Government

State Department Launching Manhunt Contest Using Social Media With $5,000 Reward

U.S. State Department Begins 12 Hour Social Media Contest to Catch ThievesAt the end of March, the U.S. State Department wants you to help them catch five “jewel” thieves in five different U.S. and European cities. Their mugshot and a short description will be your only source of information and social media and technology, your tools.

If you’re the first to find all five thieves, there is a $5,000 reward waiting for you.

This effort, called the Tag Challenge, was announced earlier and is sponsored by the Department in its effort to test the use of social networking and crowdsourcing for use in public safety.

“It has become increasingly obvious over the past few years that open source information, especially in an age of social networking, can be at least as valuable as classified information,” said Marion Bowman in a statement in February. Bowman was formerly Deputy Director in the Office of the National  Counterintelligence Executive and a Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Technology and National Security Policy.

“This exercise demonstrates the globalization of open source,” he continued.

U.S. State Department Begins 12 Hour Social Media Contest to Catch Thieves

(Image: Tag Challenge)

U.S. State Department Begins 12 Hour Social Media Contest to Catch Thieves

(Image: Tag Challenge)

U.S. State Department Begins 12 Hour Social Media Contest to Catch Thieves

(Image: Tag Challenge)

U.S. State Department Begins 12 Hour Social Media Contest to Catch Thieves

(Image: Tag Challenge)

The suspected thieves will be out and about in New York, London, Washington, Stockholm, and Bratislava on March 31. The world will have 12 hours to find them.

The challenge was organized by graduate students from six different countries and is also sponsored by the US Embassy in Prague and the Institute for  International Education. Wired has more on how the idea came to be:

George Washington University graduate student J.R. deLara looked at these contests — and others — as part of a State Department-sponsored conference on trans-Atlantic security and social media. The contests “were making these claims about the ability of social networks to accomplish real-time tasks in real life. That this wasn’t just a parlor trick,” deLara tells Danger Room.

“So we thought: Let’s test this. Let’s test this question,” he adds. “Could you really use these strategies to find a person of interest, a vehicle of interest, or some actionable intelligence?”

A proposal quickly followed, and State Department funding followed quickly after that.

This project has been noted as similar to DARPA’s 2009 Network Challenge, which awarded students at MIT $40,000 for first identifying the coordinates of its 10 balloons. DARPA also appealed to the general public in its shredder challenge last year, which tested participant’ skill at deciphering bits of shredded paper in an effort to put shredder security to the test.

Learn more about the Tag Challenge here.

[H/T Popular Science]

Comments (73)

1 2
  • muddpuddle
    Posted on March 3, 2012 at 10:12am

    Theres a database out there that has your name, pictures, age, date of birth, list of friends, employment history, family history, city of residence, places you check into, shopping habits, car you drive, music you like, policies you don’t like, things you’ve said, …….

    What’s not on that list????

    Report Post »  
  • RightThinking1
    Posted on March 3, 2012 at 9:28am

    Interestingly,
    http://www.tag-challenge.com/
    doesn’t work for me.
    I wonder if the idea has been dropped?

    Report Post »  
    • WeDontNeedNoSteenkinBadges12
      Posted on March 3, 2012 at 9:48pm

      “State Department Launching Manhunt Contest Using Social Media With $5,000 Reward”

      Forget it people. I already won. I tracked down the real identity of Barack Hussein Obama, AKA Barry Obama, AKA Barry Soetoro (okay, with some help):

      Obama Kenyan birth certificate:
      http://i3.ytimg.com/bg/jKZugo0aaREqEyqXIzGDVw/102.jpg

