You know, it seemed to me that three hops from a “suspicious” user would encompass way too many people…

MetaPhone: The NSA Three-Hop

You know, it seemed to me that three hops from a “suspicious” user would encompass way too many people to be a meaningful limit. Someone actually did some math on real data. It turns out that a lot of numbers are connected through common hubs of activity…like, say, T-Mobile’s voicemail number, or Skype. If suspicious user X ever checked voice mail on the same carrier you have, you’re only two hops away.

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No Coincidences

Comment on PAD’s Coincidence in Fiction

I love the take on Les Miserables. I’ve been re-reading the book, and the coincidences are just astonishing.

Things like Cosette starting to give up on Marius and catching a glimpse of a soldier, who just happens to be Marius’ cousin. The Thenardiers’ younger sons are taken in by a former servant of Marius’ grandfather, then get lost and picked up by Gavroche.

My favorite is probably the point at which one of Thenardier’s associates decides to mug some random guy who turns out to be Jean Valjean, on the street outside Marius’ friend’s house, while Gavroche is watching from the bushes.

There actually is a part in the novel where Eponine is manipulating various groups of people. The question is, should that be worked into Valjean’s sister’s spy network? Or is she an opposing force? Hmm…

Note: same ground mostly covered in Padded and No Such Thing as Coincidence

Ugh. So apparently, getting court-approved access to records wasn’t enough for the NSA. They’ve…

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nsa-infiltrates-links-to-yahoo-google-data-centers-worldwide-snowden-documents-say/2013/10/30/e51d661e-4166-11e3-8b74-d89d714ca4dd_story.html

Ugh. So apparently, getting court-approved access to records wasn’t enough for the NSA. They’ve tapped the links between datacenters within Google’s and Yahoo’s internal networks. Google, for their part, has already started moving toward encrypting traffic on their internal net.