The Bots From U.N.C.L.E.

EvenIfYouDon'tMind
ItStillMonitorsVille


Do you, perchance, remember that old TV spy-show called 'The Man From U.N.C.L.E.'?

You know, the one where all the not-so secret agents had numbers as well as names....

Well, that's how I like to keep track of my visitors from Uncle Gord's 'Public Affairs Bureau'.

More specifically, I watch the numbers of their I.P addresses come and go.

And, to make sure I don't give away any state secrets, I just use the last two or three numbers for identification purposes.

And the funny thing is, some members of the PAB brigade visit more than others.

Take today for example.

Agents 186 and 243 stopped by just once.

Number 186 came calling twice. And he (or she?) stayed for quite awhile. Guess he/she found something interesting. I think, maybe, based on the outclicks that it was this.

And then there is my personal favorite...... Number Sixteen, who today landed here no fewer than six times.

Which I found kind of creepy in a weird, pseudo-cyberstalker kind of way.

But then I noticed that #16 always arrives from the 'TyeeBCBlogs' site.

Every....single....time.

And that, of course, reminded me of something that Miro Cernetig wrote the other day in the VSun:

"What's the Public Affairs Bureau? Well, PAB is essentially an in-house information spin machine, housed in the legislature's basement.

It has a $28-million budget. It has 223 full-time news spinners. And it has high-tech systems that allow them to monitor all media in the province and transcribe it in almost real time. If a political thought is broadcast or printed in this province, chances are PAB has found it and combed it for any political import....."

Which got me thinking that maybe the Bot Monitors have come for me too....

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Now.

Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean that they're not out to get you.

So.

If I were to type "BCHydro/Accenture/BCHydro/Accenture/BCHydro/Accenture/BCHydro/Accenture!" ten times as fast as I can.....

Does that mean that my little word pixels will make their way to some Homeland Security outpost in Pensacola Florida before I can even finish pounding them out?

Naw?

That could never happen.

Could it?


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You want context? ......You got it..... One of the first posts I ever wrote was about the potential requirement for American Corporations to hand over personal data, including data on foreign nationals, to Homeland Security based on the provisions in the Patriot Act....

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