Big Brother looking to extend reach
October 6th, 2006
A consortium of major universities is developing software that would let the U.S. government monitor negative opinions of the United States inpublications overseas. The universities include Cornell, the University of Pittsburgh and the University of Utah.
A $2.4 million grant from the Homeland Security Department will finance the research over three years. The researchers are using a database of articles published in 2001 and 2002 which will be used to train a computer to recognize, rank and interpret statements.
Claire T. Cardie, a professor of computer science at Cornell, said “The software would need to be able to distinguish between statements like this spaghetti is good - and this spaghetti is not very good - it’s excellent”.
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Oh good. Then we can become another China. I wonder when we’ll introduce mandatory sterilization and goose-stepping at parades. I’ve always thought there was room for goose-stepping.