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Eye in the Sky Busts Fraudulent Farmers
Peter Kuhns writes: "Awesome article about Big Brother using USGS satellite photos to ferret out a fraudulent farming company that scammed insurance companies over lost crops. The USGS apparantly takes lots of infrared (re:remote sensing) photos of the entire nation and stores this data going back a number of years. This is a big wake up call to farmers, the government, and potentially the USGS, who could suddenly be in the business of big business." Another very cool use of USGS data is drawmap, which I discovered a few months ago.
lawyer: Your honor, recent X-Ray signals picked up by the SOHO solar observatory suggest that Earth's natural infrared emmissions reflect off the sun's surface and can be reassembled into images as you can see here in exhibit A. While we'd like to thank the scientists for their incredible work, however damaging these images are to the defendants case, I'd like to draw the courts attention to the eye witness' account of the Adjuster who claims no crops were planted.
I miss Boston. It was... very weird.
(-1 offtopic)
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Forget Napster. Why not really break the law?
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
- A.P.
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Forget Napster. Why not really break the law?
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
WTF, they've taken everywhere outside of the USA out of the Terraserver! Its a plot by the rest of the world to spy on them while everyone else is free to do what they want without American scrutiny! ;]
Well, Most ofthe farmers I know are independant "I can make it on my own" type of people. They hate the thought of taking substidies. However there are bad apples in every bunch. It only takes one farmer to take the goverment aid, and because of what that does to situation (which isn't what you would think without knowing advanced ecconomics and accounting for not all these farmers having done so) they are forced to take those same themselves.
Getting rid of goverment aid would change the situation again, and how isn't exactly clear. Some things have changed since grandpa ran the farm without goverment intervention.
I'm glad this was used in this way.
1. Farm insurance is pretty expensive, some of that expense no doubt is because of fraud.
2. It's not like farmers don't know that TR-1s (U-2s) and satellites are doing this, they get copies all the time in the mail. In fact there is a *huge* depository of them in plain sight at Sioux Falls South Dakota - the EROS data center.
3. I noticed some people comparing this to the recent court case about IR and pot growing. It's not the same technology, this is a near infrared that lets them see through cloud cover, not walls. In all the pictures I've seen of the family farm, you couldn't see through the roof.
All in all it's a good thing.
I think I need more proof than that.
Not in Canada. In Canada, police have the right to pull you over, and search your vehicle for any reason they may choose. They can tear it completely apart, and leave it like that for you to put back together, if they so desire.
I was pulled over for 15km/h and asked if they could look in the trunk. I asked them for a warrant and, although he was pissed off, I wasn't forced into anything. The fine sure wasn't reduced though. :-)
It's used Africa to determine where to spray for insects.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
You are joking, but similar stuff has been done. IIRC, USGS scientists knew that Chernobyl was having problems before the Soviets admitted publicly that they had an accident.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
If you are going to be archiving remotely sensed of the entire world's land surfaces, you're going to need gigantic amounts of archival media and servers to process it. I loved working there.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
Test case? The USGS has been providing this sort of data since the 60s & 70s. Depending on what was actually used, the cost to the USDA was much smaller than what it would have cost to pay the insurance claim. Here is the product list and prices. A person can search for what is currently available with GLIS or EarthExplorer.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
That depends. The place where this data came from is probably in Daschle's state, so he may use some of his new clout to keep that facility fully funded. It would be better for the budget cutters to go after the social services branches of the Federal Govt than it would small agencies. Easily more waste and fraud in those areas than these agencies budgets. Unfortunately, if they did the bleeding heart media would have a field day about the mean ole Govt going after the poor.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
Come now... it's not quite that barren. It's actually pretty nice. And it even rains occasionally. In fact, the high today was only 104. And yesterday the humidity was only 8%. So it's got its advantages. And who doesn't like cactus?
--Elrond, Duke of URL
"This is the most fun I've had without being drenched in the blood of my enemies!"
Elrond, Duke of URL
"This is the most fun I've had without being drenched in the blood of my enemies!"-Sam&Max
Since probably many people on /. probably don't know how this works, I'll post a brief summary.
;^)
The aperature equation determines the resolution of a satellite (or any other imaging instrument).
X = h*lambda/(L*cos(A))
where h is the height, lambda is the wavelength of the electromagnetic signal (light, radio, etc),
L*cos(A) is the projected length of the receiver (antenna, lens aperature)...
Plugging in some numbers say...
h=1000km, (too high for a survellance satellite, but easier math)
lambda=1um (near infra-red)
L=1m (a small satellite)
With this you get 1 meter resolution (yikes), although it doesn't account for distortion, etc...
Of course one way to increase the resolution is to get closer (reduce h), use higher frequencies
(reduce wavelengths), or increase the receiving aperature (big satellites are hard to fly).
Then there's this trick to increase the resolution of satellites that combine multiple "looks" of
the same object from different positions to simulate a large aperature. This technique is
called synthetic aperature imaging.
Non-geo-stationary satellites can combine multiple "looks" at a point while they fly by to
improve the resoltion. Of course there are problems like dopper shift, atmospheric distortion,
range shifts, etc that have to get accounted for, but this is the basic idea.
The problem with a geo-stationary satellite looking at you is that they fly very high
(very large h) and the don't move relative to the point target.
Of course a more realistic account would be in Tom Clancy's Patriot games where the real-time
image could only be obtained for a short time until the low-flying fast-moving spy satellite
couldn't see the target any more over the horizon...
But I digress...
You can download the drawmap source code right HERE.
Extraordinary Vacations. Exceptional Prices
Sheesh.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Anyone can build advanced inferetrometry optics, nuclear reactors, and satcom ground stations and launch them into space.... When there are less than a dozen organizations in the world capable of doing something, it's hard to call it "plain".
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Google Category
Chris Cothrun
Curator of Chaos
Bleh!
It can be found at metalab.unc.edu under pub/Linux/science/cartography/drawmap-2.4.tar.gz
-dwd-
Earth Science Corps
MS 513
U.S. Geological Survey
Reston, Virginia 20192
for more information on doing so. I have to agree with you: after using the aforementioned maps to find my way to a very remote part of NM last week, I have a new favorite organization as well!
"I don't think I ain't" -Thompson's Corollary to Descartes
It's in plain view.
I've seen recon photo's, they were not from orbit but, VERY, VERY HIGH UP, and we could read the brand of cigarette the guy in a cab was smoking...VERY EERY.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
that NOW they can look at things that were able to access what was protected before, they do not need a search warrant to scan your property down to the sq. inch from orbiut but need a writ to climb my back fence ? There is some legal discrepencies here that need to be resolved. The remote recon at that level is THE SAME as climbing MY FENCE and walking my yard in person and should require a writ in the first place. Now of course IANAL but does anyone with any actual experience have a comment ?
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
grammar skills. This will teach me to reply and sit in on a con call at the same time.... :(
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
so be careful on Indian reservations or govt. property. Your rights are MUCH more limited under federal jurisdiction. Your vehicle IS subject to search under FED law, and the MP's and reservation police are NOT shy about exercising that CLUB.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
how does that square with the fact that a police officer cannot climb my back fence to get a lookk into my yard ? I fully understand the plain view doctrine and even fresh/hot pursuit or entering based on a possible medical emergency etc, but this camera is DUPLICATING exactly what the officer is denied the right to view first hand ? seems odd to me...
