Local Data Mining: Where No Georgia Press Dare Go

Investigative tech reporting in Georgia is non-existent. Other than cheerleading, Chamber-type stuff from the Atlanta Business Chronicle. There are startups incubated at Georgia Tech in the for-profit business of scraping data from social media sites, and then selling it back to organizations and business people, particularly folk in law enforcement. What’s commonly called “enterprise data mining.”

I know this because one company tried to sell me their lovely dashboard thingee. To which I replied, in a business-like manner of course at the meeting, “No thanks, I roll my own.”

Georgia law enforcement stores (years of) data scraped and mined from the general (presumed innocent) public, via such technology as license tag scanning. Lord knows what they then do with such data, and where (NSA?) they then feed that data, and the associated metadata, on to.

The head of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, Vernon Keenan, announced that factoid, rather proudly, to a room full of journalists at the Atlanta Press Club this summer. Not a single follow-up story on that matter, at least any I’m aware of. Not one.

Hasn’t the data-mining dilemma revealed by Glenn Greenwald piqued the slightest bit of interest on local angles to the dilemma just a little bit amongst Georgia press leadership? Seems not.

Come on MSM in Georgia. Do better.

Atlanta Tech-Media Notes of the Day. August 11, 2009

Atlanta tech-media items of the day. Click here to listen.

Sites where goodies mentioned in audio note can be found are:

• “How to Create Your First iPhone Application” – SmashingMagazine
• “Class of 2009” – ShotPut Ventures

VM provided by ShoutNow.

Iran and the Internet: A Conversation With Ariel Silverstone

Atlanta, GA. June 22, 2009: WaySouth Media discusses Iran and the internet with IT security expert, Ariel Silverstone. Silverstone explains how the internet functions in Iran… and elsewhere within government and citizenry.

Silverstone also discusses pending United States internet-related legislation, communication tools and privacy issues, global engineering initiatives, YouTube, Twitter, media, and the future of the internet-related communications. Silverstone’s blog is here.

Vodpod videos no longer available.

more about “Iran and the Internet: A Conversation…“, posted with vodpod

WiFi Cat Introduced by Atlanta Entrepreneur, Scott Burkett

The WiFi Cat is out of the bag!

New Staff Finds White House Lacking In Latest Technology

Moving into the White House, Obama’s folk found things not to their I-liking. More like seriously out-of-date and way behind the times. Reminds me of media in Atlanta. Such as the (now former) newspaper editor who once told me the Internet was “like CB radio.”

On the other hand, if they’d have moved a bunch of Georgia media and politicians into the White House this week, those clowns would have been in way over their I-heads. They relentlessly remind me of tales of senior management in corporate America who still have their secretaries print-out their emails. I kid you not, kiddies. Yes, the people in charge are that techno-challenged. Believe.

From The Washington Post, Jan. 22, 2009:

If the Obama campaign represented a sleek, new iPhone kind of future, the first day of the Obama administration looked more like the rotary-dial past.

Two years after launching the most technologically savvy presidential campaign in history, Obama officials ran smack into the constraints of the federal bureaucracy yesterday, encountering a jumble of disconnected phone lines, old computer software, and security regulations forbidding outside e-mail accounts.

What does that mean in 21st-century terms? No Facebook to communicate with supporters. No outside e-mail log-ins. No instant messaging. Hard adjustments for a staff that helped sweep Obama to power through, among other things, relentless online social networking.

Full story here.

Putting The Techno Zing In Your Patriot Act!

(This post cross-posted at Peach Pundit.)

Exactly how was Spitzer caught? It had something to do with what’s called a PEP List, or the or the Politically Exposed Persons list.You’ll have to listen to the whole Morning Edition/NPR story to get to the serious bank transaction monitoring goodies, but be on the lookout for the part where the person from the bank talks about how politicians in particular, of any flavor, are flagged for extra-special surveillance with the PEP List.

You can see a screen-shot sample PEP List here. Or call and order your own at: 877-922-5757. Literally hundred of thousands of “politically exposed persons” to choose from! Call now. Operators are standing by! You could very well be one! And your family too! One PEP product from Choice Point gets you all this and more. From the Choice Point website:

IntegraScreen PEP provides detailed, up-to-date information on PEPs and their families, friends and close associates. With hundreds of thousands of PEP entities from more than 3,000 sources, this seamless service will help you more quickly and easily identify politically high-risk individuals and associated entities that may be hiding in your current and prospective customer base.

And you think all banking transactions under 10K are simply ignored? Hahahahahahahah. It’s all part of Your Patriot Act!

Any more questions? Just ask Atlanta’s Choice Point. They make the seriously big bucks off of Your Patriot Act.