Facebook & the CIA

Is Facebook a CIA front, devoted to identifying, tracking and crushing dissent in the college generation? Actually, no. Facebook is a website, devoted to “social networking.” However, there’s also a lot more going on behind the curtain. As always, it’s the grey areas that interest me the most. So with this article, I want to ask refined and specific questions to get accurate and detailed answers. Because it’s not an exaggeration to say that there are very real ties between Facebook and CIA—and there’s a whole covert landscape of semi-legal databases, companies selling private information, and the new horizon of computer-driven “Data Mining”.

In short, this is a great angle to sneak a peek one of the most hidden, and profitable, sectors of the US economy. What we’ll see is a lot less simple than a good conspiracy theory, but I also think it’s a hell of a lot more interesting than the “Facebook = CIA” mantra that passes for “investigation” on the internets.

We may use information about you that we collect from other sources, including but not limited to newspapers and Internet sources such as blogs, instant messaging services and other users of Facebook, to supplement your profile.”

Let’s start right there. The quote above is from Facebook’s Terms and Conditions—specifically, their privacy policy. With a declaration like that, you have to give these folks credit for being pretty damn blunt about the nature of the game. Facebook is a long-term investment in my generation, just like MySpace. The payoff these days is millions and millions in advertising revenue—but what about the payoff one decade from now, when their databases have multi-gigabyte files about you? Your interests, habits, porn preferences, mindless surveys, purchases, friends, bulletins, and little sparkly animated .gif files? How much do you think that information will be worth—to advertisers, to corporations, to the military, to intelligence services?

Anyone who has concerns about their “privacy” being violated by Facebook is completely, unconditionally justified in their concern. After all, Facebook was born out of data theft—founder Mark Zuckerberg stole tens of thousands of digital files on his fellow Harvard students, directly from the University’s “secure” servers. Maybe that’s alarming to you, but I find it endearingly psychotic. Anyone who can found a multi-billion dollar business with stolen property is worth paying attention to. From the always-excellent Fast Company magazine:

Harvard didn’t offer a student directory with photos and basic information, known at most schools as a face book. Zuckerberg wanted to build an online version for Harvard, but the school “kept on saying that there were all these reasons why they couldn’t aggregate this information,” he says. “I just wanted to show that it could be done.” So one night early in his sophomore year, he hacked into Harvard’s student records. He then threw up a basic site called Facemash, which randomly paired photos of undergraduates and invited visitors to determine which one was “hotter” (not unlike the Web site Hot or Not). Four hours, 450 visitors, and 22,000 photo views later, Harvard yanked Zuckerberg’s Internet connection. After a dressing-down from the administration and an uproar on campus chronicled by The Harvard Crimson, Zuckerberg politely apologized to his fellow students. But he remained convinced he’d done the right thing: “I thought that the information should be available.” (Harvard declined to comment on the episode.)

The next anaecdote in the article is even more telling and fairly funny, too. Since Fast Company was kind enough not to sue me over my excessive quotitude in the Clotaire Rapaille article, I figure I’ll push the envelope a little further:

The new project consumed so much of his time that by the end of the first semester, with just two days to go before his art-history final, he was in a serious jam: He needed to be able to discuss 500 images from the Augustan period. “This isn’t the kind of thing where you can just go in and figure out how to do it, like calculus or math,” he says, without a trace of irony. “You actually have to learn these things ahead of time.” So he pulled a Tom Sawyer: He built a Web site with one image per page and a place for comments. Then he emailed members of his class and invited them to share their notes, like a study group on cybersteroids. “Within two hours, all the images were populated with notes,” he says. “I did very well in that class. We all did.”

Regardless of your moral stance on cheating, you have to admit the dude is CEO material. Anyone willing to cheat on such a brazen and effective level is worth giving a lot of money to, these days. That’s what Venture Capitalism is all about.

