Is the NSA reading your MySpace profile?

Will Lt. Gen. Keith B. Alexander, director of the National Security Agency, find its only six degrees of separation between him and University of Georgia researcher and educator Amit Sheth and University of Maryland professor, Anupam Joshi?

NSA is reportedly helping to foot the bill on research by Sheth and Joshi, which explores the use of combing information gleaned from social networks with other databases, according to an article in New Scientist.

This research project, funded by NSA supported Advanced Research Development Activity, may one day aid NSA in figuring out how to tie the hordes of information people post about themselves on social networks like MySpace with their more official personal data, such as bank and property records, the New Scientist article states. And that, as a result, may lead to a wider net of who affiliates with whom.

For NSA, they may find this approach more effective than just snooping through American's phone records to connect the dots. Rather than guilt by affiliation, the new motto may be guilt by six degrees of separation...