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You are here: Home / Open Threads / Excellent Links / Late Night Open Thread: “Pirates Don’t Use Social Networks for Piracy Work”

Late Night Open Thread: “Pirates Don’t Use Social Networks for Piracy Work”

by Anne Laurie|  August 1, 20131:38 am| 39 Comments

This post is in: Excellent Links, Foreign Affairs, Open Threads, Security Theatre

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Molly Redden, at The New Republic, reproducing the best MSM sentence of the week, if not longer. In a (mostly) serious article, even:

The Associated Press reported Tuesday that U.N. investigators have asked for the private details of Somali pirates’ Facebook profiles—and that top Facebook officials, chastened by Edward Snowden’s revelation that the company had provided the NSA with emails and pictures, said no.

The news begs the question: What are foreign fighters or terrorists dumb enough to share on an American-based social media site that U.S. officials (if not the U.N.) can access pretty easily by subpoena? That is, what exactly did the U.N. monitoring group expect to find? The AP wondered as much, and it even put the question to the targets themselves: “Two Somali pirates who spoke to The Associated Press said pirates don’t use social networks for piracy work.”

Of course, social media accounts can furnish, in theory, data about a known aggressor’s or known associate’s social connections. But turning the data about who friended whom into useful information turns out to be a surprisingly painstaking, analog process….

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Reader Interactions

39Comments

  1. 1.

    Scamp Dog

    August 1, 2013 at 1:58 am

    Here’s some good news, as requested in the previous, but now dead, post: one of the schools I teach at WILL have classes for me in the fall. It had been in doubt, but I’ve got my labs again, and I’ve got some good stuff to add to the experiments this time around. Yay!

  2. 2.

    Elizabelle

    August 1, 2013 at 2:03 am

    @Scamp Dog:

    Yippee! An insomniac applauds your good fortune.

  3. 3.

    Villago Delenda Est

    August 1, 2013 at 2:05 am

    “Pirates Don’t Use Social Networks for Piracy Work”

    Duh.

    They’re not as stupid as say, Paulistas.

  4. 4.

    srv

    August 1, 2013 at 2:14 am

    Facebook: We fight them here so we don’t have to fight the over there.

  5. 5.

    Yatsuno

    August 1, 2013 at 2:19 am

    Is this that there cyberwarfare they was tellin’ us all about?

  6. 6.

    Tim Mc

    August 1, 2013 at 2:22 am

    I really enjoy the mental image of the AP reporter flipping through their rolodex for their Somali pirate contacts.

  7. 7.

    Suffern ACE

    August 1, 2013 at 2:25 am

    @Tim Mc: not as hard as you think. The Piracy Speakers Bureau sends out flyers to news organizations like crazy.

  8. 8.

    kuvasz

    August 1, 2013 at 2:26 am

    YARR!

  9. 9.

    srv

    August 1, 2013 at 2:30 am

    @Villago Delenda Est: Honestly, this should be a bumper sticker.

  10. 10.

    Redshirt

    August 1, 2013 at 2:34 am

    @kuvasz: YARGH!

  11. 11.

    Scotius

    August 1, 2013 at 2:37 am

    “The pirate source code be more like a set of guidelines.”

  12. 12.

    TriassicSands

    August 1, 2013 at 2:41 am

    @Scamp Dog:

    Congratulations. Teach the children well, as they say.

    “…begs the question…”

    A logical fallacy whose true meaning has been virtually lost; more or less overwhelmed by people who think that “begging the question” is meant to be read literally, when, in fact, it dates back to Aristotle’s Prior Analytics in ancient Greece. Now, when someone says something “begs the question,” it just means that one statement requires a specific question to be asked or seems to be avoiding answering a specific question.

    Once again careless common usage defeats educated understanding. I guess the only place left where its original meaning is likely to be understood is in a college philosophy class.

  13. 13.

    NotMax

    August 1, 2013 at 2:48 am

    Arrrgh.

    Put something in the oven earlier and spaced out setting the kitchen timer.

    The prospectus on seniordom didn’t mention this.

