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Sensors Gone Wild
tulanian writes "forbes.com has an interesting article on networked, intelligent sensors. It mentions an experiment done by DARPA where several dozen magnetic sensors were scattered along a road and passing vehicles could be identified by their magnetic signatures."
Now not only do they know how many people drive down the road, they also know their approximate wealth based up what they're driving? Yea....
Don't give me none of this "nature theme" business.
So does this mean, when your car begins to rust out, and it's magnetic fingerprint changes, you'll cease to exist?
0110100100100000011000010110110100100000011000100
a very MINOR operation by the car manufacturers could give each automobile a distinct magnetic signature, similar to a magnetic VIN. I dont think I'd want them able to track My driving habits...
Are there any insidious uses for this technology? There always are, but realistically what?
I could kinda see this being used for speed checking using the time elapsed between passing different sensors (like VASCAR) if the sensors could differentiate certain cars.
Or knowing where you are at any given time. Hmmm.
Any other suggestions?
I can imagine that many of the uses for these listed could be great, but over-reliance may be a problem. While it would be nice if everything like this worked like in Star Trek, I can imagine a story in the future where someone calls 911 about a bridge that looks about to collapse that is ignored because the sensors say the bridge is fine.
I've nothing to say here...
I will not be sensored! My rights are on the line here! I can say whatever I want!
/.ers, we must not let sensorship continue. First the MPAA and RIAA are against us and now DARPA. Its time we started speaking out against such sensorship. Now there hypeing "intelligent" sensorship? Since when is sensorship smart?
Fellow
Talk to your congressman or woman and tell them that you don't like sensors. Surely, we can make a change if we all work together.
Now that you've read my post, here's a little note for the dimwitted: it's a joke!
Mod me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!
Big Magnet is watching you...
live(free) || die;
Doesn't anyone remember the article about the car rental companies monitoring the GPS systems they had installed? Going too fast? Going to Mexico? Going to an anti-anything rally?
When will someone get around to inventing the 'cone of silence' so we can have our privacy back?!
The sensors sound pretty cool from the article, they mention the military wants to scatter them over a battlefield so they can collect info about where the enemy is, but I wonder how hard it would be for the enemy to just jam the network, or send out a bunch of bogus data into it.
Anybody else try and read this article and
I'm going to stop you there and say probably not.
Don't worry... the tinfoil hat you're wearing will keep you from being sensed. All sensors can be fooled... Some systems of sensors are just a little better than others... You just need to know what they measure and send them crappy information.
Clearly, what is needed is some squid on a GSXR-1100 to zip by at some insane speed (which those bikes are quite capable of doing in 1st gear!) and generate enough voltage to blow the sensor out of the ground.
:-)
Throw in a few rare-earth magnets in his pocket and send the whole system into a tizzy.
Oh, what fun we could have....
Yes, people are always calling for laws and regulation before the technology has worked itself out. But tt shouldn't work that way. The technology needs to get its fingers everywhere and become popular before we can think about legal and social issues sensibly. Otherwise we are just speculating wildly and choking off the possibility of genuine innovation. (witness the unfortunate too-early regulation of digital music).
I, for one, am at the same time terrified and excited by the idea of sensors everywhere, communicating wirelessly and powering themselves from ambient heat. I have no idea what kind of applications will come of it, but I don't want any regulation until it's "too late."
First, I've always wondered if cars did indeed emit some type of unique magnetic signature. Because if they did, I would make a sensor to detect the precise signature emitted by the Ford Crown Victoria with the police package, which is drived by the vast majority of police departments in North America (well at least in my state. Add two or three more cars and you got 90% of the police car types.)
:-)
Then I would sell em as police detectors.
Second thought, I'm particularly in love with this
"Omron is about to market a system that lets your car recognize you using your fingerprint."
Since we know that fingerprint devices are not that hard to fool...all ya have to do is dust the car you wanna steal for fingerprints (assuming that the owner of the car has indeed touched their car barehanded at some point in time) and do the elmer's glue thing. I'm excited.
Ok, from the article:
The net is relegated to a small screen and a keyboard. This will detect who you are and where you are.
Is this a Good Thing? I know that it could be used for some very good things, such as instant identity verification, missing & lost persons (the list goes on... I'll spare you) But it seems really, really, really, Big Brotherish, and I'm not so prone to like that very much....
Some new sensors are getting so small--some are invisible to the naked eye--that they will be able to run on 100 microwatts.
Great! So not only can we be watched incessantly, we won't even be able to know IF we're being watched...
