.”

Ministers had originally planned to save all of this personal data on a centralized government-owned database, but decided against it due to not to privacy concerns.

Instead, privately controlled “Big Brother” databases will be mandated to store the information. Critics of the plan refer to it as “state-spying” and “covert surveillance” on the private citizens.

Most communications companies already save details of every user’s calls and emails for their own business reasons. However, most only do this for a few months.

The new proposal, which goes by the Orwellian name of “Intercept Modernisation Programme”, will require these companies to save their customer records for longer as well as broaden the types of information they save to include every online click.

Source: Telegraph.co.uk

In a self-proclaimed effort to warn people about the dangers of not protecting their personal information on social networks, hackers took over hundreds of Facebook groups today, changing the name of all affected groups to “Control Your Info.” and posting the following warning to each group and its registered users

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Hello, we hereby announce that we have officially hijacked your Facebook group.

This means we control a certain part of the information about you on Facebook. If we wanted we could make you appear in a bad way which could damage your image severly [sic].

For example we could rename your group and call it something very inappropriate and nasty, like “I support pedophile’s rights”. But have no fear – we won’t. We just renamed it Control Your Info. Because this is really all we want:

Think about the safety in your social media life to the same extent you do in your real life.

Watch the videoclip for more information or check out www.controlyour.info for more tips soon!

We promise to restore your group name and leave the group by the end of next week. Don’t worry – we won’t mess anything up.

Best regards

/controlyour.info

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