The Clash Between Privacy And Security: Graph Analysis

PRISM: The Clash Between Privacy and Security PRISM is a surveillance program that provides the United States National Security Agency (NSA) with internet communications from major US internet companies. It gives the NSA a variety of user related data from participating companies. At its core, PRISM's goal is to aggregate the relevant data so that it can be used to target suspects in cases involving terrorism, espionage, cyber attacks, and weapons of mass destruction. Finding such a target is a needle in a haystack; thus, they need a vast dataset to work with and even then they might not find anything. PRISM's original, stated purpose was to monitor potentially valuable foreign communications that might pass through US servers, but its influence

It is the same technology that powers social graphs such as the ones used in Facebook (Henschen). The surveillance program can find out who is in contact with a suspected target. Graph analysis makes querying for relevant information fast and scalable even when it concerns a gargantuan dataset. Another benefit, PRISM has not broken any laws. It has been operating in compliance with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). The U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court oversees the program. The law favors PRISM. If a company fails to hand over server data, then the U.S. government subjects them to an expensive and harmful lawsuit. If companies participate, then they receive compensation as an incentive. The companies are helping out as charity. In the end, the surveillance program tends to get what it needs. PRISM faces many weaknesses relating to scalability and unauthorized employee surveillance. Analyzing data relating to users on such a large scale has never been done before. It requires massive amounts of storage for it to continue. Enormous, expensive data centers have to be built. The graph analysis algorithms get pushed to limits never tested before – they are in uncharted territory. Scale becomes an

This idea goes back to Aristotle. The real difficulty begins with figuring out who deserves what and why.” Privacy and national security, in regard to PRISM, are so coupled and intertwined that it is hard to achieve one without compromising the other; however, Americans do deserve to have both. Tim cook said, “No one should have to decide, privacy or security, we should be smart enough to do both.” (Kokalitcheva) Let's hope they will figure out a solution in the future. But in the meantime, the nation's security is a more imminent threat. The benefits of keeping PRISM fully active far outstrip the consequences. It is very unlikely that anyone at the NSA sees your data unless you are communicating with one of their suspected targets. The data is there in case they need it. The company's data is still very secure even without the full encryption. It is a technical problem that will be worked out, eventually. There are always employees who do unauthorized things. PRISM is an exciting piece of technology, and in the end, all the bad things about it are minor. If PRISM has thwarted 50 or even one potential terrorist attack than it has done something