computer science

ICWatch

ICWatch is a computer science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand ICWatch rather than just read about it. In short: ICWATCH is a public database of mainly LinkedIn profiles of people in the United States Intelligence Community. The database was created by Transparency Toolkit and was hosted by WikiLeaks.

Key takeaways

ICWatch belongs to computer science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect ICWatch to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of ICWatch from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

ICWATCH is a public database of mainly LinkedIn profiles of people in the United States Intelligence Community. The database was created by Transparency Toolkit and was hosted by WikiLeaks.

Background The publication of global surveillance disclosures in 2013 revealed code names for surveillance projects including MARINA and MAINWAY. It was then discovered that the LinkedIn profiles of individuals in the intelligence community mentioned these code names as well as additional ones. Transparency Toolkit took advantage of this and automated the collection of LinkedIn profiles mentioning such code names, collating them into a searchable database.

Name The name "ICWATCH" is a play on ICREACH, an alleged top-secret, surveillance-related search engine created by the United States National Security Agency (NSA) after the September 11 attacks.

History The initial commit to the Git repository of LookingGlass was made on August 23, 2014. LookingGlass is a search tool that was built for use in ICWATCH. ICWATCH launched on May 6, 2015; on the same day, Transparency Toolkit, the group that created ICWATCH, presented it at the re:publica conference. At launch, the database contained information from over 27,000 LinkedIn profiles. By mid-May 2015, Transparency Toolkit began receiving requests from individuals to be removed from ICWATCH, including death threats. Following the threats as well as distributed denial-of-service attacks made against the site, WikiLeaks began hosting the website and database by the end of May 2015. In August 2016 TechCrunch reported that LinkedIn was suing 100 unnamed individuals who had scraped LinkedIn's website, and named ICWATCH as a possible target. As of February 2017, the database tracked over 100,000 profiles from LinkedIn, Indeed, and other public sources. In November 2022, ICWATCH and other datasets became unavailable on the WikiLeaks website.

Features The database can be searched using the company, location, industry, and other parameters of the intelligence workers.

Findings Most of the discovered profiles are not of those in the National Security Agency but of those working for contractors. The project also revealed possible trends in employment in the intelligence community. For instance, the "number of people claiming to work with SIGINT databases [...] has increased dramatically over the years since 2008, with just a small decline starting in 2013." M. C. McGrath of Transparency Toolkit believes that the workers are "for the most part, pretty normal people".

Reception Ian Paul of PC World voiced concern for the safety of the individuals listed in the database.

See also Open-source intelligence PRISM (surveillance program)

External links Official website

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with ICWatch

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what ICWatch claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In computer science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to ICWatch before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about ICWatch ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of ICWatch

In research: ICWatch appears in computer science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses ICWatch in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: ICWatch is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Computer surveillance, Information published by WikiLeaks, LinkedIn, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for ICWatch outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study ICWatch in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what ICWatch means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain ICWatch out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is ICWatch in simple terms?

ICWATCH is a public database of mainly LinkedIn profiles of people in the United States Intelligence Community. The database was created by Transparency Toolkit and was hosted by WikiLeaks.

Why does ICWatch matter?

Because it connects several computer science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study ICWatch?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on ICWatch.