Anyone who has concerns about their “privacy” being violated by Facebook is completely, unconditionally justified in their concern. After all, Facebook was born out of data theft—founder Mark Zuckerberg stole tens of thousands of digital files on his fellow Harvard students, directly from the University’s “secure” servers. Maybe that’s alarming to you, but I find it endearingly psychotic. Anyone who can found a multi-billion dollar business with stolen property is worth paying attention to. From the always-excellent Fast Company magazine:

Harvard didn’t offer a student directory with photos and basic information, known at most schools as a face book. Zuckerberg wanted to build an online version for Harvard, but the school “kept on saying that there were all these reasons why they couldn’t aggregate this information,” he says. “I just wanted to show that it could be done.” So one night early in his sophomore year, he hacked into Harvard’s student records. He then threw up a basic site called Facemash, which randomly paired photos of undergraduates and invited visitors to determine which one was “hotter” (not unlike the Web site Hot or Not). Four hours, 450 visitors, and 22,000 photo views later, Harvard yanked Zuckerberg’s Internet connection. After a dressing-down from the administration and an uproar on campus chronicled by The Harvard Crimson, Zuckerberg politely apologized to his fellow students. But he remained convinced he’d done the right thing: “I thought that the information should be available.” (Harvard declined to comment on the episode.)

The next anaecdote in the article is even more telling and fairly funny, too. Since Fast Company was kind enough not to sue me over my excessive quotitude in the Clotaire Rapaille article, I figure I’ll push the envelope a little further:

The new project consumed so much of his time that by the end of the first semester, with just two days to go before his art-history final, he was in a serious jam: He needed to be able to discuss 500 images from the Augustan period. “This isn’t the kind of thing where you can just go in and figure out how to do it, like calculus or math,” he says, without a trace of irony. “You actually have to learn these things ahead of time.” So he pulled a Tom Sawyer: He built a Web site with one image per page and a place for comments. Then he emailed members of his class and invited them to share their notes, like a study group on cybersteroids. “Within two hours, all the images were populated with notes,” he says. “I did very well in that class. We all did.”

Regardless of your moral stance on cheating, you have to admit the dude is CEO material. Anyone willing to cheat on such a brazen and effective level is worth giving a lot of money to, these days. That’s what Venture Capitalism is all about.

Keyhole, Inc was also an asset of In-Q-Tel until Google bought them in 2004, for an undisclosed sum. Keyhole does work in “geospatial data visualization applications,” but we know them as the engine behind GoogleEarth, the greatest piece of software humankind has ever created.

In-Q-Tel has considerable overlapping tentacles with SAIC—the Science Applications International Corporation, who are a study unto themselves. If you’re unfamiliar with their $8 billion global operation, you should definitely check out this recent Vanity Fair article.

For the sake of objectivity, here’s how Prison Planet sums things up:

So who do we have to thank for this? According to the official story, TheFaceBook was founded by 3 students from the CIA’s favorite breeding ground of Harvard University. Their first $500,000 in funding came from Peter Thiel, founder and former CEO of Paypal.

Thiel is also a former columnist for the Wall Street Journal and a graduate of Stanford University, the home of NSA computer research and CIA mind control projects like MK ULTRA. He is an avowed neocon and globalist whose book ”The Diversity Myth“ received praises from William Kristol, Christopher Cox, Edward Meese, and Linda Chavez. Thiel sits on the board of the radical right-wing VanguardPAC and he personally donated $21,200 to Arnold Schwarzenegger’s campaign for governor.

It’s funny how the CIA’s “favorite breeding ground” changes every time the phrase comes up—is it MIT? Yale? Stanford? Virginia Tech? Depends on the article you’re writing, apparently. Small quibbles aside, the basic concept here is fundamentally sound: Facebook, just like MySpace and every single other large-scale interactive website in existence, is designed to collect demographic data about the people who use it.

Is this a violation of your right to privacy? Yes and no.

Yes, of course it is, but no, you don’t have a right to privacy and you never did. Nobody does. If you’re reading this article, everything you do is being backed up to multiple databases. (If you have any illusions about “anonymizers” or “encryption”, please do us both a favor and read this Crytogon article ASAP.)

http://www.brainsturbator.com/articles/facebook_the_cia_and_you/

But there is a dark side to the success story that's been spreading across the blogosphere. A complex but riveting Big Brother-type conspiracy theory which links Facebook to the CIA and the US Department of Defence.

