Pentagon to peruse social networks

While the Bush administration’s anti-terrorism monitoring activities are in the news, we might as well look at the social-networking angle: “New Scientist has discovered that the Pentagon's National Security Agency, which specialises in eavesdropping and code-breaking, is funding research into the mass harvesting of the information that people post about themselves on social networks,” the London-based magazine reports. By monitoring the social networks, NSA, New Scientist says, can connect people and groups better than with mere phone logs. “Clusters of people in highly connected groups become apparent, as do people with few connections who appear to be the intermediaries between such groups. The idea is to see by how many links or ‘degrees’ separate people from, say, a member of a blacklisted organisation.”