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We have been monitored by the government for argueably all our lives, others more closely than some. And when suspicious web activity has surged, they have proven to at least in the game, though not necessarily a step ahead.

However, now Wired Magazine is breaking the story about what the CIA wants now : " America’s spy agencies want to read your blog posts, keep track of your Twitter updates — even check out your book reviews on Amazon."

The magazine goes on: "In-Q-Tel, the investment arm of the CIA and the wider intelligence community, is putting cash into Visible Technologies... It’s part of a larger movement within the spy services to get better at using ”open source intelligence” — information that’s publicly available, but often hidden in the flood of TV shows, newspaper articles, blog posts, online videos and radio reports generated every day."

Visible scours almost a million 2.0 websites every day, nitpicking posts, conversations, blogs, Flickr, Youtube, and the like, to dish out a rundown of what is being said on these sites. People subscribed to Visible are provided with a plate of real-time feeds of everything searched and said, based on a series of keywords.

The CIA states it wants Visible to track foreign social media, and issue spooks, which is “early-warning detection on how issues are playing internationally."

The problem with all this of course is the paramount difference between saying and doing.

We all post, send and comment with little second thought. We also have heard that the internet is public territory, and have correspondingly experienced at least one bout of unfair or unmerited attention based on our web-action or an action documented and exhibited over the web.

So, although anything we put out there is technically fair game, it could quickly become controversial if they utilized information gathered through Visible to conduct unauthorized investigations. Still may not hit close to home-but think if they used found information on visited sites or commented photos done by political candidates or journalists, lawyers, doctors or professors.

The potential for information and character exploitation through this avenue, although said information has been conducted on open, public forums and gathered through a legal and accepted platform, is monumental.

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On the internet, data lives forever. Once you post something to the web, you see, you simply can't take it back. Many people have had to learn this lesson the hard way, unfortunately, after discovering that the "delete" button doesn't really work to delete something from the internet as a whole. The embarrassing missive lives on and on, in the web service's archives, in Google's cache, and eventually in the Internet Archive itself.

That may be about to change, though, thanks to a new tool created by researchers at the University of Washington. Called "Vanish," the system places a time limit on any message posted to any web service through a web browser.
How Vanish Works

Perhaps the most amazing thing about Vanish is that it's capable of erasing messages posted practically anywhere on the web. For example, the system is able to erase messages from any web-based email system like Gmail, Hotmail, or Yahoo, instant messaging chats, or even social networking sites like MySpace or Facebook.

To accomplish this, the messages sent with Vanish are encrypted with a secret key, never revealed to the end user. The key is then divided into dozens of pieces and sent out over peer-to-peer (P2P) networks - the same ones where music and movie files are traded every day. Because file-sharing systems are in a state of constant change, the various key parts eventually become inaccessible. Once enough of them are lost, the message can no longer be decrypted and read.

In the current Vanish prototype, however, the network's computers purge their memory every eight hours to simulate the key loss that would occur on P2P networks.

From the recipient's perspective, a message sent using Vanish appears as gibberish until they highlight the text and then press the "Vanish" button to unscramble it.

Try it Now http://vanish.cs.washington.edu/download.html

Currently, the prototype is available as a free, open-source tool that works as a combination of downloadable software and a Firefox plugin. Both sender and recipient have to use the software and plugin in order for Vanish to work. If you would prefer to not install anything on your computer, there's also the Vanish Online Service which you can use from your web browser. Both options are available here if you'd like to try them out now.

Image credit: flickr user jamesjyu
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