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
A K-9's perception has been by precedent accepted as probable cause to generate a valid search warrant. You present a very good question..a robo sniffer thing (near future) would blur that dotted line beyond comprehension...
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
we ALL know that VICTIMS have NO RIGHTS, ONLY CRIMINALS HAVE RIGHTS. This country has gone so far to ensure the rights of the criminal are observed that the VICTIM is often left out to dry.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
The regular police are unarmed and jolly fellows, then comes the 'wish I could remember the name' of the National police who monitor the borders and airports, who sport fully automatic weapons and a very business like attitude.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
Because insurance fraud is a federal crime.
toxins... like tomatoes? Oh, that's right, the only people growing any plants indoors must be growing that toxic, noxious weed that kills so many thousands of people every day... hahaha....
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I just read part of the judgement here:
http://a257.g.akamaitech.net/7/257/2422/24apr20
And it looks like the key is this:
"The warrantless arrest of anyone violating these provisions is expressly authorized by statute, but the police may issue citations in lieu of arrest."
The decision points out that governments have enacted laws which enable arrest for misdemeanor offenses since before the revolution (and later in American history), so it can't be argued that the framers of the constitution intended the 4th amendment to be protection against such laws.
So, if you're worried about this, you should lobby your local/county/state lawmakers to not pass laws which allow arrest for misdemeanor offenses.
Awesome furniture, accessories and cabinetry in Santa Rosa, CA: http://humanity-home.com/
key word commercial... there are many satellites that are not commercial... I'm not even going to ask their capabilities...
-andy
No, the highway patrol generally uses lines perpendicular to the direction of travel; these are frequently drawn to the side of the pavement and occur in pairs. They are usually found on well-traveled roads in relatively rural areas, and are on straight sections of road. Aerial survey markers have lines at right angles to each other and often as not are in the middle of the pavement and aren't necessarily aligned in any way with the direction of travel. They are generally not found in pairs, and can appear on curves.
How do you know that flash animation wasn't directly imported from color-enhanced spy-satellite photos? :-)
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Hacker Public Radio is our Friend
The fundamental problem here is the electoral college, I think. Last I heard, the ongoing (though obviously unofficial since the election was "finalized") counts in Florida showed Bush had indeed "won".
While I do personally think Bush was the "lesser of two evils", I can't say that I'm much more pleased with him than I would have been with the other "mainstream" candidate. Maybe if we could manage to dump the electoral college some of the other choices might at least start showing up on the "official" records often enough to start influencing policy towards a bit more rationality...
At least with the current close distribution of the mainstream parties in congress maybe they'll keep each other busy bickering and not have time to screw up much of anything for the next few years...
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Hacker Public Radio is our Friend
EXACTLY. While a lot of the things Government-authorized people are allowed to do these days does bother me, I've never had a problem with the "plain view doctrine". A police officer pulling someone over at random and demanding to search the car just in case they're carrying drugs bothers me, but a police officer pulling over a car with smoke pouring out of the windows and arresting the driver on the basis that there's a planter full of marijuana plants plainly visible in the front seat next to an open, half-empty bottle of Jack Daniels doesn't really bother me at all...
100's of acres of land out in the open sounds like "plain view" to me, too.
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Hacker Public Radio is our Friend
Microsoft has done this, sure. But so has every other company in the mapping business from Rand McNally on down to the guy selling "Maps to the Stars". Much like the Berkeley TCP/IP stack, that's what it's there for.
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Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
A few days ago the Supreme Court banned remote
sensing searchs of one's home, specifically
heat sensors for marijuana gardens lamps.
I don't believe this extends to businesses (farmland),
but probably to one's cars.
In this particular case, the satellite probably cost more. If you use that satellite to bust enough fraud complaints, then it may pay for itself. This was more of a test case/new technology prototype than anything.
Caution: contents may be quarrelsome and meticulous!
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
The solution to the sociological problem is to determine that the problem exists, then punish the offenders. That is, go out and look at all the fields, see if the numbers match up, and if they don't, then prosecute. This is not a technological solution, unless you consider eyes and a brain technology.
There is a problem of limited resources in the "go out and look at all the fields" step. The technological solution is being applied to the problem of not having enough resources to check large numbers of fields efficiently.
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But then again, I could be wrong.
Duh, screwed up the URL. Here you go....Enjoy. :)
Bowie J. Poag
Not to promote Mickeysoft or anything, but they have an awfully nice timekiller on the web called Terraserver. It holds a crapload of fairly-recent USGS satellite maps (1994/1996 or so) that you can zoom in on, and pick out your home town, your home street, even your house and the car in your driveway from orbit...Your entire neighborhood photographed at 1m resolution. For example, I work here...Zoom in, and you can see me waving to the satellite's camera.
Cheers,
Bowie J. Poag
Last time I played with mapping software was using GIS stuff at U of A. Oy, if that doesn't split your head nothing will. Drawmap looks very cool indeed.
-B
Ash and Hickory, straight-grained and true, make excellent bludgeons, dandy for the cudgeling of vegetarians.
Besides, everyone knows hydroponics is the way to go...
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
US Treasury Bonds are the only way of financially supporting the USGS, but under the current administration, damn little of your contribution will actually go their way. The same was true under the previous Bush. The situation improved, but only somewhat, under Clinton. "Science in the public interest" (their old slogan) and "Science for a changing world" (their new one) aren't sexy enough to get notice come appropriations time.
If you're truly serious about supporting their science and efforts (and you're a US citizen), write or call your Congresscritters and tell them to support increases to DoI and USGS funding.
Quite right. I left out the word voluntarily in my original post.
Very true, considering the higher "altitude" required by geosynchonous systems. My posting should have been more precise as the numbers I quoted were for lower non-geosynchronous orbits. However given two or more geosynchonous systems, one could mathematically obtain higher resolution images at geosynchronous altitudes. Of course this would entail quite a bit of post processing and could not occur in real time given present technology eh?
As for "Enemy of the State", I did not see the movie, but given what I did see in "Patriot Games"? I would not be suprised if it were portrayed in much the same manner.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
Actually, there is the possibility of tasking a satellite (starting with the KH-11 series) so that it crosses over the path of what you are interested in. (Retasking satellites is only done in cases of national interest as it is expensive) From there a rotating mirror can keep the target in constant field of view as the satellite passes overhead. Additionally it is more than likely (attn: NSA, public domain info) that electro-optical based satellites can be tasked to fly in geosynchronous orbits to maintain constant observation without all of the the issues associated with image processing of data obtained at various angles of incidence. Of course if you are talking of pure video relay, there is little processing to perform other than cleaning up images looking through lots of atmosphere etc... Also it should be noted that while optimal resolution of imagery can achieve 10cm or slightly better, video resolution is much worse. (20-30 cm at best) (Attn: NSA, public domain info). If you are looking at IR video, it will be lower resolution than standard video. (50cm at best)
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
I hope this isn't off topic, but a segment of the government that doesn't get much spotlight is the work the USGS does. Here's a great example. The USGS does a great job for the country (whether or not you like the big brother mentality of this article). They monitor stream flow, mineral resources, earthquake activiey, etc.
