Mon, 03 Feb 2003 17:45:42 GMT

From Good Morning Silicon Valley:

TIA+John Pointdexter. TLF: The Senate may have choked off government funding for John Poindexter's Total Information Awareness program (TIA) — a Defense Department research project that aims to identify terrorists by analyzing personal data collected in computer databases — but that has done little to stop its progress. Indeed, according to those with knowledge of the program, TIA is no longer a simple “research project.” There is now working prototype of the system, and federal agencies outside the Defense Department have expressed interest in it….

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If you hear about a military information device as 'new' it is probably good to assume that is far past its beta testing. I wouldn't doubt that this system has been around for two or three years in some form or another, and was just modified and released as public knowledge. In releasing it, you achieve a variety of security goals. You narrow the useful communication channels that people will use for nefarious purposes. You slow the communication and thus logistical machines supporting them, etc. etc.