Hancock goes snooping down the phone lines

THE OUTFIT which created the C programming language has developed a variant that is designed to snoop on people.

Dubbed Hancock, the software can snuffle its way through tens of millions of long distance phone records a night to draw up what AT&T calls "communities of interest". It then shouts out "a pint? That's nearly an armful" before telling the US government what its customers are doing.

Hancock was first mentioned in a research paper published in 2001 and found and published by Andrew Appel from the Freedom to Tinker group.

It was originally designed to see if any new customers called the same numbers as people AT&T had cut off. The assumption being that if they did, then chances are they were the same fraudsters or at very least their mates.

According to Wired the data gathered by the software is jolly useful to the FBI as they can now request it under the USA Patriot Act without a warrant.

Hancock looks at data as it flows into a data warehouse rather than looking for patterns in static databases. It can sift calling card records, long distance calls, IP addresses and internet traffic dumps, and even track the movements of mobile phone punters as the move between base stations say between 23 Railway Cuttings, East Cheam, and the Gasworks.

Using the Hancock code, it is possible to develop applications previously thought to be infeasible," the program authors wrote.

In fact if you want to play with it yourself, it is available free to noncommercial users at AT&T's website, complete with its own manual.

When you boot it up though there is a disappointing lack of Kenneth Williams rant, nor a Syd James snigger. Not really worthy of the name. µ

INQ Blot
Hancock's Half Hour was ground breaking British comedy from the 1950s which started off on radio before moving to television. It had nothing to do with spying