Twenty-one (or so) years too late?

[alexpgp]

A couple of items on Slashdot and digg.com have piqued my interest in a 1984 kind of way.

In one story, it turns out some guy  in North Carolina, on trial for murdering his wife, had Googled the terms "neck," "snap," "break" and "hold," and had researched lake levels, water currents, boat ramps and access before reporting his wife - who turned up dead in Raleigh Lake - missing. The article states that these tidbits were among over 100 million pages of content removed from the guy's computer.

The idea, of course, is that this information strengthens the prosecution's case by showing intent and premeditation. However, this also raises in my mind an interesting question: Assuming that "100 million pages of content" report is correct, there is virtually no way that the forensics people could have examined them manually, in my opinion. (If you could skim one page in 30 seconds, it'd take you about a century to read 'em all, with no breaks.) So what criteria did they use to select what they were going to search for? How did they know to see if they guy had researched lake levels?

One answer is that the article may be mistaken, and that the information didn't come from the computer, but from Google, in response to either a request or a subpoena. This is not clear. As Slashdot asks, "Will police in the future simply serve a subpoena to Google to find out what you've been thinking about?" Based on current trends, it seems clear the answer will be yes, although based on eBay's behavior in the past, a simple request might do the trick. More troubling is this: Will authorities be able to look for "questionable" searches before a crime has been committed?

Another alternative kicks in the second item that seems totally unrelated: An announcement from MIT that explains why so much of what passes for music these days sounds alike (although I suppose there may be a sort of chicken-and-egg relationship between music purveyors and music listeners, but I digress...). Check this out:

[Researchers] have devised a computer program that listens to a song, then predicts how humans will react to it.

The response is so specific at times that it can forecast how a single will perform on the charts and spit out a review, guessing what words will be used to describe it, from "sexy to romantic to loud and upbeat." [...]

The researchers pull data from weblogs, chat rooms and music reviews -- anywhere a song is being discussed -- and feed it into the computer, which allows the software to gauge the popularity of a certain sound.

Once all the information is tabulated, the computer can listen to an entirely new album and predict how people will respond based on what it knows about the latest reactions to the music it has already heard.

If it sounds far-fetched, consider this: the system has been predicting Billboard hits with surprising accuracy over the past several months. While people may think their musical tastes are unpredictable and whimsical, they are actually quite traceable.

So how long will it be before we arrive at a point where someone will attempt to whip all of this together in a mix that'll make The Minority Report seem like a quaint, parochial walk in the park?

Cheers...

Comments

[brenk.livejournal.com]

Interesting.

I've often wondered just how suspicious my Googling habits would look if ever examined: I may have a good reason for checking out crime-related stuff both for work and writing, but it would be so easy to misconstrue. Scary, yup.

[alexpgp.livejournal.com]

Actually, I wonder the same thing, as some of my work has had me researching terms having to do with disarmament, aerospace, and the correct spelling of various Middle Eastern names.

Cheers...