SL, Cory Ondrejka, and the NSA. Anyone surprised?

[Scylla Rhiadra]

Well, well, well . . .

"In 2007, as the NSA and other intelligence agencies were beginning to explore virtual games, NSA officials met with the chief technology officer for the manufacturer of Second Life, the San Francisco-based Linden Lab. The executive, Cory Ondrejka, was a former Navy officer who had worked at the NSA with a top-secret security clearance.

He visited the agency’s headquarters at Fort Meade, Md., in May 2007 to speak to staff members over a brown bag lunch, according to an internal agency announcement. 'Second Life has proven that virtual worlds of social networking are a reality: come hear Cory tell you why!' said the announcement. It added that virtual worlds gave the government the opportunity 'to understand the motivation, context and consequent behaviors of non-Americans through observation, without leaving U.S. soil.'

Ondrejka, now the director of mobile engineering at Facebook, said through a representative that the NSA presentation was similar to others he gave in that period, and declined to comment further."

I knew that there was something fishy about that bisexual furry skunk.

http://www.propublica.org/article/world-of-spycraft-intelligence-agencies-spied-in-online-games

[RudolphFarquhar]

Why on ******* earth has this particularly unexceptional and antiquated "news" rattled your cage sufficiently to entice you out of your self-banishment, Scylla?

Or did you notice the US Department of Homeland Security's attempt - hiding behind the facade of the University of Southampton's Psychology faculty - to obtain real-life photos to associate with avatars, as recently laughed off the forums?

Nice to see you back, anyway; can we expect some new feminist doggerel, or just more of the old?

I liked the "non-American" reference, by the way. Does that include Canucks?

**********Rudi**********

 

[Scylla Rhiadra]

You can expect me to disappear again shortly, Pe . . . I mean, Rudy. This is just a brief excursion. :-)

I ran across this story in the Guardian this morning, and found it interesting. It's not, as I note, very surprising, but I'm interested in the connections between the corporate internet and surveillance, so . . .

On another note . . . Kind of a ghost town around here now, isn't it?

[RudolphFarquhar]

If you are interested in net unprivacy, then this is the thread I alluded to. You might find looking at the backstory of the SuperIdentity project interesting, if it hasn't appeared on your research radar previously.

The forums are only interesting every now and again; the idiots get blown off them much quicker now the mods are occupied with daily spamattacks from the subcontinent, and you can post whatever you like, uncensored, on the Profile Feeds - and of course the smart guys are all over at Lee's private place. You should pop in.

**********Rudi**********

[Scylla Rhiadra]

Ugh. Creepy. But again, perhaps, unsurprising. University research (and teaching, for that matter) is only "important" nowadays if it produces something that the government can use, or that can be patented and monetized. These are much more valuable than, you know, "educating people."

I do wonder how that one got through an ethics review board, though. You'd have thought there'd have been some eyebrows raised, at least.

Sadly, for me, the Canadian Security and Intelligence Agency seems uninterested in funding work in either literature or feminist discourse. But I've learned to live with disappointment.

Too bad about the forums. The format here is better for establishing a community (even if a bickering one) than feeds.

I wonder if this will get pulled for impugning the good name of Cory and SL?

[Lasher Oh]

Saw that article too. This passage made me laugh out loud on the bus...

"Meanwhile, the FBI, CIA, and the Defense Humint Service were all running human intelligence operations – undercover agents – within Second Life. In fact, so crowded were the virtual worlds with staff from the different agencies, that there was a need to try to "deconflict" their efforts – or, in other words, to make sure each agency wasn't just duplicating what the others were doing."

The mind boggles.

And here I was thinking Johnny English was just a made up farce.

^L^

[Scylla Rhiadra]

I kind of like the idea of a furry from the NSA unknowingly cybering with a vampire from MI5, perhaps while an operative from Interpol uses a tiny to alt-click and watch.

SL worked very hard, at one point, to sell itself to the military as a good place for training and planning. So, yeah, this is only a little new.

[RudolphFarquhar]

---

Lasher Oh wrote:

 

And here I was thinking Johnny English was just a made up farce.

---

I don't know what he remuneration package is like if you decide on a career on the Dark Side in the USA, but over this side of the Atlantic you would earn more (legally) driving a bus. Which explains the continuing cockups and the apparent willingness of employees to find work outside their dayjob . . .

The pension arrangements are supposed to be good, but you usually have difficulty in having them paid in Uruguay.

**********Rudi**********

 

[Syo Emerald]

"behaviors of non-Americans"

'murica!

Sounds like they think we are from another planet....

[Scylla Rhiadra]

For all intents, most of us are.

[caiomhin Aeghin]

SL cooperated with the NSA, the technology officer worked at the NSA.   No, I'm not surprised, but I am outraged.

 

[RudolphFarquhar]

---

caiomhin Aeghin wrote:

SL cooperated with the NSA, the technology officer worked at the NSA.   No, I'm not surprised, but I am outraged.

 

---

At the waste of taxpayers' money?

