Overheard: Your big brother’s name is Hancock

“AT&T is currently defending itself in federal court from allegations that it installed, on behalf of the National Security Agency, secret internet spying rooms in its domestic internet switching facilities.” Ryan Singel, AT&T Invents Programming Language for Mass Surveillance

Ryan says:

Programs written in Hancock work by analyzing data as it flows into a data warehouse. That differentiates the language from traditional data-mining applications which tend to look for patterns in static databases.  A 2004 paper published in ACM Transactions on Programming Languages and Systems shows how Hancock code can sift calling card records, long distance calls, IP addresses and internet traffic dumps, and even track the physical movements of mobile phone customers as their signal moves from cell site to cell site. 

Anyone read Tryrannosaur Canyon by Doublas Preston? This is the second day I’ve had to say truth is stranger than fiction.