/. community will get in an uproar when NASA gets its huge budget cut, but I would make the case you should all be aware of the great work the USGS does, and maybe support their great silent works.
I use to work for the USGS and they have had their budget cut year after year. I don't think they'll do too well under the Bush administration either. One of the things they were really working on when I left them was public relations. The USGS does alot for you all, whether you know it or not. Everyone in the
If I had no sense of humor, I would long ago have committed suicide. -Ghandi
The most recent calculations show that the annual cost to consumers and taxpayers of its 29 member countries' support for agriculture and horticulture amounts to US$361 billion. Such a large sum is difficult to grasp, but it is large enough to pay for a first class, round-the-world air ticket for each of the 56 million cows in the 29-member OECD?s dairy herd, and to give each cow a further US$1450 spending money for her stopovers in the US, Europe and Asia.
Thus while there may be laudable social objectives in keeping Scottish farmers around, there is a serious economic cost which makes you wonder why don't they just give the money directly to funding a Silicon Glen.
LL
My grandparents were cited for having a patio covering in their back yard (that was built by the previous owner without a permit). They were only required to file for the permit, I belive. This was back in the 70s, IIRC. The covering was spotted by plane.
At my previous job, I wrote a lot of code for the yield/moisture/soil/etc mapping software sold by a major farm equipment manufacturer. The software would take data gathered by GPS and other sensors on a combine, and make various color-coded maps of the data.
Farmers were talking about using the data gathered by these sensors, and the maps our software created, to prove losses to their insurance companies.
We developers laughed quite a bit at the thought of that, since we had written a little app which would convert an image file into a sensor data file, so we could make a map of a field with our favorite logo burned into it.
There are all kinds of problems with using collected sensor data as evidence. In fact, this manufacturer planned to use previously-recorded data as a basis for planting seeds and creating chemicals. This practice could mean big trouble if some horrible pesticide was applied too close to the local stream as the result of a GPS error. There should have been some sort of validation key attached to the data, like a PGP signature, to prove its authenticity and reveal tampering. Perhaps they've added something like this since I left the project.
christian
If you look on Terraserver, you'll find public aerial photographs for sale in addition to their satellite photos. The aerial photographs have resolution good enough that I can see that there used to be a tree by my house, and at a former NSA satellite spy site I could see that some of the dishes are mounted on towers. If someone was lying down, they'd be visible...in one or two pixels.
I beleive this is definately a valid use for this technology. Combating fraud is a worthy cause. The problem I see though, is that the general public is usually pretty retarded about these things, and once they see a valid use, they'll accept any other use the government or big brother deems ok, which we all know will lead to invasions of privacy and personal freedoms and then inevitably to abuses by "big company". If we only had a trustworthy government we could trust to protect our freedoms instead of slowly erode them, this would be great. But facing reality, this will just lead to more invasions of privacy.
Does anyone else see any correlation between this and the recent ruling against police using infrared technology to detect marijuana growing inside an Oregon mans home?
.sig wanted: Must be concise, funny, and display my cleverness.
While some might argue that this sets a dangerous precedent, I think using this sort of satellite imagery to investigate an insurance claim is probably much less intrusive than the conventional invetigations insurance companies pursue.
Having the insurance company confirm that there is no fraud occuring by using satellite images (hopefully with the authorization of the farmer making the claim), involves really no-one else other than the farmer and the company.
On the other hand, if they investigate by asking around the community, obtaining possibly irrelevant financial records, etc., very quickly everyone in the farmer's community will know about it. News (especially juicy gossip like an accusation of insurance fraud) travels fast in a small town. Unless the farmer *wants* other people to know that he's making an insurance claim, nobody really has the right to know this.
I feel using this sort of technology does a better job of *protecting* the farmer's privacy than it does of invading it.
"Intelligence is the ability to avoid doing work, yet getting the work done".
It's only software!
Actually, most Americans support the USGS another way, through federal income tax.
The DMCA--for corporations, the best copyright law money can buy.
"Civilization is two meals and twenty-four hours away from barbarism." -- Heinlein, I think...
I have seen the future, and it is inconvenient.
Hmmm.... The Canton, NY office of the USDA still uses the system you described. Or at least they did until 1997, which is the last time I was over there.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
Not at all. Plain sight, remember? If it's indoors and not within view, then it's not in plain sight. If it were in your backyard, on the other hand, they could use satellite images.
ACK! Hide the Thermonuclear Reactor ma! they been taken infared pictures of us!
From my perspective, this is a big double standard. They won't go after a big corporation, but they will go after the little guy like your average /.er. I don't know about you guys, or Hemos, but after my house burned (fire in one room, did extensive smoke and heat damage to about 75 percent of the house, and pretty much ruined everthing in that 75%) the insurance company handed us a handfull of sheets with lines on them. They expected us to go through and write down an inventory of what would have to be replaced. I am glad that the whole house didn't burn completely, or else we wouldn't have been able to write down a lot of stuff. How come this farmers didn't have to do something like that, and send in picture proof?
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Opportunities multiply as they are seized. --Sun-Tzu
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Caimlas
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
Having spent much of the last 10 years working with USGS and Tiger data, I'll take USGS data up till the Tiger 2000 data sets. They all orginated from air photos, PERIOD. If you'd worked with the Tiger sets from the 1980 and (less) from the 1990 sets, you'd have found that they were extremely variable based on who reduced the photos into maps. There was apparently no quality control at the Census when the original Tiger base maps were turned in by the contractors.
Indiana 1980 Tiger data, for example, was extremely close to unuseable. Road segments didn't interconnect, rivers were not continuous, in fact all the linear features were a frigging mess. Then the orthographic projection corrections were done so poorly that there were rips and with a little looking you could actually see in the Tiger data what the path that the aircraft used.
So USGS till 2000. 2000 at least initially looks to be in significantly better condition.
I know there were similar problems in upstate New York and in the Pacific Northwest.
-- Multics
I used USDA pictures circa 1962 which were flown using former WWII photo recon cameras (and still in B-something or other aircraft no doubt). The negatives (negative print film) were roughly 10x10 because the film was 12" wide. All in IR. The last sets I used were taken around 1982.
Much as your strips were taken, 20-30% overlap, great stereo, flown around 5k' above the surface. We, alas, had to manually fix the roll and yaw... a major pain in the rear. Doing it with 35mm would be even harder manually, but by computer, a major win.
Sad they've switched totally to satelites. It would be a cake job to overfly with GPS stamps on every frame now. When some fool knocks down the satelites, there will be a mad scramble to re-build the older infrastructure.
Thanks again for the update!
former photo analyst,
-- Multics
Now that I have that said...
At one point or another your property (the few of you that actually own property in the USA) was probably imaged this week. Your land is probably imaged 30 or 40 times a year (especially right now where there is maximum sun and sun angles are very high). That 30-40 doesn't count being spied on the NRO or the Russians (or whomever else). Most of the pictures are so low-res that they get what they need for time-sensitive maps (crops, diseases, erosion, land types, etc) that short of you doing something outrageously odd, you'll not be bothered.
How do you think that your precious GPS navigator got its maps? It wasn't from a State Road Inventories since they are not accurate enough. It was from being overflown.
Ever see big Xs, +s or Ls painted on the pavement? Well those are there so the overflight photos can be tied to known geographic locations and the photos can be tied together to build a mosaic.