The story starts once Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg had launched, after the dorm room drama that's led to the current court case.

Facebook's first round of venture capital funding ($US500,000) came from former Paypal CEO Peter Thiel. Author of anti-multicultural tome 'The Diversity Myth', he is also on the board of radical conservative group VanguardPAC.

The second round of funding into Facebook ($US12.7 million) came from venture capital firm Accel Partners. Its manager James Breyer was formerly chairman of the National Venture Capital Association, and served on the board with Gilman Louie, CEO of In-Q-Tel, a venture capital firm established by the Central Intelligence Agency in 1999. One of the company's key areas of expertise are in "data mining technologies".

Breyer also served on the board of R&D firm BBN Technologies, which was one of those companies responsible for the rise of the internet.

Dr Anita Jones joined the firm, which included Gilman Louie. She had also served on the In-Q-Tel's board, and had been director of Defence Research and Engineering for the US Department of Defence.

She was also an adviser to the Secretary of Defence and overseeing the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which is responsible for high-tech, high-end development.

Wikipedia's IAO page says: "the IAO has the stated mission to gather as much information as possible about everyone, in a centralised location, for easy perusal by the United States government, including (though not limited to) internet activity, credit card purchase histories, airline ticket purchases, car rentals, medical records, educational transcripts, driver's licenses, utility bills, tax returns, and any other available data.".

Not surprisingly, the backlash from civil libertarians led to a Congressional investigation into DARPA's activity, the Information Awareness Office lost its funding.

Now the internet conspiracy theorists are citing Facebook as the IAO's new mask.

Parts of the IAO's technology round-up included 'human network analysis and behaviour model building engines', which Facebook's massive volume of neatly-targeted data gathering allows for.

Facebook's own Terms of use state: "by posting Member Content to any part of the Web site, you automatically grant, and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant, to facebook an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license to use, copy, perform, display, reformat, translate, excerpt and distribute such information and content and to prepare derivative works of, or incorpoate into other works, such information and content, and to grant and authorise sublicenses of the foregoing.

And in its equally interesting privacy policy: "Facebook may also collect information about you from other sources, such as newspapers, blogs, instant messaging services, and other users of the Facebook service through the operation of the service (eg. photo tags) in order to provide you with more useful information and a more personalised experience. By using Facebook, you are consenting to have your personal data transferred to and processed in the United States."

Is the CIA really providing the impetus and the funding behind the monster growth of this year's biggest dot com success story? Maybe only the men with the nice suits and ear pieces can answer that.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/technology/news/article.cfm?c_id=5&objectid=10456534

The online social-networking service Facebook works for finding old classmates or arranging happy hours, so why not use it to help recruit the next generation of spies? That's what's happening now in cyberspace, as the country's intelligence community turns to such sites to attract a wider range of résumés.

The CIA now has its own Facebook page, as does the hush-hush National Security Agency, which vacuums up the world's communications for analysis. Both invite Facebook members to register and read information about employment opportunities. It's part of a larger, multiyear hiring push to boost the size of the U.S. intelligence community.

Moreover, the face of the CIA and the broader intelligence community is changing. Minorities accounted for almost a third of new CIA hires last year, a record.

http://www.usnews.com/articles/news/national/2009/02/05/the-cia-and-nsa-want-you-to-be-their-friend-on-facebook.html

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- When you see people at the office using such Internet sites as Facebook and MySpace, you might suspect those workers are slacking off.

But that's not the case at the CIA, the FBI and the National Security Agency, where bosses are encouraging their staff members to use a new social-networking site designed for the super-secret world of spying.

"It's every bit Facebook and YouTube for spies, but it's much, much more," said Michael Wertheimer, assistant deputy director of national intelligence for analysis.

The program is called A-Space, and it's a social-networking site for analysts within the 16 U.S. intelligence agencies.

Instead of posting thoughts about the new Avenged Sevenfold album or Jessica Alba movie, CIA analysts could use A-Space to share information and opinion about al Qaeda movements in the Middle East or Russian naval maneuvers in the Black Sea.

