Big data, big brother and Snowden - Público.pt

information was a privileged knowledge and political power, economic and military since the dawn of civilization. With the development of information technology and computing and the widespread use of the Internet, the increasing flows of information have changed the way the economy works, finance, governance and social relations, creating new lifestyles.

We are now witnessing a new and profound transformation based on the phenomenon of big data , that is, the steep increase in the number and diversity of digitized data that circulate, are treated , analyzed and used for various purposes on a global scale.

It is estimated that at the beginning of this century, only about 25% of the information stored in the world was in digital form and the rest preserved on paper, photography, film and other media. Currently, spent little more than a decade, this percentage rose to over 90%.

All this information can now move easily in telecommunications networks. According to IBM, are created every day in the world about 2.5 exabytes of information, ie, 2.5 x 10 ¹⁸ units of digital information or bytes . To gain a more concrete character of a text scanned and stored on a computer corresponds to a byte , the complete works of Shakespeare correspond to about 5 megabytes (5 x 10 ⁶ bytes ) and the complete works of Beethoven about 20 gigabytes (20 x 10 ⁹ bytes ).

big data evolves through growth of data volume, the increased flow of acquisition and processing speed and increasing variety of types and data sources and their acquisition technologies. Databases grow in many fields, environmental science, medicine, sociology, transport, economy, civil security and military and intelligence systems, due to the increasing use of sensor networks on land and in space, aboard satellites, radio identifiers, other systems of detection and recording of data and the proliferation and growing use of social networks.

parallel, it became possible to use these gigantic databases for various purposes due to the continuous increase in computer memory, processors getting faster, the software and more intelligent algorithms evolved. This combination of increased ease of detection of huge amounts of data and its storage, processing and analysis created the phenomenon of big data .

big data is to profoundly change the way we use information through three distinct modes. In the past, to make a statistical study of a system with a large number of elements, sought to construct a sample that was representative. Now, the main objective is to obtain data on the entire system. Became feasible to store, process and analyze all that data, which lets you explore and learn about the characteristics and behaviors of the subsystems.

Second, in the past, there was great concern that the data were all very reliable, it is now possible to deal with the uncertainty that results from some data does not have the desired quality.

Third, the use of big data enables us to discover a multitude of correlations between the data concerning all that helps us know how the system works, even if it is unknown why this operation. In a strictly operational matters much more aware of the existence of a correlation than discovering its cause.

big data is allowed to make remarkable advances in science, for example, in astrophysics, where the rapidly growing volume of data bases of observations on ground-based telescopes or space, in which they seek to discover signals very rare, but very relevant. This is the case of the demand for extra-solar planetary systems with planets similar to Earth, ie, with the possibility of habitable by complex shapes and even intelligent life.

Another example is

genomics, where big data reduces the duration of the process of deciphering the DNA sequencing of a living organism. In the case of the human genome program, initiated in 1990, the first sequencing took about ten years, but can now be held in less than a week.

use and statistical analysis of large databases of social networks and large multinational companies are processes that have growing importance and value of a social, political and economic.

Finally with regard to governance, the governments of the most powerful countries, including USA, Canada, Britain, Australia, China, Russia, Germany and France, quickly realized the enormous potential power of Big Data . On March 29, 2012, the U.S. government launched the Big Data Research and Development Initiative, endowed with an initial budget of 200 million dollars, with the aim of accelerating the pace of development of science and technology, to strengthen national security and transform the process of teaching and learning.

The program involves six ministries and also funds universities to promote the development of advanced training and research in big data applied to many different fields, from health to the environment, climate and economy. To take advantage of big data are required powerful computers in terms of processing speed and memory. According to the TOP500 project, the ten most powerful computers in the world in June 2013, five are American, two Chinese, two Germans and Japanese, the first being occupied by the Tianhe-2, a computer’s National Supercomputer Center in Guangzhou.

Before the initiative in March 2012, the U.S. Government has used the big data for espionage activities on a global scale, but clandestinely. The PRISM project, conducted by the National Security Agency (NSA), since 2007 worked in secret until the moment the Guardian and The Washington Post revealed its activities in six June 2013 based on statements made by Edward Snowden, a former analyst hired by the NSA who left the U.S., took refuge in Hong Kong and now hopes to obtain political asylum in Russia.

Although there are strong suspicions about the extent and depth of electronic espionage conducted by the Americans, the revelations of Snowden fell like a bomb in the world, especially in U.S. government circles. PRISM is able to register the contents of all forms of electronic communication worldwide, including all emails , all mobile phone calls, all voyages made on the Internet, all images and data on satellites, as well as all kinds of personal data, corporate, institutional and government that are in digital form and circulate in telecommunications networks.

We have several “ big brothers” spying and record continuously our lives without any legal basis, the U.S. is currently the biggest one. Big data has favored greatly the activities of the “big brother ” . In the U.S., these activities are done with fraquíssimo legal control of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which is independent of the judiciary. The justification has been given for the secrecy and lack of strong legal controls is security, particularly the fight against terrorism. But the revelations of Snowden showed that this is false. There is evidence that the U.S. secretly watched about 38 embassies, many of them allies as well as various EU institutions.

The truth is that what the U.S. are primarily seeking economic information and financial support that may favor their companies and banks. Companies like Airbus and Thomson-CSF lost major contracts in favor of U.S. companies after they have been recognized by the U.S. peeps.

The ferocity with which the U.S. government wants to capture Snowden to condemn and silence forever and reveals the importance of the espionage activities based e big data have for the country to ensure its supremacy economic and military worldwide. Big data is a crucial means of the “big brothers ” maintain their hegemonic economic, financial and military in a world increasingly dominated by greed and in which natural resources begin to dwindle.