Creepy Spying System Revealed by Wikileaks, Which Then Gets Hit by DDOS Attack

"more accurate than modern facial recognition technology"

"recorded digitally on the spot"

"encrypted and instantaneously delivered to a fortified central database center at an undisclosed location to be aggregated with other intelligence"

"the corporation's ties are assumed to go deeper than even documented"

It sounds a bit ominous, but what does any of that even mean? The security video cameras have encrypted feeds into a central server, which does facial recognition? Sounds nice, but I'd be surprised if it works well enough to be useful (esp. if someone is wearing sunglasses), but not nearly as alarmed as the tone of the RT article encourages. Sounds more like fantasy technology and wasted tax money than anything else.

Why? because it means it's actually powerful people and not "random patriots in the USA". Thus, I feel like it's a more direct hit to our freedom of speech, etc.

It's also pretty obvious that no one would think Assange actually committed crimes. You'd need to be both blind and deaf to not figured that he's been framed into this ridiculous sex affair.

ps: hello trapwire auditors, have a nice day!

I wish it was a big conspiracy by the EVIL GOVERNMENT. But alas, it is probably a huge waste of the taxpayers' money.

The author loses credibility with me when he insinuates this must the government. Trust me, if the government wanted the site down, they'd do it themselves and not act like some sort of hacker group.

Is it such a stretch to think the Anon's aren't the only "experts" out there?

Every few seconds, data picked up at surveillance points in major cities and landmarks across the United States are recorded digitally on the spot, then encrypted and instantaneously delivered to a fortified central database center at an undisclosed location to be aggregated with other intelligence.

Awful and scary, isn't it? Let's now take a deep breath and read it again. We'll see how this article makes most mundane and unremarkable things sound like a spy triller, it's a nice piece of work:

Former senior intelligence officials have created a detailed surveillance system more accurate than modern facial recognition technology

More accurate how? Than which modern facial recognition technology? All of them together? Sounds unlikely that RT made a survey of all modern face recognition technologies. But even if they did - what exactly it allows to do more accurately and how much more accurately? From the descriptions it sounds like it is a facial recognition technology plus some pattern matching - but 99% of it is marketing-speak, so impossible to understand what it actually does.

Every few seconds, data picked up at surveillance points in major cities and landmarks across the United States are recorded digitally on the spot

So we have some data recording happening in some locations in the US. We don't know anything about these locations except that some of them are inside major US cities and some other are in known places which aren't cities. For all we know, it may be inside bank vaults in major cities, or inside private secure structures - but the authors certainly make it sound as it is practically in your bedroom. It's like they are in major cities and I am in a major city - OMG!

Then these ominous surveillance points record video digitally. Oh noes! Just like my digital camera! Must be made by CIA to spy on me too. And it does it on the spot! There must be some spy stuff going on. But you heard nothing yet:

then encrypted

As we all know, encryption is practically synonymous with shady business. Nobody who has nothing to hide uses encryption. They do, ergo they are up to something bad.

and instantaneously delivered

Instantaneously! I mean, move over, physics, CIA is here! Oh, you mean they just upload their videos to the central server over https using broadband networks? Just like I do with Youtube clips? So that must mean Youtube is under CIA control too, I guess.

to a fortified central database center

Fortified center! Certainly sounds ominous - nobody ever that is up to any good would have any physical security in his data center that stores millions of dollars in hardware and information. Fortified means bad. It's like Mordor, dude!

at an undisclosed location

Undisclosed location? Did you ever hear "undisclosed location" in context that meant anything good? It's or somebody is hiding from mafia hitmen, or some spooks are meeting to discuss their spooky things. Or it's a conspiracy-speak for "they didn't tell us where their data center is because they didn't think it's our business to know where their data center is".

to be aggregated with other intelligence

OMG, can it get any worse? Other intelligence! What kind of other intelligence? Who cares, it's obvious aggregating video with "other intelligence" can only make it worse. Other intelligence is spookier than anything else, just let your imagination run for a bit and you'd see how scary "other intelligence" can get.

It's like that face.com startup that Facebook bought - that allowed to combine facial recognition with "other intelligence" to sort facebook pictures or make logins via face recognition APIs. I didn't know those guys were CIA, I actually used them! Good thing facebook shut them down. Or maybe they just were not supposed to show this technology to the people? After all, Facebook is CIA too, so maybe they just went underground...

The employee roster at Arbaxas reads like a who’s who of agents once with the Pentagon, CIA and other government entities according to their public LinkedIn profiles, and the corporation's ties are assumed to go deeper than even documented.

And now's this. Some employees of these companies worked for CIA or DoD (we don't know in which capacity, but everybody that ever worked for DoD in any capacity is up to no good, it's clear) or "other government entities" - you know, Department of Education, EPA, NIH, Smithsonian, National Science Foundation - those all are "government entities", so we can cover a lot of ground here while sounding like we still talk about spies. And if we miss something, we can always say "it is assumed" - by which we mean we just assumed that because why not, but we will say it as if it is a known, even if undocumented, fact.

So what we have is a regular video surveillance system with some algorithms built on top, some company founded by people with govt connections, looking probably into some juicy govt contracts on securing some of the numerous govt facilities that need securing, and some creative writers making it all sound like the CIA is out to get us while giving us next to zero information on actually what we are supposed to be afraid of and what new is in what they tell us.