  14. 14.

    Jon H

    August 1, 2013 at 2:48 am

    @Villago Delenda Est:
    “They’re not as stupid as say, Paulistas.”

    I’m sure some of them are pretty dumb. There’s always going to be the guy who’s only there because he’s someone’s son or brother or whatever.

    A British woman who was kidnapped in Kenya (during which her husband was killed) and held hostage in Somalia for months says that when her release was finally arranged, one of the captors asked her to email him when she got home, and to show him around London sometime.

  15. 15.

    mdblanche

    August 1, 2013 at 3:00 am

    @Tim Mc: Maybe the reporter contacted them on Facebook.

  16. 16.

    The prophet Nostradumbass

    August 1, 2013 at 3:01 am

    Have any of you been watching “Under the Dome”? I’m just about caught up with it and it’s been pretty darn good so far.

  17. 17.

    MikeJ

    August 1, 2013 at 3:12 am

    Has Fox been going on about Somali pirates lately? My wingnut mother was blathering about how we “don’t do anything about them any more” a day or two after those two were convicted in US district court. I just assumed it’s something new they’ve started.

  18. 18.

    TheMightyTrowel

    August 1, 2013 at 3:13 am

    I have a bit of pop culture to recommend too: Welcome to Night Vale – it’s a surreal horror public radio podcast. I can’t describe it better than that. It’s also amazing.

  19. 19.

    andy

    August 1, 2013 at 3:23 am

    Well, brothers and sisters, it’s been august first here in Minnesota for a couple hours, which means same sex couples all over the state have been having midnight weddings as our new marriage law goes into effect.

    The state did not slide into a lake of fire, and life went on, for lovers and haters alike. Today I am especially proud to be a Minnesotan!

  20. 20.

    RSA

    August 1, 2013 at 3:27 am

    Jon Chait has an even better catch, I think, in an Ohio paper‘s look back at local history:

    Dr. Gay Hitler, son of George Washington Hitler, was a local dentist, serving our community from 1922 through 1946 from his office on West Main Street.

  21. 21.

    piratedan

    August 1, 2013 at 3:30 am

    I guess I’ll have to adjust my Facebook privacy settings yet again……

  22. 22.

    RSA

    August 1, 2013 at 3:33 am

    @RSA: Oops. Checking again, I see that the newspaper piece was published in 2011.

  23. 23.

    NotMax

    August 1, 2013 at 3:50 am

    re: contemporary piracy

    While a devastating and deadly tsunami is not recommended, it was a factor accelerating the decline of the centuries-old piracy ongoing in the Strait of Malacca.

  24. 24.

    NotMax

    August 1, 2013 at 4:00 am

    Passing strange.

    Queen Elizabeth’s secret World War 3 speech from 1983 is released.

  25. 25.

    Alex S.

    August 1, 2013 at 6:22 am

    I don’t have a facebook account. I’m probably already half-terrorist.

  26. 26.

    Omnes Omnibus

    August 1, 2013 at 7:04 am

    Why doesn’t the NSA just friend the pirates and get the info that way?

  27. 27.

    BArry

    August 1, 2013 at 7:12 am

    @Scamp Dog: Congratulations!

  28. 28.

    Bart

    August 1, 2013 at 7:35 am

    @The prophet Nostradumbass: I stopped after episode two, in which far too many people who should be smart did a whole lot of stupid things (like the female cop running into a burning building). I expect the rest of the series is more like that, just like The Walking Dead had a great pilot and then squandered all that on stupid plots and cheap CGI.

  29. 29.

    Dr. Dave

    August 1, 2013 at 7:44 am

    @andy: Rhode Island has also not been turned into Atlantis with the legalization of SSM today, though the crazies from Westboro Baptist Church are supposed to be putting in an appearance to warn us that fire and brimstone await us all. Just one more curved step along that “moral arc of the universe” Dr. King envisioned. Yay us!

  30. 30.