The new A-Space site has been undergoing testing for months and launches officially for the nation's entire intelligence community September 22.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/ptech/09/05/facebook.spies/index.html

Since December 2006, the Central Intelligence Agency has been using Facebook.com, the popular social networking site, to recruit potential employees into its National Clandestine Service. It marks the first time the CIA has ventured into social networking to hire new personnel.

The CIA's Facebook page (login required) provides an overview of what the NCS is looking for in a recruit, along with a 30-second promotional YouTube video aimed at potential college-aged applicants. U.S. citizens with a GPA above 3.0 can apply.

"It's an invaluable tool when it comes to peer-to-peer marketing," says Michele Neff, a CIA spokeswoman.

The NCS, one of the four directorates of the CIA, was established following 9/11 to gather intelligence from sources both domestic and abroad. In 2004, President Bush directed the CIA to increase the "human intelligence capabilities" of the agency and hire more officers that can "blend more easily in foreign cities."

There are strict federal regulations that guide recruitment and hiring, which are tightly controlled by the Office of Personnel Management. The bureau audits the recruitment practices of five to six government agencies a year on a rotating basis, according to Kevin Mahoney, OPM's associate director for human capital leadership.

Yet the CIA is an "exempted agency," meaning it has its own hiring authority and isn't audited by OPM. As a result, the CIA is less encumbered by bureaucratic recruitment procedures. Basically, it runs its own show.

"We don't have to obtain permissions on any of the venues we have scheduled for print or web," says the CIA's Neff.

http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/news/2007/01/72545

Google is supplying the software, hardware and tech support to US intelligence agencies who are in the process of creating a vast closed source database for global spy networks to share information.

Google is selling storage and data searching equipment to the CIA, the FBI, the National Security Agency, and other intelligence agencies, who have come together to build a huge internal government intranet.

Google is also providing the search features for a private Wikipedia-style site, called Intellipedia.

"We are a very small group, and even a lot of people in the federal government don't know that we exist," said Mike Bradshaw, who leads Google's federal government sales team and its 18 employees, yesterday to the San Francisco Chronicle.

The government supply arm of Google has also reportedly entered into a number of other contracts, details of which it says it cannot share.

Google's partnership with the intelligence network is not new. As we reported in late 2006, An ex-CIA agent Robert David Steele has claimed sources told him that CIA seed money helped get the company off the ground

Speaking to the Alex Jones Show, Steele elaborated on previous revelations by making it known that the CIA helped bankroll Google at its very inception. Steele named Google's CIA point man as Dr. Rick Steinheiser, of the Office of Research and Development.

"I think Google took money from the CIA when it was poor and it was starting up and unfortunately our system right now floods money into spying and other illegal and largely unethical activities, and it doesn't fund what I call the open source world," said Steele, citing "trusted individuals" as his sources for the claim.

"They've been together for quite a while," added Steele.

Late last year, new programs of internet monitoring were announced by a freshly created department branch of Homeland Security called the National Applications Office

"Mr. Chertoff also plans soon to unveil a cyber-security strategy, part of an estimated $15 billion, multiyear program designed to protect the nation's Internet infrastructure. The program has been shrouded in secrecy for months and has also prompted privacy concerns on Capitol Hill because it involves government protection of domestic computer networks." The Wall Street Journal wrote.

http://www.infowars.net/articles/march2008/310308Google.htm

The proposed 2010 Justice Department budget published last week reveals the development of a new FBI advanced electronic surveillance program dubbed “Going Dark.” The program is being budgeted $233.9 million next year.

According to the published budget summary (.pdf), the program “supports the FBI’s electronic surveillance (ELSUR), intelligence collection and evidence gathering capabilities, as well as those of the greater Intelligence Community.”

An FBI spokesman told ABC News, which first reported the information, that the program’s name, Going Dark, “does not refer to a specific capability, but is a program name for the part of the FBI, Operational Technology Division’s (OTD) lawful interception program which is shared with other law enforcement agencies.” He added that “The term applies to the research and development of new tools, technical support and training initiatives.”

The program is designed to help the agency address challenges with conducting surveillance over newish technologies, such as VoIP. The program is also doing research on automated link analysis to find connections between subjects of surveillance “and other investigative suspects.”