      “Democrat: Obama’s grandma confirms Kenyan birth” -World Net Daily
      http://www.wnd.com/2008/10/78931/
      “The issue of Obama’s birthplace, which he states is Honolulu in 1961, has been raised enough times that his campaign website has posted an image purporting to be of his “Certification of Live Birth” from Hawaii. But Philip J. Berg, a former deputy attorney general for Pennsylvania, told the Michael Savage talk radio program tonight that the docúment is forged …”
      …
      “The claim states, “The ‘certificate’ that Mr. Obama has posted on his official Website is a ‘Certification of Live Birth,’ and not a ‘Birth Certificate’ from Hawaii. There is no indication on even this certificate as to specifically where the birth took place.“ ”
      …
      “Berg said he believed it also was a complication that Obama’s mother divorced his father, married and moved to Indonesia for several years and Obama attended school there at a time when, Berg said, only Indonesia citizens were allowed in schools. Records that are available from Indonesia revealed Obama was registered in school as Barry Soetoro, and his religion was listed as Islam. When

      Report Post » WeDontNeedNoSteenkinBadges12  
    • dimonds2000
      Posted on March 4, 2012 at 7:31pm

      Help us http://www.FireDebbie.com. With a real conservative Karen Harrington http://www.KarenforCongress.com

      Report Post » dimonds2000  
  • RightThinking1
    Posted on March 3, 2012 at 9:24am

    Lord of the Flies moment to follow

    Report Post »  
    • Smokey_Bojangles
      Posted on March 3, 2012 at 4:22pm

      Sounds like “Running Man” to me.

      Report Post » Smokey_Bojangles  
    • WeDontNeedNoSteenkinBadges12
      Posted on March 3, 2012 at 9:54pm

      ” ‘This exercise demonstrates the globalization of open source,’ he continued.”

      It’s just like the test of the Emergency Alert System (originally Emergency Broadcast System) …

      “Homeland Security BROADCAST SHUTDOWN Spoof – CONTROL VOICE Takes USA To THE OUTER LIMITS Of Tyranny”
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_dVuUgeDJU

      … and they’re just getting the structure in place to track down … YOU.

      Report Post » WeDontNeedNoSteenkinBadges12  
  • Silversmith
    Posted on March 3, 2012 at 8:35am

    This was inevitable. Make it like a game, with a tiny prize and, in the anonymous world on the internet, participation is a foregone conclusion. This is what using a cybermob is like. Social networking is the current term for it, but in the end, in this “information age”, we are facing a new paradigm in mob mentality. You don’t even have to leave your couch.

    I wonder if anyone actually sees what this means?

    Silversmith

    Report Post » Silversmith  
    • Ruler4You
      Posted on March 3, 2012 at 9:28am

      This program is conditioning people to turn in the whom ever the government IDs as a “suspect”.

      Put it on the net and let the people do the work.

      Interestingly, government chooses to let thousands of criminals go or doesn’t pursue them at all. Sorry. I’m not a government stooge. If I’m threatened by a criminal I already know what to do. And believe me, I’ll have no problem doing it.

      Unlike our government.

      Report Post » Ruler4You  
    • muddpuddle
      Posted on March 3, 2012 at 10:06am

      TTheres a lot of mud in that puddle, and its going to get all over the carpet…… What a mess…

      Report Post »  
    • GlennaBeckski
      Posted on March 4, 2012 at 8:27pm

      Thankfully I‘ll be out of here when the anti christ’s system for tracking people down is 100% up and running and completely in place..

      Come Quickly Lord Jesus

      Report Post » GlennaBeckski  
  • spikebu
    Posted on March 3, 2012 at 7:55am

    Okay. So how do we use this to our advantage? Sending pics of Obama and Pelosi is fun. Wouldn’t it be better to let them think they have an effective tool we are just too stupid to comprehend? It’s what they want to believe. I‘d just as soon have them believe I’m stupid and complacent. We are not going to change anybody’s opinion here. It’s your friends and neighbors you need to think about.

    Report Post »  
    • spikebu
      Posted on March 3, 2012 at 8:10am

      Look at the above pictures. You don’t even need to be able to read to get the gist!

