Someone here: http://www.rumormillnews.com/cgi-bin/config.pl

Posted a link to this patent:

http://www.patents.ibm.com/details?&pn=US05937422__&s_clms=1#clms

Snip....

Nelson; Douglas J. , Columbia, MD Schone; Patrick John , Elkridge, MD Bates; Richard Michael , Greenbelt, MD

Applicant(s): The United States of America as represented by the National Security Agency, Washington, DC

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Issued/Filed Dates: Aug. 10, 1999 / April 15, 1997

Application Number: US1997000834263

IPC Class: G06F 017/30;

Class: 707/531; 707/004; 707/532; 707/535; 707/512;

Field of Search: 704/010 707/512,532,535,531,3-5,7

Abstract: A method of automatically generating a topical description of text by receiving the text containing input words; stemming each input word to its root form; assigning a user-definable part-of-speech score to each input word; assigning a language salience score to each input word; assigning an input-word score to each input word; creating a tree structure under each input word, where each tree structure contains the definition of the corresponding input word; assigning a definition-word score to each definition word; collapsing each tree structure to a corresponding tree-word list; assigning a tree-word-list score to each entry in each tree-word list; combining the tree-word lists into a final word list; assigning each word in the final word list a final-word-list score; and choosing the top N scoring words in the final word list as the topic description of the input text. Document searching and sorting may be accomplished by performing the method described above on each document in a database and then comparing the similarity of the resulting topical descriptions.

Attorney, Agent, or Firm: Morelli; Robert D.;

-- Hokie (Hokie_@hotmail.com), January 09, 2000

Answers

Sometime last December (November?) the NY Times carried an article on this new monitoring capability of the NSA. The article noted that the stupendous volume of traffic on the internet would swamp the capacity even of supercomputers. Also noted that many of the (presumptive) key words often occur in ordinary (i.e., non-conspiratorial) communication.

And as we all know, 128-bit encryption is available equally to the just and the unjust, anywhere in the world. Messages so encrypted must be decrypted in their entirety before any screening can be dome. Even if a more powerful supercomputer appears, this will be time- consuming.

See Washington Post, May 1998)

and Jerry Pournelle: Phonetaps and Encryption (Sept., 1998)

-- Tom Carey (tomcarey@mindspring.com), January 10, 2000.

Hokie; yep. That's it. Tom; you make several presumptions which you probably should not make. Hardly anyone encrypts their traffic. Even when first party principals in a communication DO encypt the traffic it is not at all uncommon for second party and tertiary principals in that same communication to fail to encrypt their traffic. You also presume that all 128 bit encryption is created equally, which is hardly the case. Block encryption without chaining is essentially a foolish endeavor. Beyond that I probably should not speak.

-- Michael Erskine (Osiris@urbanna.net), January 10, 2000.

I know nothing technical about this thing but I will tell you this. I was taking a Criminal Justice Class in college back in 1987 and had a prof who was ex FBI and had (other undisclosed appontments in the government. he had lost a leg to cancer and retired to a life of academia. He told us at that time that such a system was in place and was used routinely. Didn;t really buy it at the time but who knows. Hard to beleive with the technology then but then i have heard of other things that are not public knowledge either that sound unbelievable.

-- DAVID (tdavidc@arn.net), January 10, 2000.

"Also noted that many of the (presumptive)key words often occur in ordinary (i.e., non-conspiratorial) communication. "

Tom, this is EXACTLY why you and every other citizen need to be concerned. Given the legendary ineptitude, indifference, and ignorance of government, you are at great risk of ending up in one of their catch-all databases of suspected bad guys, even if soley on the basis of quite innocent conversation.

And once you are identified as a potential bad guy, rightly or wrongly, and are placed in one of those databases, you don't get out. And if you'll think about the implications of that, it should sober you up some.

-- Norm Harrold (nharrold@tymewyse.com), January 10, 2000.