Someone with access to these tools might decide the shake down Jack with a bit of blackmail. They might decide to sell union organizing 'alerts' to business. These are not legal but there are many people who work in an organization with these tools available who could justify abusing them.
The situation described in the article would require coordinating a lot of data together. I have a hard time seeing how individuals could do that properly without the institution noticing (especially considering how "Big Data" it is). It's not just cell data that you need, but also license plate scans, court records, etc. These are all fairly independent things, unlikely to be stored in the same place.
Individuals will try to exploit systems, and we should work hard to avoid things like LOVEINT happening (which shouldn't be hard in itself, but given that Snowden walked off with all those documents, the NSA doesn't seem very skilled in secure storage of documents).
If institutions work hard enough to make sure they're following the rules on document access, then it'll be harder for people to abuse, since each individual block of data is useless in itself. It would be the information equivalent of N keys to launch the nukes. Abuse would be much,much harder if somebody sat down and chmod'd some folders properly (nobody should have access to everything in any system). A plus side (for gov'ts at least), would be that Snowden-class events would be a lot harder to pull off.
Institutions can be built to be a lot harder to corrupt.
The situation described in the article would require coordinating a lot of data together.
Do you think the federal government cares more about protecting your personal data, or their own top secret data?
Edward Snowden was able to single-handedly pull together reams and reams of data on a cornucopia of the most highly classified top secret projects of our government. He wasn't noticed at all, except for the fact that he outed himself.
Had Edward Snowden actually been a spy working for a foreign government, he probably wouldn't have been caught at all, and would still be working for the government.
It's not just cell data that you need, but also license plate scans, court records, etc. These are all fairly independent things, unlikely to be stored in the same place.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_fusion is the process of unifying disparate data sources in order to glean information not readily apparent by looking at the sources individually. Guess who is leading the charge in this budding field?
Institutions can be built to be a lot harder to corrupt.
Once all this information is stored, its value is essentially incalculable. Almost no expense at all will be too high for a foreign government or a multinational corporation to pay for access to it - it is too profound a leg up on Bob the competitor, Joe the union organizer, and Sally the investigative reporter. The act of collecting and storing the information is, itself, opening Pandora's box.
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The situation described in the article would require coordinating a lot of data together. I have a hard time seeing how individuals could do that properly without the institution noticing (especially considering how "Big Data" it is). It's not just cell data that you need, but also license plate scans, court records, etc. These are all fairly independent things, unlikely to be stored in the same place.
Individuals will try to exploit systems, and we should work hard to avoid things like LOVEINT happening (which shouldn't be hard in itself, but given that Snowden walked off with all those documents, the NSA doesn't seem very skilled in secure storage of documents).
If institutions work hard enough to make sure they're following the rules on document access, then it'll be harder for people to abuse, since each individual block of data is useless in itself. It would be the information equivalent of N keys to launch the nukes. Abuse would be much,much harder if somebody sat down and chmod'd some folders properly (nobody should have access to everything in any system). A plus side (for gov'ts at least), would be that Snowden-class events would be a lot harder to pull off.
Institutions can be built to be a lot harder to corrupt.
Do you think the federal government cares more about protecting your personal data, or their own top secret data?
Edward Snowden was able to single-handedly pull together reams and reams of data on a cornucopia of the most highly classified top secret projects of our government. He wasn't noticed at all, except for the fact that he outed himself.
Had Edward Snowden actually been a spy working for a foreign government, he probably wouldn't have been caught at all, and would still be working for the government.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_fusion is the process of unifying disparate data sources in order to glean information not readily apparent by looking at the sources individually. Guess who is leading the charge in this budding field?
Once all this information is stored, its value is essentially incalculable. Almost no expense at all will be too high for a foreign government or a multinational corporation to pay for access to it - it is too profound a leg up on Bob the competitor, Joe the union organizer, and Sally the investigative reporter. The act of collecting and storing the information is, itself, opening Pandora's box.