On: The FBI’s Contract to Buy Mass Internet Data

[justapassenger]

"Mass Internet Data" and $35k per month?

Anyone who dealt with government contracts and/or internet knows that those 2 statements don't align in any way. This data has to be extremely, extremely, extremely limited and/or useless.

[spydum → justapassenger]

I have had access to this type of data before commercially for purpose. It's useful for knowing "who" has established connections to "who", but at just an IP level. Powerful for combining with other analysis on either the sender or receiver. You won't know what they said, but you know what ports they used.

So if I see a sudden spike in IP addresses geocoded as being in the United States, and the destination is an unusual but specific port hosted in Belarus, it might be worth looking at a new C2 malware.

[justapassenger → spydum]

Yeah, I know those types of datasets.

But did you see data, sold for $35k, to a government? I didn't, but I'm fairly confident in assuming it doesn't have much in it.

[YtGoodman → justapassenger]

Then why did they buy it?

[justapassenger → YtGoodman]

Because government is very efficient with all the funds.

[hsdropout → YtGoodman]

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