What makes this story vaguely more intresting is that it is about satelite photos, not traditional air photos. Further the USGS took the photos but the USDA got to use them.
USDA has been overflying on crop validations since at least the 1960s (perhaps as far back as the mid-1940s). How do you think the estimates of crop production get produced? Overflights by Billy-Bob in his Piper with a classic B/W Kodak IR film (roughly 10"x10" negatives, BTW) do most of the heavy lifting then some poor photogramitrist measures whatever was of interest and poof, yet another thematic map.
You folks need some sense of how the world works. Most of this has been happening since long before you were born.
-- Multics
See also:
GEOG 415-001: Air Photo Interpretation
Air Photo Interpretation
And for you EUers, Air Photo Services.
P.S. About crop insurance... go read the USDA web site before you spout about it -- no bailouts there, oh clueless ones.
I'm no fan of pot being illegal, but don't be pissed because the cops use technology to observe what's going on.
The cops were using technology to circumvent the 4th Amendment's protection from unlawful search - so yes, you should be pissed when this happens. And you should be delighted that the SCOTUS shot it down as unconstitutional.
You seem to prefer to flame rather than think.
First, read Cpt. Nitpick's response, he beat me to answering. Then consider this: all this does is up the ante. The fraudulent farmers will simply find new ways to cheat. The problem has not been solved.
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
Between this publicity and cool people like Orlando Jones' character in _Evolution_ working for the USGS, I think I've found my new favorite organization.
Okay, seriously: Busting fraud is way cool in my book.
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
Depends on who you are and what you have access to. Your average internet user? No. If you're the NRO, its a different story...
I see a fun anarchist legend in the works...
Get black paint, and cover up the white crosses.
Get white paint, and paint random Xs, +s or Ls all over your town in random locations.
Before they know it, the USGS will be mapping Los Angeles right next to San Jose! Wish I could see those Geologists faces right now...
"Holy shit! Now THAT is some big Continental Drift!"
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
This is interesting because now we have a systematically assembled and stored database.
The question is, if the spatial resolution on these scans were good enough to detect growing lamps in your house (who knows?), would the authorities need a search warrant to look at their own data?
This raises a more general question about the use of data mining for law enforcement. With increased collection of data about where we go and what we do (credit card records, electronic toll paying devices, face recognition software, satellite images, etc.) Can (and should) the government search datasets that it owns (or others) looking for suspicious patterns? Yes, they can use these data once they suspect you, but can they use it to find new suspects?
Besides, if you have ever thought that anything that can be viewed from the sky is private you have been in a cave on the moon since the cuban missle crisis. There are commercial companies as well as *publicy* available pictures of lots of stuff like this.
Your rights of privacy are overridden by the rights of everybody else to fly more than 400 feet over your property and take pictures. Suck it up.
Jack Valenti and the MPAA are to technology as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone
Actually, the highway patrol planes most often use two lines a known distance apart that stretch across the road. That way they can easily time cars to see if they're speeding and then radio down to patrol cars to pull over the car based on physical description and location.
Yes! That guy!
It's also used for confirming sheep numbers for headage payments (subsidies per animal). It lead to a phenomenon in the west of Ireland a couple of years ago where the sale of inflatable sheep went crazy. Farmers were buying them in bulk and putting them in their fields in an effort to boost their numbers.
Don't fight it son. Confess quickly! If you hold out too long you could jeopardise your credit rating.
Not true - though wouldn't it be nice if life was this simple?
Visit one crop insurer I've dealt with - American Agrisurance - and learn how it's not so simple.
After a massive battle to keep you from getting a lousy $300 back per individual, you should know that the government likes to keep its money.
*scoove*
I just showed this article to a soybean farmer friend of mine (5500+ acres in southwest Iowa).
Besides not being surprised that the government would spend its billion dollar defense network on spying on the little guy, he pointed out how amusing it was that all this energy is going into protecting the government's crop insurance stake while the farmer is slowly slipping into oblivion.
(And before some city fool posts an obnoxious, ignorant post about crop subsidies and all the government waste, let me point out that these guys can't stand it either - but faced with government protection of wholesale monopolies that name their price for crops in ebay fashion, that subsidy means the difference between them eeking out a pathetic survival and you having nothing on your dinner plate).
Record low crop prices, record high fuel and fertilizer prices and the whole mess about GMOs (resulting in international boycotts of US produced foods, using GMO as an excuse for nationalistic crop protection) are encouraging the die hards to get out of the business. Heck, in the state of Washington, they're considering paying apple producers to simply destroy orchards. They can't affect the wholesalers, so they'll affect you at home (while the wholesalers rake in even more dollars).
It'll backlash, certainly. Consumers are engineering the beginnings of a California energy crisis in the agriculture markets by choosing to destroy their producers. Just like the greens in CA successfully killed off electricity production, protection of ag distribution monopolies combined with other factors will ensure prohibitively expensive foods in 10-15 years.
So yes, the big guy is doing well. He's smart - greasing both parties at the same time (Microsoft's recently corrected error). He's also getting a great return on his investment, especially if the world's greatest military is now working for him by spying on the serfs in the fields.
You're going to get just what the big guy wants you to buy, at the price he names. Groceries at 40%+ of your income just around the corner...
*scoove*
p.s. If you want to do something about it, support the open source of agriculture. Go down to your local farmer's market this weekend and buy food there. Slashdotters claim to hate Microsoft, yet support the Microsoft of agriculture every time they go to the big grocery store. BUY DIRECT - better, fresher, honest food!
My guess is they just called up the USGS and asked them for a picture the USGS took anyway.. Hell, they prolly even paid the $40-50 the USGS usually wants..
So no.. Unless they paid that expert witness a half mil.
.sig: Now legally binding!
Why didn't the insurance company send somebody out to inspect the crops? Why wouldn't the insurance company require the farmers to at least photograph the crops and the damage?
Someone you trust is one of us.
Not yet. If you look at commercial satellite imagery companies, most satellites have a 1 meter or larger resolution. We're talking about maybe being able to distinguish between cars and trucks, not look at the 1/4 inch you are extending over your property line.
Nope. If you look around at commercial satellite imagery companies, they seem to be struggling to get a 24 hour turn around time on still images, let alone video.
Not Found
/~fme/drawmap.html was not found on this server.
.. its amazing how people are constantly scrutinized for not reading the article .. then the links dont work..
The requested URL
i use that all the time..
seriously though
just my two cents
And also the GPS unit on your tractor said you were doing 40MPH in a 35MPH farm zone. Here is your ticket.
Ask Slashdot - google for stupid people.
What about the recent SCOTUS decision about using heat sensors to discover pot grows? theoretically, this could even be used for the exact same thing. This stuff gives me the creeps.
Heat sensors were being used to look inside houses while these satalites photograph what is out in the open. Legally, its called "plain sight". Anything that can been seen out in the open can be used against you. For example, the police pull over a car for running a red light. The police can not open and search the trunk to find the money the people in the car just robbed from a nearby bank (unbeknownst to the police). Now, if the loot was in the back seat and the police officer could see it though the window (in "plain sight") he could use it as evidence and arrest the people in the car for the robbery. He still can't open the trunk to find the 20 killos of coke in it (unless he received a warrant, received consent from the driver, or had evidence suggesting there were drugs in it).
