The Government Is Watching You... Without Anyone's Permission!

Raytheon RIOT software tracks people, predicts future behavior

Watch this video demonstration by Raytheon

If you have attracted the “wrong kind” of attention by the government, then the intrusive data-mining analytic software developed by defense contractor Raytheon may be able to figure out your next move before you make it.

Wikipedia explained the “extreme-scale analytics” systems that Raytheon calls Rapid Information Overlay Technology (RIOT). It “allows the user to track people's movements and even predict their behavior by mining data from social networking sites including Facebook, Twitter, Gowalla, and Foursquare. Raytheon claims that it has not sold this software to any clients, but has shared it with US government and industry.”

The software is not “new,” but the video obtained by the Guardian is new to us, the public. In it, Raytheon's 'principal investigator' Brian Urch explained how RIOT software works. He used a Raytheon employee dubbed “Nick” before showing how to use the software to find pictures of Nick as well as where he checks in or has otherwise given away his location. Some of the most disturbing quotes include, “Now we know where Nick’s going; we know what he looks like and now we’re going to try to predict where he may be in the future.” The results showed the top ten places where he has checked in.

After more analysis showed the top time that Nick checked in, the most irritating portion of the video was when Urch said, “So if you ever did want to try to get ahold of Nick, or maybe get ahold of his laptop, you might want to visit the gym at 6am on a Monday.”