The budget report also discusses a Biometric Technology Center that is being developed jointly by the FBI, Defense Department and Justice Department in conjunction with the University of West Virginia for research and development of biometric technologies. The center is located at the Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) Division complex in Clarksburg, West Virginia.

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/05/fbi-going-dark-with-new-advanced-surveillance-program/

While the FBI has been criticized at times for its slow reforms after the 9/11 attacks, which revealed the FBI did not have adequate computer resources, some of the new programs sound like something out of a high-tech cloak and dagger film.

The budget request shows that the FBI is currently developing a new "Advanced Electronic Surveillance" program which is being funded at $233.9 million for 2010. The program has 133 employees, 15 of whom are agents.

According to the budget documents released Thursday, the program, otherwise known as "Going Dark," supports the FBI's electronic surveillance intelligence collection and evidence gathering capabilities, as well as those of the greater Intelligence Community.

http://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/Story?id=7532199&page=1

Known as "Going Dark," the program is designed to beef up the Bureau's already formidable electronic surveillance, intelligence collection and evidence gathering capabilities "as well as those of the greater Intelligence Community," ABC reports. An FBI spokesperson told the network:

"The term 'Going Dark' does not refer to a specific capability, but is a program name for the part of the FBI, Operational Technology Division's (OTD) lawful interception program which is shared with other law enforcement agencies."

"The term applies to the research and development of new tools, technical support and training initiatives." (Jason Ryan, "DOJ Budget Details High-Tech Crime Fighting Tools," ABC News, May 9, 2009)

Led by Assistant Director Marcus C. Thomas, OTD describes the office as supporting "the FBI’s investigative and intelligence-gathering efforts--and those of our federal, state, and local law enforcement/intelligence partners--with a wide range of sophisticated technological equipment, examination tools and capabilities, training, and specialized experience. You won’t hear about our work on the evening news because of its highly sensitive nature, but you will continue to hear about the fruits of our labor..."

According to OTD's website, the Division possesses "seven core capabilities": Digital Forensics; Electronic Surveillance; Physical Surveillance; Special Technology and Applications; Tactical Communications; Tactical Operations and finally, Technical Support/Coordination.

Under the heading "Electronic Surveillance," OTD deploys "tools and techniques for performing lawfully-authorized intercepts of wired and wireless telecommunications and data network communications technologies; enhancing unintelligible audio; and working with the communications industry as well as regulatory and legislative bodies to ensure that our continuing ability to conduct electronic surveillance will not be impaired as technology evolves."

But as we have seen throughout the entire course of the so-called "war on terror," systemic constitutional breeches by the FBI--from their abuse of National Security Letters, the proliferation of corporate-dominated Fusion Centers to the infiltration of provocateurs into antiwar and other dissident groups--the only thing "impaired" by an out-of-control domestic spy agency have been the civil liberties of Americans.

http://www.inteldaily.com/news/172/ARTICLE/10722/2009-05-18.html

An ex-CIA agent has gone further than ever before in detailing Google's relationship with the Central Intelligence Agency, claiming sources told him that CIA seed money helped get the company off the ground and naming for the first time Google's CIA point man.

Robert David Steele, a 20-year Marine Corps infantry and intelligence officer and a former clandestine services case officer with the Central Intelligence Agency, is the CEO of OSS.net.

Speaking to the Alex Jones Show, Steele elaborated on his previous revelations by making it known that the CIA helped bankroll Google at its very inception.

"I think Google took money from the CIA when it was poor and it was starting up and unfortunately our system right now floods money into spying and other illegal and largely unethical activities, and it doesn't fund what I call the open source world," said Steele, citing "trusted individuals" as his sources for the claim.

"They've been together for quite a while," added Steele.

Asked to impart to what level Google is "in bed" with the CIA, Steele described the bond as a "small but significant relationship," adding, "it is by no means dominating Google in fact Google has been embarrassed because everything the CIA asked it to do they couldn't do."

"I also think it's very very wrong of Google to have this relationship," cautioned Steele.

The former agent went further than before in identifying by name Google's liaison at the CIA.