It would be another story if the satalites could "see" inside building (ie: infared heat sensor).
When the U.S. government says that they won't tolerate no bullshit, they literally mean it.
Anybody know if there is a Drawmap xscreensaver module available? If not, then somebody should make one. That would rock!
Looks like Drawmap couldn't handle the /. effect, because it produces a 404 now.
Got Mirror?
Google cache version can be found here.
F www%2Ettc%2Dcmc%2Enet%2F%7Efme%2Fdrawmap%2Ehtml
http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:http%3A%2F%2
http://www.perljam.net/misc/drawmap/www.ttc-cmc.ne t/%257Efme/drawmap.html
I thought traffic violations were not misdemeanors.
Every farm in Europe now has to submit an annual IACS form (Integrated Administration and Control System), listing what they are going to grow that year field-by-field; and submit new maps with it showing any changes in field boundaries (new fences etc), with the new areas measured to the nearest 100 square metres (0.01 of a hectare).
These plans are then automatically compared against the IR satellite photos of what actually gets grown. If you have planted less than you have claimed for, your entire subsidy claim is void. If it looks like you've done it intentionally, they'll nail you for fraud. (The inspectors are on results bonuses, so they don't take prisoners).
Crazy system, the C.A.P., in lots of ways; but without farm support, many of the more marginal Scottish rural areas would turn into depopulated deserts.
airplane tickets are awesome, I'd love to get one in an area where I'd be able to fight it (ie, not in Illinois on a road trip from New York to Arizona)... 'Cause you have to have all three people involved show up: 1. The cop, to identify you as the "driver" of the "vehicle". 2. The observer, to testify as to the speed he calculated your vehicle going. 3. The pilot, to testify where he was flying on the given day. make 'em fight for their extortion money, that's my philosophy. :)
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Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
www.teslabox.com
Hi!
All kidding aside, Microsoft does have a mapping product: Microsoft MapPoint 2002. And as somebody in the business, I can tell you three things:
The first version of MapPoint (2001) was nice--but this version is substantially better, at least from a programmer's perspective. The object model exposed by the product is substantially richer--doing something like reverse geo-coding (which is very complicated using MapQuest's server engine) is a breeze.
Pricing: With regard and respect to enthusiasts for the GPL, Microsoft is by no means the bad guy when it comes to software pricing. Go price any kind of small-market toolset--the prices can be hideous. For example, GIS mapping systems: the big guns come from ESRI, MapInfo, and MapQuest (now part of AOL). You license the server software--and then you license data (typically on a quarterly subscription). (Data usually comes from GDT or NavTech.) How much? We're paying an annual subscription fee (for the server license and the data) of roughly $40,000. And that doesn't include any Canadian data.
Yeah, you read it right. Forty thousand bucks per year.
And here comes Microsoft with MapPoint 2002. Better data, substantially easier programming model, more reliable tool--for $295. Not $295/year--just $295.
That's not all we're going to end up paying. Microsoft themselves doesn't seem to have figured out that you can use MapPoint in a server setting--we're inquiring about what a server license will cost. But we're confident that it will be substantially less than we're paying presently. (The client, who actually has to foot this bill, is late for a meeting here. That's why I'm cruising /. at midday.)
Public domain data: Most GIS systems focusing on the United States use street data based on the public-domain TIGR data files. You can download the TIGR data from a number of sources--but don't get your hopes up. The data isn't very good. Any commercial GIS system will use data that has been "enhanced" by GDT, NavTech, or another data provider--to make sure, for instance, that Main Street in your town actually runs from 41.44323N/-75.3323W to 41.87332N/-75.40012W. The original TIGR files were created by the Census Bureau--to be sure that every house was enumerated. They didn't plan on people using GPS units to compare with the maps, and basing life-or-death decisions on their data. When municipalities began developing 911 emergency response systems (and literally making life-or-death decisions based on the map data) the flaws in the TIGR data became all-too-apparent. So third-party providers like GDT exist to compare the map data with satellite imagery and aerial photographs to make sure that map objects are correctly placed. MapPoint, like any other commercial GIS tool, is based on third-party-enhanced data from GDT and NavTech.
If you're doing GIS work, this is a tool that's definitely worth looking into.
Uh, I think you rushed to quickly to jump on big brother and not bother to notice that these satellites are infared, not photo.
These things wouldn't be able to notice the lot locations, only the houses (since your house is climate controlled, and would show up only as a yellow dot in a red background if it was a hot day outside). It would have no idea how well your home or roof are built. It would not happen to notice whether or not you were standing outside naked waving your full monty (now a legit word... thank you, Oxford) to your neighbor.
...of course, you'd probably still go to jail, if your neighbor got too offended.
Personally, although there are big brother issues, I hope everyone realizes that there are already satellites orbiting in space that take pictures of the Earth already (you know, the ones that can pick off your license plates, and the ones that can tell that you're speeding even though they're 31 miles away). We were too busy crying for better satelite TV and cell phone availability to figure out what was going on in abusing this technology.
Although, I'm glad that these things were put to good use in this case. Being from a farming state and knowing the current farm economy (or lack thereof), I'm glad to see them stopping farm insurance claim fraud, because it's incredably easy to file for...all you gotta do is spend an hour filling out the right papers, plus an hour calling your state representative demanding justice if the claim was rejected the first time. Rarely will you get a visit from any big insurance guys unless you claim some proposterous amount of land that was damaged.
The movie should have been called "Enemy of the Accurate Portrayal of Technology" or "Enemy of Checking Technology in the Script Against Real Capabilites", or perhaps even "Enemy of Employing Anyone Who Has Completed Even a Freshman Level Physics Course."
Otherwise the movie was A-OK
HTH
XML causes global warming.
As far as "stand still", I only meant that with respect to the surface of the earth. Perhaps I should have used quotes. What I of course meant by stand-still was geostationary. This hardly needed pointing out, or so I thought. The term geosynchronous (or in all caps, if you prefer, GEOSYNCRONOUS) indicates a satellite with the same rotational period as the earth. A subset of geosynchronous satellites is geostationary satellites which have the additional requirements of circular orbits and locations above the equator. These are the ones that seem to "stand still" with respect to an observer on earth. Of course, they don't even remain in a constant position with respect to the surface of the earth but tend to drift from various perturbabtions.
This is all beside the point - the resolution depicted by the movie is impossible from a geostationary orbit given current technology. The resolution may or may not be acheivable from low-earth orbit, but like I said and you ignored, in the movie, the video feeds were from cameras that appeared to be stationary with respect to the surface of the earth.
HAND
XML causes global warming.
The problem is that when you plug the 23,000 mile range of geostationary orbit into the diffraction limit equation you get much much worse resolution than 10cm for any currently conceivable optical aperature size. The fast moving satellites could have their field of regard slewed to produce a short image sequence, perhaps, but the change in angle would be just as evident in a video as it is when you watch a moving car drive by. This change in angle is not evident in the scenes in question in "Enemy of the State".
XML causes global warming.
XML causes global warming.
I believe that the Ministry for Ag and Fish and local councils have used satellite imagery to detect stock movement across roads, and have prosecuted farmers where they haven't gained appropriate resource consents. Just had a quick look for references, but wasn't able to find any.
