
3 Degrees of LinkedIn Separation from the Military-Industrial-Surveillance State - danso
http://linkedd.s3.amazonaws.com/index.html
======
yid
An alternate take on this from the title: like any industry, homeland security
(for example) is likely to be a tightly knit cluster of people -- you
generally network on LinkedIn (and in life) with people in your own industry.

Now at even two degrees away, a _single_ tenuous connection from the author to
this cluster would instantly put the bulk of that cluster into the author's
"extended network", and lead to the scary visualization shown. This connection
could literally be a recruiter connecting to two essentially random people. At
higher degrees of separation, the probability of finding such a path increases
dramatically, to the point of almost certainty.

In other words, don't use these so-called "extended networks" for any serious
analysis, and don't always trust tree visualizations of social networks.

~~~
aunty_helen
I feel like your comment goes so far and then stops short of the key takeaway
from this.

From below >>The NSA reported using 3 hops for data dumps from their bulk
surveillance store.

~~~
yid
> >The NSA reported using 3 hops for data dumps from their bulk surveillance
> store.

I'm not sure what this means, and you appear to be referencing a comment in
this HN thread. I'd imagine that if an entity uses a hardware splitter to
intercept all traffic, the number of alleged hops used in a network traversal
isn't as important.

~~~
aunty_helen
Ok no worries, it was quite a while ago that the article came out (I think
around some of the early Snowden leaks). It that claimed that the NSA used a 3
hop rule to establish a 'targets' network. They claimed to only use 3 hops to
protect the privacy and constitutional rights of US citizens ie 'this is not
mass surveillance guys, we promise'. (paraphrasing from memory of course)

To the authors point, 2 hops could just about be anyone.

To your point, 2 hops could be a very tenuous link.

If you put both points together you get effectively mass surveillance of just
about anyone whilst still claiming to be on the right side of the law.

~~~
yid
Thank you, that makes sense.

------
late2part
What % of people on LinkedIn are NOT within 3 degrees of separation from you?

------
vjeux
Facebook users averaged 3.74 degrees of separation in 2011:
[http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-15844230](http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-15844230)

------
saaaam
Hi all - I made this. In case anyone is interested, I wrote up a statement
about it here:
[http://greetingsfellowalienatedsubjectoflatecapitalism.com/#...](http://greetingsfellowalienatedsubjectoflatecapitalism.com/#linkedin)

------
JoeCoder_
How would this compare to a diagram of degrees of separation from other skill-
sets?

~~~
danso
I'm not sure...the author's projects page ([http://lav.io/](http://lav.io/))
is full of politically satirical/subversive work, such as "CSPAN-5:
autogenerated supercuts of CSPAN videos" and "Big Data Pawn Shop: leaked NSA
documents printed on merchandise" and my favorite, "Yelp Prison Review
Faxbot"...so it wasn't likely something he investigated.

OTOH I've been fascinated that these are even endorsement categories and of
all the subcategories beneath them...not _shocked_...just surprised because
the endorsement tags I always focus on on LinkedIn are things like "Ruby on
Rails" or "Front-end development"

~~~
eric_h
I could be mistaken, but I was under the impression that the endorsement
categories were not a whitelisted set and that you could endorse someone for
basically anything.

~~~
yoloswagins
I've had a college endorse me for "dairy", "laughter yoga", and javascript.
You can endorse anyone for anything.

------
stordoff
A third degree of separation on LinkedIn isn't really that meaningful in my
experience (e.g. according to LinkedIn, Barack Obama is a third degree
connection of mine). Whilst it put stuff like the NSA's three hops rule in
context, it doesn't really reveal anything notable AFAICT.

------
delinka
I'd like to see an anonymous representation of that first degree of
connection. Maybe the number of empty boxes leading to that second degree. Or
is this information implied in the grouping (i.e. this is all from only five
of his connections)? I can't tell.

------
srj
The NSA reported using 3 hops for data dumps from their bulk surveillance
store.

------
golergka
Does the author suggest that having these skills is bad somehow? I don't
understand — what's the implication here?