"Let me say very explicitly - their contact at the CIA is named Dr. Rick Steinheiser, he's in the Office of Research and Development," said Steele.

http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/december2006/061206seedmoney.htm

In the most innovative service, for which Google equipment provides the core search technology, agents are encouraged to post intelligence information on a secure forum, which other spies are free to read, edit, and tag - like the online encyclopedia Wikipedia.

Depending on their clearance, agents can log on to Intellipedia and gain access to three levels of info - top secret, secret and sensitive, and sensitive but unclassified. So far 37,000 users have established accounts on the service, and the database now extends to 35,000 articles, according to Sean Dennehy, chief of Intellipedia development for the CIA.

http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article3652494.ece

Google has acquired Keyhole, Inc., which has a database of 3-D spy-in-the-sky images from all over the globe. Their software provides a virtual fly-over and zoom-in with one-foot resolution. Keyhole is supported by In-Q-Tel, a venture capital firm funded by the CIA, in an effort to "identify and invest in companies developing cutting-edge information technologies that serve United States national security interests."

In 2003, Keyhole's CEO John Hanke was quoted in an In-Q-Tel press release: "Keyhole's strategic relationship with In-Q-Tel means that the Intelligence Community can now benefit from the massive scalability and high performance of the Keyhole enterprise solution."

The spooks in Washington now had another hook into Google, Inc. Then in mid-2005, Rob Painter joined Google as Senior Federal Manager. He came straight from In-Q-Tel, where he had been Director of Technology Assessment.

http://www.google-watch.org/jobad.html

The CIA, FBI and National Security Agency have all reportedly banded together to create an internal government intranet – sharing data on a system called Intellipedia.

"Each analyst, for lack of a better term, has a shoe box with their knowledge," Sean Dennehy, chief of Intellipedia development for the CIA, told the San Francisco Chronicle Sunday. "They maintained it in a shared drive or a Word document, but we're encouraging them to move those platforms so that everyone can benefit."

There are three levels of information available to users: Top secret, secret and sensitive but unclassified. According to numbers provided by the CIA, 37,000 accounts have been established providing access to 200,000 pages of information.

Google supplies the software, hardware and tech support. The software and browsing giant is also licensing its mapping data to government agencies.

"We are a very small group, and even a lot of people in the federal government don't know that we exist," said Mike Bradshaw, who leads Google's federal government sales team and its 18 employees, yesterday to the Chronicle.

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/CIA_creates_miniGoogle_0331.html

The contractor, who spoke on a not-for-attribution basis, said that at least one US intelligence agency he declined to identify is working to “leverage Google’s [user] data monitoring” capability as part of an effort by the IC to glean from this data information of “national security intelligence interest” in the war on terror. . . .

One of the sources did say, however, that the CIA’s Office of Research and Development “has been giving them additional money and guidance and requirements.”

Last November, the CIA - through In-Q-Tel [CIA venture capital company] - issued notices to sell $2.2 million worth of Google stock.

Robert David Steele, intelligence veteran and CEO of OSS.Net, Inc. which sponsored last week’s event, told HSToday.us Tuesday evening that “Google is being actively hypocritical and deceptive in playing up its refusal to help the Department of Justice when all along it has been taking money and direction for elements of the US Intelligence Community, including the Office of Research and Development at the Central Intelligence Agency, In-Q-Tel, and in all probability, both the National Security Agency (NSA) and the Army’s Intelligence and Security Command.”

Steele added, “I have no doubt that Google, in its arrogance, decided it could make a deal with the devil and not get caught.” — HSToday.us

If you are extremely concerned about the possibility that your private browsing information is going to wind up in the hands of U.S. intelligence agencies, you can throw a spanner in the works by blocking cookies from the following domains: google.com, googlesyndication.com, google-analytics.com, and your country-specific Google domain (e.g. google.co.uk). If you actually use Google services, such as Google Mail, then this obviously will prevent you from using those services.

Even with cookies blocked, a limited amount of user tracking is possible, so unless you really are a terrorist, it probably isn’t worth the trouble. I still have all of my Google Cookies. Then again, I already know they’re watching me…

http://www.homelandstupidity.us/2006/02/22/google-in-bed-with-us-intelligence/