...those fields are in open view for anyone to see. Your emails and online activities are a private activity done from your house or business and should not be intruded upon without warrants and due process and all that.
Oh, and not all "Slashdotters" have the same opinion, so your "hypocrisy" claim is totally baseless.
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"Every artist is a cannibal, every poet is a thief."
Maybe the insurance companies can use these satellites to catch those pesky aliens mutilating farmers' cattle. Those aliens must cost the insurance companies a fortune in payouts.
What, you're pissed that the gov't enforces laws by observing what you do? Do you expect the bad guys to turn themselves in?
I'm no fan of pot being illegal, but don't be pissed because the cops use technology to observe what's going on.
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So how is it that simply being observed is a violation of the 4th Amendment? The cops are LOOKING. It's surveillance. You gonna say the cops can't look at your house, or your backyard? Absurd.
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this is gunna put a major crimp on naked outdoor sunbathing _f
Wouldn't it be more constructive to have a meeting about preventing fraud from driving up everyone elses premiums? just checking.
Kahuna Burger
...will work for Chick tracts...
Well, I will (as usual) be called a fascist, but my opinion would be that if each individual peice of data is legal for them to have, there is no reason it would not be legal for them to cross check all that data. What they do with the patterns is another question.
I don't know enough about law enforcement or (for example) drug production and dealing to know to what extent a corelation of banking habits, energy consumption, travel and or video rentals could be considered "probable cause" to start a formal or informal investigation. Where does it become harrassment based on "profile"? Its a legitamate question, but no more debilitating of one than the profiling issues that have recently plauged highway patrolmen etc. It is in other words an issue to be dealt with, not one to make us ban the practice altogether. All IMFO of course.
Kahuna Burger
...will work for Chick tracts...
So, here is an interesting question. Does the nose of a k-9 dog count as an unordinary search. It is not technology per say but it definitely is not something thought of in the constitution. The dog can "look" in your property and find stuff that you may not want it too without your consent. Then the police have probable cause. What if it wasnt a dog but a piece of electronical equipment? Interesting thought no? Anyone know of any previous legal happenings in this arena?
Jeremy
I have a feeling that the government has a file on EVERYONE somewhere.
It's good to know that I'm being watched. It's not good to know that being watched will always work to someone else's advantage. Ah...
I'm a little confused - why exactly would a U.S. Attorney be prosecuting this case? Do farmers actually purchase crop insurance from the U.S. government?
I/O Error G-17: Aborting Installation
All of the sudden there will be tons of posts "This is frightning! Evil big brother spying on us!!! Evil!!!". You people (the ones writing posts such as I mentioned) don't realize that this is probably going to save you money as a tax payer in the long run (as less insurance fraud will mean this part of the government doesn't have to shell out false insurance claims, meaning they can spend their money on other, less wasteful things).
Besides, if you're so frightned by the use of this technology, you're probably doing something illegal anyways, otherwise you should have little to no reason to be frightned.
Sorry if this sounds like flaimbait but you people have to realize the government doesn't just do this to be mean or be bad or think they're cool, they're doing it to protect their (and the vast majority of their citizens) interests. And don't try to tell me that its not in the vast majority of their people's interests, after all, the majority did vote them into power.
First of all, saying "you're probably doing something illegal anyways, otherwise you should have little to no reason to be frightned." is NEVER a valid argument.
Care to explain why? Seems you didn't present a very valid argument either. (Pot calling kettle black? Hmmm....)
With that past, even if Gore was voted into power this sort of thing (the insurance fraud bust) probably would have happened. If the majority of people were opposed to such busts, they'd be talking with their congressmen/women whom they voted into power, in order to get these laws changed. This sort of thing happened under the Clinton government too, so don't go blaming it on the president. Its not like he personally did it on his own.
In this case the technology (USGS Satellite) is being used to prevent insurance fraud. How is this meddling in the business afairs of private businesses and individuals when they (government) is only protecting themselves from fraud? (Which by the way costs you extra money in the form of taxes.)
:)
I agree with you in that I don't think I'd like to be followed around 24/7 by government surveilance, and when I said "You only have reason to be afraid if you're doing something illegal" I was meaning to this instance of how this satellite was used (keep in mind this is not a spy satellite but a geological survey satellite).
But the fact is, if the government did not "spy" (monitor) on its own people, do you have any idea how many more acts of domestic terrorism might occur, how many more dollars you'd be paying in taxes for misuse (fraud) of government financial aid, and the list goes on...
I don't always agree with government policies but I think people just need to be a little more aware of how the situation the goverment is in, and look at things from more than just their own point of view. Walk a mile in their (government's) shoes to find out how hard it must be to keep the population of America from falling into total anarchy. Its a tough job and some civil liberties may be compromised but in my opinion I think its worth it if it keeps us from heading towards total (or even partial) disorder.
Feel free to debate my points, and I'd enjoy debating with you further. Thanks.
Fortunately for us, the Supreme Court would (hopefully) at least, strike this kind of thing down on the basis of the "King George Test". One of the ways the SCOTUS applies Constitutional protections (particuarly the Ninth Amendment) to emerging technology is to ask the hypothetical question, "If $foo had existed in 1776, would King George have used it to opress the Colonies, and if so, would the Founding Fathers have prohibited $foo in the Constitution?"
Unfortunately for us, the SCOTUS gets it wrong sometimes; but in the long run the most egregious rulings get overturned. Let's just all cross our fingers that none of the justices die or retire while Shrub is still in office, lest all remnants of sanity depart the Court.
Why is it that the proponents of "one nation under God" are so eager to get rid of "liberty and justice for all"?
Fraudulent companies only get fined? Big whoop. Fines are not a deterrent. Throw white collar criminals in jail. Give them real reason to fear getting caught.
The usual time is every 45 minutes. Or to put it another way Dalles to Paris in 17 seconds.
The US and USSR each have been putting almost 2 spy sat's in orbit each year for about 20 years now. Chances of one of those 80 sat's having a picture of Brentwood in a given 45 minute period? Pretty good.
Ascii artist &
I remember back during the OJ Simpson trial thinking there had to be one decent shot of Brentwood in the US/China/USSR satellite archives.
What would this show? It would show the location of the "White Bronco" and the time it was(n't) there and since we are talking IR we could even see if the engine was warm.
Kidnappings and lots of other crimes could be traced with this tech beyond just farm fraud.
But with all things there is a dark side.
The next thing you know this information is commercially, don't even think about publicly, available and you find your email and mail box stuffed with spam saying they noticed that YOU where stuck in traffic at 17:45, of course no spamer would ever assume their customer was smart enough to read military time, and they want to sell you something to easy your time to and from work.
In short: rejoice for the good this can bring. In long: Big Brother is watching.
Ascii artist &
I'm not entirely sure this is a "wake up call" for the USGS as far as their involvement in big business goes.
USGS data defines flood planes which have a big impact on the ability of land owners to insure or develop certain land.
USGS studies on water flow have been used by at least one state to sue another state over an agreement on how shared water resources will be used.
There is really a lot of money at stake in USGS's data.
It's for Windows and it isn't freeware any more, but it only costs US$35, which is an order or two of magnitude cheaper than a lot of the tools that geo folks use.
It accepts DEMs and a number of other 3D geo input formats and produces 3D output in VRML and Terragen, all sorts of 2D image formats, and even MPEG and AVI movies of flythroughs.