      Report Post »  
  • raderby
    Posted on March 3, 2012 at 7:38am

    just shows how deep the roster of the bureaucrats is in DC. Doesn’t really matter if king Zero or Bush or anyone else is in power…. the moles are there, have been there for decades. The commies at State and in WH have just let the bureaucrats off-leash. Time for a major cleaning in DC…….Tail gunner Joe didn’t really have it all that wrong. We have dangerous people in power who want a totalitarian society. Been so for a long time. Picture a particularly dour librarian with the power of life and death. Scared yet? Wake up!

    Report Post » raderby  
    • poorrichard09
      Posted on March 3, 2012 at 7:48am

      Yup, looks to me like the 2012 high tech version of what every totalitarian regime wants: citizens spying on each other, like nazi Germany-also reminds me of “1984”.

      Report Post »  
    • Mil-Dot
      Posted on March 3, 2012 at 8:34am

      What is even more amazing is that the young crowd-anybody under 30 have been so thoroughly brainwashed and indoctrinated into the all powerful, “govt is great” theology that they don’t even realize that they are cutting their own throats. They lap it up like a dog laps up his own puke. “Cool man! Let’s help father govt catch the evil conservative, maybe they will let me eat more Doritos as a reward” (sniff, mouth-breathe)

      Report Post »  
  • spikebu
    Posted on March 3, 2012 at 7:23am

    Isn’t this like forty pieces of silver? Think, People! Next, they want you to identify your neighbors politics.

    Report Post »  
    • pamela kay
      Posted on March 3, 2012 at 11:23am

      SPIKEBU, I agree. This is dangerous and sick revengeful people will use this . Will the majority of people even care?

      Report Post » pamela kay  
  • drago
    Posted on March 3, 2012 at 7:22am

    Flood the system with pics of odumbo, piglosie etc…..

    Report Post »  
  • drago
    Posted on March 3, 2012 at 7:21am

    Ok, i want in, if they want civilian cops, let me be one, the first person i would arest, odumbo, for treason…..

    Report Post »  
    • 2theADDLED
      Posted on March 3, 2012 at 10:06pm

      First you need to identify active members of the Black Panther Party.

      Report Post »  
  • loveoursoldiers
    Posted on March 3, 2012 at 7:15am

    Oh yeah.. this is a test case to see how many dopes will do anything for money. Then they have all their info for recruitment into the citizen army. This is for ‘public safety’. Unbelievable.. just unbelievable. How can people not get what this all is about? The gov’t having contests? ru effin joking?

    Report Post » loveoursoldiers  
    • EP46
      Posted on March 3, 2012 at 12:07pm

      Wasn‘t there a lot of things in Germany ’for public’ safety….like when people had to stop and listen to ‘public safety announcements’ on the radio certain times each day, etc ???? Hitler declared a state of emergency which suspended the Weimar Constitution for the whole duration of the Third Reich. Egypt has lived ‘under a state of emergency” since 1967 until the recent uprising.

      The president of the United States has the authority to declare a federal state of emergency.

      Report Post »  
  • EP46
    Posted on March 3, 2012 at 7:06am

    This is a test…only a test….until they start having citizens ‘catch’ citizens.

    Report Post »  
  • Snowleopard {gallery of cat folks}
    Posted on March 3, 2012 at 6:38am

    So now they want us to do their dirty work for them? Figures.

    Report Post » Snowleopard {gallery of cat folks}  
  • Pacman116
    Posted on March 3, 2012 at 6:25am

    $5000? That’s it?? Make it $50,000 then call me. $5000…LOL

    Report Post » Pacman116  
    • Baddoggy
      Posted on March 3, 2012 at 6:31am

      So you are a high class w hore huh?

      Report Post » Baddoggy  
    • Mil-Dot
      Posted on March 3, 2012 at 8:39am

      Baddoggy
      Did you really expect anything different from that clown? His tag is Pacman116. He was sleeping until noon everyday while 115 other game-idiots beat him to the punch.

      Report Post »  
  • Deepdiver58
    Posted on March 3, 2012 at 6:24am

    Is anyone else, besides me, frightened of this? Brother turned against brother with the support and encouragement of the Feds.

