The CIA and NSA Want You to Be Their Friend on Facebook

According to the "US News and World Report" website
The CIA and NSA Want You to Be Their Friend on Facebook
The spy agencies are using the popular social-networking site as part of their recruiting efforts

"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.

This story is not new to those like myself who study these things but certainly worth a rerun in view of the continued growth of Face Book which has outstripped other Social Networking sites such as Bebo. How successful the CIA might be at recruiting the hordes of todays unmotivated and disillusioned youth its difficult to say but the sheer size of Facebook and its data mining potential should not be ignored. What they are doing however is a serious amount of data mining about all those punters who think that anything short of 10,000 "friends" on facebook is tantamount to social exclusion.

In an era when we are constantly warned of the dangers of identity theft through poor online security, its perhaps ironic that more than ever, people are prepared to reveal and publish astonishingly private and personal details on these sites, making it easy for criminals to compile far more than enough facts and figures to get a strong picture or profile of who we are, where we live, what we do or do not like, where we go, who we socialise with etc etc. With such info, invading our bank and credit card accounts becomes easy peasy and otherwise impersonate us for profit or other criminal activity. Would you really like some unknown person to install a bot on your PC which logs your keystrokes, steals your passwords or worst still uses your IP address to download bomb making instructions or illegal porn, none of which you know anything about untill the Vice Squad come to call.

Like many early adopters and users of technology i only give the net what is essential for it to function or better still, what I want it to have. Personal details I keep to a minimum. I never bank online as even the governments own security advisors have admitted that the net is still not secure enough to entrust our life. Most of the websites I have registered with have different passwords, ages, Zip Codes etc and the seasoned techies I refer to on the net for advice, tend to recommend the same.

Of course this does not guarantee security or anonymity especiall since the 911 attacks in the USA and the bomb outrages in London. The CIA, Homeland Security, MI5, MI6, and others of which we know little or nothing, have spent large fortunes on sledge hammers to break a few nuts. Britain actually seems to be leading the attack on civil liberties and even free speech, often out of all proportion to the real scale of terrorist problems and the whole trend has been to ratchet up surveillance and intrusions into our privacy. Be that as it may however, and bearing in mind that i dont really have any dark secrets other than the occasional embargoed Press Release, I still see no reason why i should make life easier for them and nor should you. Sites such as Facebook therefore are little short of an abdication from our private lives.

If you want to get active and fight the increasing intrusion into our lives via, ID Cards, biometric passports, finger printing and retinal scans, none of which will actually slow down let alone prevent terrorism or fraud then you can visit the Say No To ID campaign website here..... http://www.no2id.net/ For more info on Facebook and links to the CIA, you can watch the informative video here. ......... Even the much vaunted "chip and pin" technology is now being cracked by the crooks and in the long run no information can ever be said to be completely secure. The only answer therefore is to keep your personal and financial details to a minimum. So be careful Number 6, online or off they want your information. Make sure they dont get it!