I don't get a commission or anything. I just think it's a cool tool, and converts geodata to some potentially very useful formats.
On the off chance you're in geoscience and don't know about GeoVRML, click here.
3D geodata flythroughs on the web may be an answer to Jim Blinn's famous comment about finding a use for real time 3d.
Not in Canada. In Canada, police have the right to pull you over, and search your vehicle for any reason they may choose. They can tear it completely apart, and leave it like that for you to put back together, if they so desire. It happened to a friend of mine, the police were looking for a black guy who had just robbed a convenience store, and they pulled my (white) friend over and searched his car top to bottom. They WERE nice enough to help him put it back together, but they weren't obligated to.
The reasoning is this: The heat sensors were used to gain thermal readings from inside a house on the pot growers, where the SCOTUS has ruled that one has a reasonable expectation of privacy, inside ones' own home. In this case, the land was not located inside the house. Thus, no reasonable expectation of privacy.
--You will rephrase your request for me to go to hell. Goto statements are not acceptable programming constructs
I gathered it was a district-by-district decision -- not a national one. We never dealt with the Canton office, so for all I know they're still using overflight. I guess if there's somebody up there who is willing to do it cheaply enough, the Canton office can afford it.
There's also the possibility that the satellite photos didn't work out as well as had been hoped, and the other offices have returned to using overflight in the intervening period...
I used to do the aerial photography for the USDA in about half of New York State. Not a Piper, a Cessna. And plain old 35mm, not some bizarre large format thing. 10" negs? How would you handle that kind of monstrosity inside a small plane? Furthermore, we didn't use any Xs or Ls or otherwise. Didn't need em, actually. We drew a series of straight lines on a map and flew straight from one end to the other, at a fixed groundspeed and altitude. Using a standard 35mm camera with autowinder and databack, we shot one image every 30 seconds or so (it varied, depending on the altitude). The frames would overlap by about 20% on each side. It's dead simple to compute which frame of which roll belongs to any point on the ground. We did this exactly once a year, for the payment-in-kind program. In other words, the program which pays farmers to leave fields fallow. The USDA had a neat computer system that would take a couple of points on the frame, compensate for plane roll and yaw, and compute the area of the fields in question.
Since this was in the Northeast, the fields aren't as large and regularly shaped as in the Midwest, and they're pretty tough to measure accurately on the ground without trained surveyors. This scheme was more accurate than the manual methods the USDA had previously used.
In addition to the area of the fields photographed, the USDA also needed to know what type of crops are being produced. They claimed that they could distinguish crop types from the films, so I imagine they could also identify pot.
The relevance here is that in about 1988 or 1989, that office of the USDA stopped hiring aerial photographers, and began getting all their data from satellite photos.
Make your own. It's pretty easy, and in Potsdam, I think it would be a neccessity. I would experiment with making the dough, shaping the rings, letting them raise/ferment, and then pop them all (but two) in the freezer. Then you could pull out a couple of frozen proto-bagels, boil and bake them, and have a fresh bagel in about a half-hour...
What the hell? The federal government bailing out yet another industry that can't figure out a viable business model?
We already pay them not to grow food (sound economics there) now we get to pay their insurance too.
http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a3a9171610594.ht m
This just means that they will need to dump the HPS lights and move to a source that produces a similar spectrum but uses less power. This will also allow them to appear less anomalous in power usage (I know, they bypass the meters, but that is detectable, at the very least the radiated heat from the pole transformer could be observered).
Next they'll need to address the rather potent odor. Possibly a bit of excavation a sewer map and some more fans could be useful.
The problem is that too many farmers are specialized into limited areas. Historicly, if corn was doing badly, a farmer could stop growing corn and rely on his hogs, cattle, soybeans and other products. The supply self limited because farmers were able to do other things when a crop was unprofitable.
Now we have farmers with enormous plots of land doing one thing. All they can do is grow section after section of bioengineered, pest resistant, high yeild corn. They have so much corn they can't sell it all, and they can't grow something else because they don't have the equipment or skill to do so.
We can't have these people going broke, we have to force crops to be profitable with price floors and subsidies. No, we can't just tell them to GROW SOMETHING ELSE BECAUSE WE HAVE TOO MUCH FUCKING CORN!
Investors don't buy just one or two stocks, and farmers shouldn't depend on one or two crops. When prices on one commodity hit the shitter, they need something (prefreably several somethings) to fall back on before begging the govamint to bail them out of their stupidity.
Besides that, paying them to NOT grow food is just stupid. At the very least they should be paid to grow it, and then the product be given away to someone who does need it. (Not that feeding starving people in the desert is a good idea, you just get more starving people who STILL live in a damn desert. Hmm, maybe the crops can be treated with Ru-486 or something).
One of my beefs with Enemy of the State, apart from the fact that the satellites appeared to hover over the target was the fact that they appeared to be unaffected by the weather. There were scenes where it was raining and yet they were able to get wonderful overhead optical imagery. Last time I checked, if it's cloudy, all you're going to see it white, basically.
If you want to "see" through clouds, use synthetic aperture radar. Of course, you'll have to use a non-American satellite like Canada's RADARSAT or ESA's ERS... ;)
Just playing devil's advocate, but I recently read a report by some economist who's thesis was that the U.S. shouldn't even be in the farming business anymore.
He was under the impression that since so much of farming is mind-numbing, dangerous, and labour-intensive work, in a perfect (capitolist ;) society farming would naturally move to 3rd World countries if there weren't tariffs, subsidies, and other assistance (daming rivers for irrigation etc..) that made it possible to continue farming here. In other words, the average American is too well-educated (okay, don't laugh too hard...), too "fragile" (e.g. worth too much in a lawsuit if he loses an arm in a bailer or something), and too expensive (dollars per hour) to be a farmer. In addition, U.S. land is too valuable in it's alternative uses (roads, parking lots, strip malls, McMansions, etc..) to be tied up in farming.
In the report's anlysis, the future of farming in the U.S. is limited to a few huge corps who can automate much of the grunt work, a few niche, specialty, and seasonal crops (where time to market is the determining factor), and hobbiests (like me... I can't wait for my home-grown tomatoes!).
It's a harsh stream of ideas. I personally prefer to live near a 100 acres of corn than 75 acres of developments and 25 acres of Walmarts.
Waltz, nymph, for quick jigs vex Bud.
For that you deserve to be beaten senseless with a mithril baseball bat.
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Don't post on slashdot. Get back to work.
Larry: [sound of mechanical breathing aahhhh] I'm your father [hhhhhaaaaa], son.
Son: but, but, but your my brother!
Larry: yes, Luke [hhhhaaaaaa] I am [aaaaahhhh]
However given two or more geosynchonous systems, one could mathematically obtain higher resolution images at geosynchronous altitudes. Of course this would entail quite a bit of post processing and could not occur in real time given present technology eh?
I remember my Digital Signal Processing instructor telling us that interferometry was relatively straightforward. He said it was basically linear algebra, which is a job particularly well suited to CPUs. He did not mention real-time, but this was also 6 years ago. Therefore I do not think it is unreasonable for that to happen. However, I could have been shoveled a load of crap in an effort to increase his enrollment in EEL-6212!
Remember, You are unique...just like everyone else.