    Schlemizel

    August 1, 2013 at 7:46 am

    side note because its my field of ‘expertise’:
    What can be shared on FB? Well in addition to the obvious code phrases there is this process called steganography in which large files can be hidden inside .jpg or .gif or .png files in such a way that it takes fairly sophisticated tools to detect them. So I tell you if you ever see the sentence “Spent the weekend with the in-laws” in my update grab the picture that goes with it and decrypt the file to get to the information I want you to have.

    It is this sort of thing that makes the metadata so important. Detecting changes in patterns reduces the number of items that have to be examined in depth and car reveal people up to something before they are identified as a target.

    It is irrelevant if you like the NSA/FISA/Snooping regime in place or not (I am not comfortable with it have have not been since it was passed while the nation collectively wet itself in the early days of the last decade) but there is a good reason for every piece of it. It is entirely possible that good people see only that they are doing a good thing & they might in fact be doing a good thing. Its the ability for it to be used as a bad thing that makes it unacceptable.

  31. 31.

    The Red Pen

    August 1, 2013 at 7:50 am

    “Two Somali pirates who spoke to The Associated Press said pirates don’t use social networks for piracy work.”

    People would be surprised what you can “leak” with supposedly innocuous postings on Facebook. Sometimes stuff is in the background of photos, there can be EXIF data on images indicating coordinates, and postings have timestamps which gives clues to activity patterns. There’s lots of useful data on a Facebook feed.

    @TriassicSands: Thank you for posting that so I don’t have to. People mean “raises the question.”

    @The prophet Nostradumbass:

    Have any of you been watching “Under the Dome”?

    I like it. Like Bart says, it’s got its stupid moments, but overall it’s pretty cool.

  32. 32.

    Schlemizel

    August 1, 2013 at 7:51 am

    @The prophet Nostradumbass:

    No but I watched the first 5 episodes of “Copper” from BBC America this past week. It had a lot of potential but is pretty much a period piece soap opera that requires the most amazing sets of coincidences to reach each conclusion. The acting is good but the story telling needs work. I am not sure if I will continue with it or not

  33. 33.

    kc

    August 1, 2013 at 8:18 am

    @MikeJ:

    It is funny how all one’s wingnut acquaintances will suddenly start bitching about the same oddball topic, seemingly out of the blue.

  34. 34.

    Dan

    August 1, 2013 at 8:23 am

    re: Facebook and the pirates – a huge takedown of a gang (over 50 members!) in my neighborhood a few years ago was helped along, in part, by careful examination of their Facebook and MySpace profiles. not only were some of the gang members dumb enough to post pictures of themselves brandishing machine guns and posing with fat wads of cash, but their Friends Lists served as an excellent resource for investigators to make sure that they were talking to/researching all people relevant to the case.

  35. 35.

    The Red Pen

    August 1, 2013 at 8:29 am

    @Schlemizel:

    No but I watched the first 5 episodes of “Copper” from BBC America this past week.

    I’ve been meaning to check this out. I actually learned about it because the production company that makes it was (is?) considering a reality show centered on Amy’s Baking Company.

    (For those who don’t know about Amy’s Baking Company, Google it and watch the Kitchen Nightmares episode. It’s worth the effort.)

  36. 36.

    Citizen_X

    August 1, 2013 at 9:53 am

    @Redshirt: “Arrr, why ye be ignoring me Friend requests, ye scurvy dog?”

  37. 37.

    Paul in KY

    August 1, 2013 at 10:04 am

    Gnar, me Hearties! Ye would have to be pert stupider than ye headless sea turtle to put ye pirating on Facebook!

    That’s probably what they said.

  38. 38.

    Tone in DC

    August 1, 2013 at 10:33 am

    A British woman who was kidnapped in Kenya (during which her husband was killed) and held hostage in Somalia for months says that when her release was finally arranged, one of the captors asked her to email him when she got home, and to show him around London sometime.

    HEADDESK rinse lather and repeat

    I cannot read shit like this so early in the damn morning.

  39. 39.

    daverave

    August 1, 2013 at 12:11 pm

    Arrrr! Agenda 21 in my Facebook feed!!1! Must unfriend pirate acquaintances…

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