~~~
quanticle
The NSA uses a "three-degree of separation" rule to determine whether your
communications are "fair game" for interception and surveillance. As this
exercise shows, three degrees of separation is a very broad criterion, and can
be used as a justification to intercept almost anyone's communications,
whether they are involved with terrorism or not.

~~~
golergka
Never heard of it before, thanks for the info.

[http://www.thewire.com/politics/2013/07/nsa-admits-it-
analyz...](http://www.thewire.com/politics/2013/07/nsa-admits-it-analyzes-
more-peoples-data-previously-revealed/67287/)

Best source I could find, unfortunately, couldn't find the testimony itself in
text.

------
runarb
Anyone know how this was made? As I understand it is not so easy to scrape
LinkedIn at scale.

~~~
saaaam
Hey - author here. I used casperjs to do the scraping. It was a pain in the
ass and I got temporarily banned a few times...

~~~
DyslexicAtheist
I tried this last year and was blocked after the scraper visiting 500 profiles
for 24 hrs. not sure if tarpitting would have allowed more than 500 in 24 hrs.
requests were spread with a random sleep of 1-5 seconds.

------
pc86
It would be nice to see the overlap between these, and to be able to see the
same chart for my own 2nd- and 3rd-degree connections.

------
sandstrom
With enough people working on population surveillance the desire for self-
preservation alone helps keeping the system in place. Voter incentives,
economic incentives of firms (many are contractors), etc.

Still a way to go until it's on par with China's (rumored) ~2 million[1]
though.

[1] [http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-
china-24396957](http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-24396957)

~~~
Sven7
If it's the only half ass solution we have to prevent the next Boston Bombing
or Paris Attacks what else can be done?

Until we find better solutions its just par for the course along with comments
likes yours.

~~~
sandstrom
Norway had a terrible terror attack a few years ago. They didn't opt for more
surveillance.

[http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/jul/27/norway-
terror-a...](http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/jul/27/norway-terror-
attacks-prime-minister)

~~~
at-fates-hands
Norway also has a fraction of the population and has a history of very low
violence. It's easy to say this attack was an outlier considering the long
history of _non-violence_ in their country.

Norway isn't a really high target on any terrorist hit list either. One of the
reasons for mass surveillance is the idea if you have a massive population its
the only way to keep tabs on the bad guys.

This of course begs the question how the San Bernardino shooters got away with
their attack if the NSA was properly doing their job and mass surveillance
actually worked; which it clearly didn't in the California case.

~~~
sandstrom
The non-violent history of Norway is true.

Still, I think this misplaced fear (which many feel) is what's tricking us. If
you dig a bit, there are examples in the other direction.

===

# More likely to be crushed by furniture then killed by a terrorist:

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-
cage/wp/2015/11/2...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-
cage/wp/2015/11/23/youre-more-likely-to-be-fatally-crushed-by-furniture-than-
killed-by-a-terrorist/)

# Guns kill many more than do terrorists (similar argument):

[http://www.vox.com/2015/10/3/9446193/gun-deaths-aids-war-
ter...](http://www.vox.com/2015/10/3/9446193/gun-deaths-aids-war-terrorism)

# Spending isn't allocated to the common causes of death:

[http://i1.wp.com/thinkbynumbers.org/wp-
content/uploads/2008/...](http://i1.wp.com/thinkbynumbers.org/wp-
content/uploads/2008/03/594-1.jpg?resize=620%2C1546)

# Airport security 'causing' unnecessary deaths

Slow air travel due to security is shifting (some proportion of) travelers to
cars, where accidents are more common.

[http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/articles/2012-11-18/how-
airport-...](http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/articles/2012-11-18/how-airport-
security-is-killing-us)

===

I could go on.

Yes, terrorism is an issue that should be dealt with. But it should be handled
rationally and with proportionality.

~~~
Grishnakh
>The non-violent history of Norway is true.

I disagree, based on what I've read about Vikings. Those were some pretty
brutal people.