    Report Post » Deepdiver58  
    • lisalake
      Posted on March 3, 2012 at 6:33am

      Yes-all pat of the plan.

      Report Post »  
    • NancyBee
      Posted on March 3, 2012 at 9:46pm

      Pretty frightening……but that’s just what they what you to be……..afraid to stand up against them…sorry I can’t play their game…….there are some really evil people in this admin. and there will be people that go along with them…anything for the money

      Report Post » NancyBee  
  • Baddoggy
    Posted on March 3, 2012 at 6:20am

    We will all be Goosestepping soon!! Yea for us!!
    This Nation is doomed…

    Report Post » Baddoggy  
  • Baddoggy
    Posted on March 3, 2012 at 6:17am

    Here is a picture of him with his family…when do I get my 5K?

    http://www.barackobama.com/obama-for-america-2012-campaign?source=OM2012_LB_G_Obama2012-image-search_obama-exact_J-3&gclid=CN_e8pjNyq4CFUVeTAodYBaq_A

    Report Post » Baddoggy  
  • Mr.Fitnah
    Posted on March 3, 2012 at 5:27am

    We will laugh and cheer as tyranny takes hold.

    Report Post » Mr.Fitnah  
  • skippy6
    Posted on March 3, 2012 at 5:14am

    Fascist state in the making.

    Report Post » skippy6  
  • Mateytwo Barreett
    Posted on March 3, 2012 at 5:10am

    Don’t like this crap ONE LITTLR BIT!! The stuff coming out of DC/ smells just like the crap we heard about the kremlin 25 years ago- – on steroids!!

    Report Post » Mateytwo Barreett  
  • vtxphantom
    Posted on March 3, 2012 at 4:42am

    I’ll send in some pics of obama to enter the contest.

    Report Post »  
    • cyclops
      Posted on March 3, 2012 at 12:24pm

      Hahahahahahaha…..good one…….and I will enter Sharpton’s picture……LMAO!!!!!!!

      Report Post » cyclops  
  • thriceconcussed
    Posted on March 3, 2012 at 4:26am

    Oh man, I just had some former friends delete me from facebook, after telling me that since i’m willing to die for my freedom I should go die. This was because I said I would die before I lived in a country where the freedom of religion is taken away. The best part is I’m a deist, and not even that religious, I just believe in liberty. Progressives are so tolerant.

    Report Post »  
    • thriceconcussed
      Posted on March 3, 2012 at 4:29am

      Apparently when they babble on about peoples freedoms and choices they mean the freedom to choose their beliefs. Is that tyranny?

      Report Post »  
  • Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra
    Posted on March 3, 2012 at 4:20am

    Yaaaah. I can become my brothers keeper, er jail keeper, just by turning them in. And I can get a stipend for doing it. Cool, How much do I get for turning my family in for not thinking right? Big Brother is the savior. Obama, Obama Obama. can i get an extra ration of solyent green?

    Report Post » Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra  
  • Captain Crunch
    Posted on March 3, 2012 at 4:14am

    Don’t fret. This is nothing more than a training exercise. They are going to train us to accept this kind of thing.more easily if they make a game of it and even include US in the challenge. Fun Fun! Catch the bad guy using the net. How about let’s play lets catch the domestic terrorist or maybe a radical patriot. Yea! Everyone likes the thrill of catching those bad guys.

    They either think the people are blind to the game, or they just don’t give a hoot anymore if we know or not. Probably a mix of both. There‘s a bad moon risin’.

    Report Post »  
    • burnteye86
      Posted on March 3, 2012 at 5:02am

      yer right. It is just training. They‘re training the people to rat on each other or to find the neighbor who doesn’t “go along with the program”.

      Report Post » burnteye86  
  • lukerw
    Posted on March 3, 2012 at 3:29am

    “1984” Fascism!

    Report Post » lukerw  
  • MrMagoo
    Posted on March 3, 2012 at 3:20am

    How about I give a mean old dog to Hillary Clinton.Courtesy of the USA?No reward.

    Report Post » MrMagoo  
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