**********Rudi**********

[Storm Clarence]

Hey Scylla, I couldn't see the tree in the forest of spam.  I didn't intend to duplicate your effort. 

Wb if it's back you are.

[Scylla Rhiadra]

I'm sort of suffering from outrage fatigue myself.

And this is, I suppose, pretty small potatoes compared to what we know about the NSA and really big players like Google, Facebook, and Microsoft.

Ultimately, how much safer is our privacy if it is only Silicom Valley that is mining our data and turning us into marketable algorithms? Should we trust huge unaccountable corporations more than we trust a government that is, at least in theory, responsible to the people it represents? I don't really have an answer for that: they both seem vile.

What IS a bit surprising is that this occurred under Rosedale's watch. Rosedale was supposed to be the great libertarian, remember? How the hell did HE reconcile this with what SL supposedly stood for?

[Scylla Rhiadra]

Thanks Storm. Just a quick visit on a slow morning is all. :-)

[RudolphFarquhar]

---

Scylla Rhiadra wrote:

 

Ultimately, how much safer is our privacy if it is only Silicom Valley that is mining our data and turning us into marketable algorithms?

---

I'll start worrying when Amazon starts suggesting books that I might remotely want to read.

**********Rudi**********

[Scylla Rhiadra]

Wow, the spam here is . . . impressive. No wonder this place is an echo chamber now: who can be heard over THIS?

Mind you, it seems pretty fertile ground for a feminist. I'm sure that our Mumbai pimp is paying close attention to his posts, just waiting for an intelligent discussion about the sex trade in developing nations . . . :matte-motes-big-grin-evil:

[RudolphFarquhar]

---

Scylla Rhiadra wrote:

 an intelligent discussion about the sex trade in developing nations . . .

---

Here we go a ******* gain . . .

**********Rudi**********

 

[Qie Niangao]

---

What IS a bit surprising is that this occurred under Rosedale's watch. Rosedale was supposed to be the great libertarian, remember? How the hell did HE reconcile this with what SL supposedly stood for?

---

No contradiction there at all. The NSA thing was just another attempt to lure money from government and enterprise, and there's just nothing more smoking jacket Libertarian than a company's God-given right to wrest every dime it can scam from others, free market ftw, eh wot?

[Scylla Rhiadra]

Yeah, thank god for incompetence.

But at least it's cheap, automated incompetence: you'd have to pay someone truly prodigious sums to be as wrong about the stuff that gets posted on my FB feed as these algorithms are.

[Storm Clarence]

---

Scylla Rhiadra wrote:

I'm sort of suffering from outrage fatigue myself.

And this is, I suppose, pretty small potatoes

compared to what we know about the NSA and really big players like Google, Facebook, and Microsoft.

 

 

What IS a bit surprising is that this occurred under Rosedale's watch. Rosedale was supposed to be the great libertarian, remember?

How the hell did HE reconcile this with what SL supposedly stood for?

---

The machine is chugging along and  it can't be stopped!  I'll repeat that,  It CAN'T be stopped.  President Obama can't stop it; the NSA can't stop it; Snowden can stop it; it just goes along.  The great social (media) experiment is still playing itself out, and EVERYONE and ANYONE is a cog keeping it going.  Wait until this 'bubble' pops--it ain't gonna be pretty.

 

Re: Rosedale, are you asking if there are hypocrites in SL?  Or employed by LL, for that matter?

 

[Czari Zenovka]

I would have been surprised if I had heard this in 2007 but today, and now in retrospect, it doesn't surprise me at all.  I wonder how many of those requests posted on the forums for help in researching xyz were from government agents.  Ok, that does sound a little tin-hatsville but it is interesting to contemplate in light of the referenced article.

I've been hearing in various news media lately that many of the first person shooter computer games were originally used by the military to use as virtual training for combat then later repackaged under a different name to sell as games.  No idea if that is definitively true, but makes some sense.

Maybe we *are* really living in the Matrix. 

[RudolphFarquhar]

---

Scylla Rhiadra wrote:

Yeah, thank god for incompetence.

But at least it's cheap, automated incompetence: you'd have to pay someone truly prodigious sums to be as wrong about the stuff that gets posted on my FB feed as these algorithms are.

---

There's an easy answer to that.

Don't use ******* Facebook.

It's ****.

**********Rudi**********

[Scylla Rhiadra]

Hey Qie! Nice to, um, see you again!

Yes, but I always thought -- evidently incorrectly -- that Rosedale was an "old fashioned" libertarian, rather than a neoliberal. Which is to say, a libertarian with at least some semblance of ethics.

[RudolphFarquhar]

zOMG! I spoke too soon about their incompetence. A dozen Special Forces apes have just got out of a black van outside my front door and . . .

. . .  they have thrown smoke grenades and flash-bangs through my neighbour's windows . . .  have broken down his front door with a battering ram . . .  and they are now dragging him unconscious across his lawn and throwing him into the van.

PHEW! Close one that.

(Runs outside and switches the front door numbers back so Santa delivers the presents to the right place.)

**********Rudi**********