Write "I'm going to ass-ass-inate the president" on your ass (it'll take a fairly big ass, so you may have to ask someone else for a favour...) and lay on the roof of your house for a few hours, mooning the sky. You might want to do this at night so that your warm ass provides a nice contrast against the relatively cool roof and so that you offend fewer neighbours. Then see how long before the secret service shows up. If they don't, wait a month, then repeat.
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Even as you read this, your pants are strangling your loins! Aaa!
I'm sure Microsoft will throw a fit over not being able to repackage it as MS Mapper and charge $200...
sulli
RTFJ.
What's next, using the photos to see if I'm extending 1/4" into the lot line of my neighbor? If my home and roof are up to local covenants? Big Brother indeed.... (I'm not cool enough to have a .sig)
I'm not cool enough to have a
Most likely "provided by" the USGS meant that
someone purchased a series of images from the EROS
Datacenter, just as you could if you wished.
Heck, now that the Reagan error imagery commercialization scheme has been rescinded for new Landsat data, even I could afford this. However, I'm waiting for the release of the satellite photos of Slick Willie popping Vince Foster; the right-wing wackos just KNOW they exist.
http://edc.usgs.gov
-- .sig are belong to us!
All your
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
The answer to this is simple - it's because it wasn't the insurance company's money. Case in point:
I am insuring you for $X, but I know that any money I pay out will be reimbursed by the government, and my insurance company is making money off the exorbitant monthly insurance premiums. By charging high premiums, and looking the wrong wayu when necessary, everyone wins - the farmer gets his money, and my insurance company gets its money in the form of continued insurance.
Sounds like a racket I really need to get into.
I think the people above me are having sex - or they're sleeping restlessly and agreeing with each other a lot.
Funny, if someone grows pot in their front yard, the police don't need a warrant to seize it. Whats the difference between looking over your fence, or discovering it by flying over your property in a helicopter, or by looking in your backyard with a satellite. Yeah, damn it's creepy, but I would have to venture a guess that the government has exceedingly small print clauses that state somewhere in them that a farmer must submit to random screenings of their property unobtrusively (and taking a photo from a satellite IS unobtrusive, in the sense that they don't have to knock on your door, or hop your fence to take said pictures. Essentially, it sucks, but the government restrictions on getting free money are no more restrictive than your average EULA (has anyone who isn't a lawyer read all the way through one of them, especially a M$ one, and not get sick?) So we may not like it, but if you want to play the game, you have to play by the rules, because the government CAN afford to check up on people who break the rules (especially when ONE property owner was on the hook for almost $300K of government money.
I think the people above me are having sex - or they're sleeping restlessly and agreeing with each other a lot.
Last year, I toured EROS Data Center (a USGS installation in South Dakota) with a bunch of my geek-type friends. The storage capactity in that place was crazy -- we're talking hundreds of TB here. In addition, they were planning on tripling capacity within 4 years, and consolidating all TerraPic storage onsite.
The case you're talking about involved "looking" inside a house. Crops are planted for the whole world to see. Unless a farmer builds a greenhouse that covers several hundred acres, he better not be breaking any laws.
So much for my rooftop crop.
Damn the man!
I gave myself to Jesus, but now he never calls
Refusal to allow your car to be searched is grounds for the police to hold you, stuck on the side of the road, for as many hours as it takes for them to get a K-9 unit on the scene to have the drug dog sniff all over your car.
is this.....is this for REAL?
great comedy company.
A story I heard a few years ago (sounds very UL'ish) about the [DEA | DOA | CIA].
Growing a crop of [Coca | Marijuana] using captured [Mexican | Whoever] growers.
They were using remote sensing of this controlled experimental crop to be able to determine when
similar crops are ready for harvest, and how to detect them from aerial / satellite photography.
Anyway - crop is almost ready for harvest - next batch of photos show --
no crop, no prisoners, and the first (?) US Government subsidized batch of whatever had disappeared
across the border to Mexico.
What about the recent SCOTUS decision about using heat sensors to discover pot grows? theoretically, this could even be used for the exact same thing. This stuff gives me the creeps.
terradot, growing awareness
You say that busting fraud is way cool in your book, which in this case was simply an application of technology by the USGS to solve a sociological problem, that of theft/fraud. Doesn't that seem to be in direct opposition with your sig("You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)")?
If it's supposed to move and doesn't, use WD-40. If it moves and it shouldn't, use duct tape.
When they couldn't find anything incriminating, they let me out of the car and contacted someone to come pick me up.
Fourth Amendment? What Fourth Amendment?
But when it is used to spy on individuals and see if they are obeying laws from space, it is a 'pretty cool use'?
Hua? Hypocrisy? It's okay as long as it isn't me?
--
Dragging people kicking and screaming into reality since 1996.
It's not but how bout something that is: the govt. has IR technology so sensitive you can hold your hand in front of 50 pieces of paper for a second and take you hand away and remove one by one, the top sheet of paper, and actually see the heat left on each page by you hand. Obviously the heat you see gets less and less as the stack diminishes and time passes. This is actually how they test IR sensitivity. I learned this in school from a prof. who worked on this tech. with the govt. Besides, you could just take regular pictures of the field and not the filtered spectrum of IR.
You know the Microsoft destroys the night, Linux devides the day...
Actually, most mapping software and websites(mapquest, along with the Deloreme products, etc etc) use TIGER US Census data, NOT USGS data. USGS DEMs only hold elevation data, and while there are also datasets made from overhead flights, etc. these are not suitable for mapping purposes. Its very easy to make maps using the tiger census data has some information, but the actual data is kind of hard to find on their site, so goto their FTP site. So, perhaps you should actually research the subject a bit more before posting about how everyone else is wrong, when you are yourself.
If this were the case, the Supreme court decision about heat sensors is probably irrelevant, as the rules of evidence are greatly relaxed for civil cases.
So when Microsoft gets into this biz, will their motto change to, "We know where you went today"?
No, seriously, why did it take the USGS to do this? I mean, if I reported a loss to my insurance company, I'd get someone coming out to verify it. The insurance company doesn't just take my word for it. Of course, I'm not a big business, but still...
Does know if it is possible to use satellite imagery in real-time, like in the movie Enemy of the State?
The One Rule Of Chess You'll Ever Need: Don't play someone who carries a kit in their bookbag.
"I don't know that atheists should be considered citizens, nor should they be considered patriots." - George Bush
OK, fine, they're catching fraudulent farmers. But can they catch seriously disturbed farmers???
Plain site only covers distances up to 400 ft. At least with relation to your property. We studied a case about planes and farmland in 101. Basically it says anything visible within 400ft above your property is "fair game"... I don't think satellites should be covered by this... But like most laws, Those that don't know are the ones that get screwed...
Up until very recently I worked as a Junior Administrator for a USGS site office. If I knew the Survey actually did this kind of work I might have stayed on. My office really didn't do much other than take periodic measurements of water levels and stream flow. However for 30 employees they still managed to need a Dell Quad Xeon server with 1 gig of ram, a second Dual Xeon server with 512 ram, and a Ultra Sparc 3 sun server. Talk about a waste of resources, if the load on the Sparc was ever over 3% it was because "top" was being run. A lot of neat equipment, but very low pay for students. Especially for technically inclined aspiring network administrators.