Government spies on Twitter

[Tinman57]

US Government Spies on Citizens' Twitter Accounts
A biannual transparency report released by Twitter covering the first half of 2012 revealed some enlightening intelligence about government information requests on the social network. In this report, Twitter outlined a number of different information, copyright, and content removal requests received over a six-month span between January and June of 2012. Of the 849 government-issued user information requests made in 2012, the United States topped the chart at 679. Japan, which claims 98 of these requests, is a distant second, with third place at a tie of 11 between Canada and the United Kingdom. These requests, some of which include multiple Twitter accounts, were honored by Twitter in 75% of the cases relating to the United States. The other 25% failed to meet criteria required by Twitter to release information on its users. These requirements include narrow information parameters and the naming of specific twitter account(s) where more information is needed. If a user disputes an information request after Twitter notifies them, then the request may be denied or delayed on those grounds.

http://www.lockergnome.com/news/2012/09/26/twitter-information-request-government/

[40hz]

Is anyone surprised?

[Renegade]

Is anyone surprised?

Nope. 

[Tinman57]

Is anyone surprised?

  Not I, said Tinman....

[dr_andus]

How about Twitter spying on people? I've set up a Twitter account with my Hotmail account years ago, but I do not use it. Twitter have kept sending me emails about feeds they thought I might be interested in, which were usually related topically to a handful of feeds I'd subscribed to, all of which are based on my academic interests (and are not from my local area).

However, today there was a new twist: Twitter sent me an email saying I might be interested in the feeds of my local council. How on earth did they figure out where I live? I barely log on to Twitter (maybe 3-4 times a year to do a search), and I only do it on my PC. Is that based on my IP address or they're doing something different?

[Renegade]

How about Twitter spying on people? I've set up a Twitter account with my Hotmail account years ago, but I do not use it. Twitter have kept sending me emails about feeds they thought I might be interested in, which were usually related topically to a handful of feeds I'd subscribed to, all of which are based on my academic interests (and are not from my local area).

However, today there was a new twist: Twitter sent me an email saying I might be interested in the feeds of my local council. How on earth did they figure out where I live? I barely log on to Twitter (maybe 3-4 times a year to do a search), and I only do it on my PC. Is that based on my IP address or they're doing something different?

Big Data works a number of ways:

• IP address
• Cookies
• Physical address
• Email address
• Loyalty cards
• Darn near any service provider
• Account IDs
• etc.
• etc.

A lot of those are already tied together. The trick is just to get what you need tied together, and that's not too hard.

For example, you login to your Twitter account. You then visit some site. Done. You've just allowed a tracking company to put 2 and 2 together. They now know your email address. They link that data up with a partner tracking company. They now know your physical address. Rinse & repeat and they know what you buy at the grocery store because you use a loyalty card. etc. etc.

That's a pretty crude description, but it about sums it up.