How VoiceGrid works (SpeechPro-USA)

In case Orwellian surveillance systems like TrapWire weren't creepy enough, we learn today that SpeechPro, a Russian-owned company, has helpfully invented a voice identification tool for law enforcement use called VoiceGrid Nation. American authorities are looking into using the software at 911 call centers and in police precincts. As Slate reports, it's already in place and working out pretty well in some other countries:

The technology has already been deployed across Mexico, where it is being used by law enforcement to collect, store, and search hundreds of thousands of voice-prints. Alexey Khitrov, SpeechPro’s president, told me the company is working with a number of agencies in the United States at a state and federal level. He declined to reveal any names because of nondisclosure and confidentiality agreements. But Khitrov did divulge that various versions of the company’s biometric technology are used in more than 70 countries and that the Americas, Europe, and Asia are its key markets. Not all of its customers are law enforcement agencies, either. SpeechPro also designs voice recognition technology that can be used in call centers to verify the identities of customers. Depending on the size and specifics of the installation, it can cost from tens of thousands up to millions of dollars.

Slate notes that this software is different from the FBI's own efforts at putting wholesale biometric programs in place, though no less scary.

Mr. Khitrov told Slate that SpeechPro is being used for "noble causes." His example of one such noble cause was when the technology helped Mexican authorities track down kidnappers via recorded ransom calls.

A look at SpeechPro’s site reveals a product description or two that privacy activists might find pretty creepy. The blurb for VoiceGrid ID has a particularly dystopic echo, offering a "voice data management solution with unlimited database size" in addition to system architecture that scale all the way up to "national system deployments."

We look forward to a future when products like these have turned the frivolous distractions of texting and iMessaging into acts of civil disobedience.

Image via AnonNCarolina2, Twitter

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has begun implementing a $1 billion face recognition program that will probably scare everyone outside of law enforcement.  NewScientist reports that the Next Generation Identification (NGI) program will lump iris scans, biometrics, DNA and even voice prints into one formidable profiling tool and some states are already using the program in a limited fashion. The whole thing will be in effect across the country in about 2 years. NewScientist addresses the privacy problem:

Ideally, such technological advancements will allow law enforcement to identify criminals more accurately and lead to quicker arrests. But privacy advocates are worried by the broad scope of the FBI's plans. They are concerned that people with no criminal record who are caught on camera alongside a person of interest could end up in a federal database, or be subject to unwarranted surveillance.

While NewScientist notes the FBI won't disclose anything about the algorithms used in the program, they report the "technology could be very accurate if applied to photographs taken in controlled situations such as passport photos or police shots."

NGI may light a new fire under Anonymous. The hacktivist collective has for some time been sounding the death knell for privacy online as well as in public, citing both the TrapWire surveillance system brought to light by hacked Stratfor emails and Europe's similar INDECT surveillance system. To Anonymous, NGI may just be the most concrete evidence yet that they have a point, and more people need to pay attention.

On Friday Anonymous announced #OpBigBrother and issued a call for worldwide protests by privacy advocates on October 20, 2012. NGI may be the thing they need to ensure the October protest is just the first of many to come.

No, seriously, you should expect this.

Anonymous has pretty much had all it can take of The New York Times’s bullshit and it's not going to take it anymore. That's the upshot of this "Anonymous Declaration of #OpNYT” posted on Pastebin sometime late yesterday. #OpNYT certainly sounds ominous, but as Gawker's Adrian Chen noted in a tweet, "Anonymous' press releases get somehow get longer-winded every time."

This long-windedness makes it tough to parse what the eternally seething hacktivist collective is trying to say. In this instance Wikileaks, Stratfor and HBGary are all name-checked before the declaration segues into, inevitably, the Orwellian global surveillance system currently loathed by privacy activists everywhere, TrapWire. The Times’s minimal coverage of TrapWire (a system apparently controlled by the Cubic Corporation, which is referenced below) appears to have pushed Anonymous's "epic invective" button:

The facts on Trapwire have since been confirmed by a series of other outlets ranging from The Daily Caller to Pravda to The New American to NBC.com to Cryptome, and by six Australian outlets that were promptly forced to delete the assertion via Cubic's powerful lawyers - but these facts have yet to be acknowledged by the NYT nor by those other outlets that still think highly of the Grey Lady despite her being a filthy, poorly-composed whore - Thomas Friedman's syphilitic dominatrix.

Anonymous also cries "Death to this horrid paper" before essentially saying we shouldn't get out the popcorn in preparation for an epic hack.  Anons are asked to spread "these and other failures of the New York Times by attaching the info to those deeds to come, and by encouraging all Anons to assist in this brief engagement" in conjunction with other ops, including #OpTrapWire.

After this call to arms, Anonymous mentions an interesting nugget of information--someone may have recently changed The New York Times’s website administrator's password. Anonymous, however, does not approve, writing that such a prank is "amusing" but not part of the "generally-accepted Anonymous tradition of non-aggression via hacking or DOS towards publications not run (officially) by the state. Gawker has been only exception, lol Kayla."

The #OpNYT announcement closes with, "Don't wait. Retaliate. We do not forget."

We did not expect that.

Tartan Metrics (Screen grab)

Russian news outlet RT.com has been excitedly suggesting that the TrapWire surveillance system marks the advent of an American police state. Now RT is suggesting a fairly direct connection between the shady ex-CIA types behind TrapWire and something called Tartan Metrics.

Tartan certainly uses dense doublespeak to describe itself, stating on its site landing page that it "quantifies key influencers and hidden connections in social networks using mathematical algorithms" for "un-biased output." RT doesn't note that Tartan is so secretive those interested in its services can try them for free over the web, but maybe they have more important information to impart--Tartan expressly mentions using its software and services to analyze Occupy Wall Street and related movements:

Tartan is advertised on their site as a must-have application for the national security sector, politicians and federal law enforcement, and makes a case by claiming that “an amorphous network of anarchist and protest groups,” made up of Occupy Oakland, PBS, Citizen Radio, Crimethinc and others, relies on “influential leaders,” “modern technology” and “illegal tactics” to spread a message of anarchy across America.

“The organizers of Occupy Wall Street and Occupy DC have built Occupy networks through online communication with anarchists actively participating in the movements’ founding,” the executive summary reads. On the chart that accompanies their claim, the group lists several political activism groups and broadcast networks within a ring of alleged anarchy, which also includes an unnamed FBI informant.

RT also reports a Margaret A. Lee registered TrapWire Inc. with the Virginia Commonwealth's State Corporation Commission in March of 2009. Margaret A. Lee appears to also be on the board of Ntrepid Corporation, which produces Tartan.

Simply stated: Ntrepid links TrapWire and Tartan, and the latter may be actively investigating the Occupy movement.

While there are clear documented links between these shadowy outfits, it's hard to separate fact from frenzied theorizing and assumptions made from tenuous links.

So for now just know basically that someone may always watching and analyzing whatever you do online and in public. That's creepy enough.

No, seriously, you should expect this.

Hacktivist collective Anonymous has teamed with a group called The Peoples Liberation Front (PLF) to begin a unified assault against a new nemesis: all-seeing Orwell-approved surveillance system TrapWire. In a press release published today, they explain why TrapWire should make everyone nervous:

"The more we learn about TrapWire and similar systems, it becomes absolutely clear that we must at all costs shut this system down and render it useless. A giant AI electronic brain able to monitor us through a combination of access to all the CCTV cameras as well as all the online social media feeds is monstrous and Orwellian in it's implications and possibilities. The Peoples Liberation Front and Anonymous will now put forth a call to arms, and initiate the doom of this evil and misbegotten program."

The PLF and Anonymous say they plan to spread as much information as possible "about TrapWire and it's (sic) related technologies and programs." They've also issued an "ACTION ALERT" (capslock theirs) for "Smash A Cam Saturday," which sounds like a great lead-in to "Call Mom to Bail You Out Sunday."

Linking to a map of known/possible TrapWire-affiliated cameras across the U.S., the groups suggest protesters "sabotage at least one CCTV per week." They also provide a link to an online guide that purports to give instruction in best methods for CCTV camera destruction.

The operation also seeks to disable "fake personas on social media" allegedly associated with TrapWire's vast network by "creating thousands of phony accounts and use them to produce a deluge of false triggers for the TrapWire program." Which might make Twitter and Facebook even more interesting than usual in the coming days.

TrapWire burst breathlessly into public consciousness nearly a week ago after mentions of it in hacked Stratfor emails were promoted as evidence of a creepily far-reaching effort to create the ultimate surveillance state. While some treated the revelation as a new and world-changing leak, the truth is TrapWire has been a known quantity to some degree for years. In his 2008 Spies for Hire: The Secret World of Intelligence Outsourcing, Tim Shorrock discussed TrapWire's creator, Abraxas Corporation, and described the software clearly as a system of "algorithms that allow digital surveillance systems to detect patterns of suspicious behavior." Shorrock also reported TrapWire was "being tested by police departments in New York and Los Angeles" at the time.

It may have taken interested parties like the PLF and Anonymous four years to notice TrapWire and that may discount some of the hype, but it doesn't change the fact they're sinking their teeth in now and probably won't stop till they think they've struck bone.