At the 100-microwatt level they could gather energy from ambient heat and photovoltaic cells, says Stephen Senturia, a specialist in microsystems at MIT. His colleagues are working on making chips so small that they can power themselves, like watches that need only the kinetic energy generated by movements of the wearer's wrist.
ok, most thought provoking idea in this comment coming right up...
At what point is something sentient and self supporting enough to be considered life? I know that this is relying on a backbone of support, but really, this single feature is actually very interesting if you really think about it. It is capable of sensing it's environment, it's self supporting... has a definate life span... hmmm.. this is really somewhat one the edge of being electronic and creeping towards being alive...
Just my crazy thoughts, but I think this is something we all need to watch carefully, both for the positive aspects of it, and also to be sure (as sure as we can be anyhow) that this is not being used as just another minon of Big Brother... Of course a small amount of Big Brotherism is really quite acceptable, and if used properly this technology could really be a sign of great things to come... I just hope it is used in a way that we would all approve of...
basically hook up two wireless network cameras that would point to the street outside my house.
They would run motion detection software that would basically write to a database when it detected movement. By measuring the time between the two motion captures and knowing the difference in length between the cameras, I could calculate how fast people drive by my house.
By going to my homepage, you would see something like:
Last car went by at: 07:05:30 am
It was going 38.9mph. 3.9 over the speed limit!
Anyways, until the price of wireless network cams come down, I guess it's just a thought.
Live web cams
Along the lines of software license registration when your car takes some type of heavy metal loss, i.e. Heavy rust, part removing yet not debilitating car accidents, etc.. you will have to bring your car to a DOT facility so they can resignature your vehicle. Please note that if the DOT facitility is not your imediate next destination your vehicle will simply stop working. It's good for you; we promise
"Not knowing when the dawn will come, I open every door." - Emily Dickinson
These tests were down with MICA sensor motes which can be purchased from Crossbow Technology.
These motes run TinyOS, which was developed at UC Berkeley.
More information about TinyOS:
Yes, my job does involve programming for these motes. I have four of them on my desk acting as an ad-hoc wireless sensor network now.
When Sensors Attack!
Be amazed by real live footage of sensors watching other sensors!
Be captivated by the secret sensor mating ritual!
(mount, fsck, unmount!)
Laugh at sensors hopping around the battle field like little metal frogs.
Be horrified by real live footage of sensors mauling some guy who sprayed himself with sensor musk!
so when will I see it on FOX or on Video? :p
Is it part of the When Animals Go Wild and Girls Gone Wild Series?
The world's navies have been identifying ships using magnetic signatures for decades; sophisticated mines exist which can not only distinguish friendly ships from those of the enemy from their magnetic signature, but use a combination of of the acoustic and magnetic signatures of a vessel to identify a particular ship (e.g. to distinguish one Ticonderoga class ship from another). This enables the laying of a minefield that will ignore the signatures of low value units such as minesweepers, frigates and destroyers, and only explode when a particular enemy carrier passes overhead.
One imagines that an intelligence agency wishing to assassinate a foreign president/dictator could achieve similar success using the sensors described in the Forbe's article - they need merely tune the sensors to the signature of the target's limo, and lay them on a public road on the way to his residence.
Hahaha! I am a ghost in their system with my virtually invisible Plastic Pontiac...
cos you can't buy magnets anywhere
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
add some "reproductive" devices here and there which are somehow able to scavenge items from the environment and build/repair all other nodes... with the odd "mistake" here and there....
A number of suburbs of Dallas, Texas (including Carrollton, where I work) are using computerized magnetic sensors to monitor traffic. They're temporary installations -- a box about 4" x 6" x 1" high is placed in the center of the traffic lane, and covered with a thick sheet of what looks to be asphalt-impregnated duct tape.
When they're done with the traffic survey -- 24 hours, typically -- the city engineers cut out the sensor, leaving the tape that was stuck to the ground. You'll see these squares all over town -- they don't seem to disintegrate for several months, even after heavy traffic driving over them. The busiest intersections have several of these leftovers.
A Dallas Morning News article a year or so ago detailed the city's use of the boxes, and noted that they could derive detailed information about the vehicles by their magnetic signatures. I didn't put 2 and 2 together, though, until Slashdot came to the rescue...
Dallas is one of the most insanely vehicle-as-status-symbol regions of the country (according to friends who have lived elsewhere). I thought that Carrollton was simply doing a traffic survey no different than the pneumatic roll-over count... but if you can tell a '82 Chevette from a brand-new Cadillac SUV, it adds a whole new dimension.
Anyone want to bet against the cities prioritizing road repairs based on relative driver income, as opposed to mere number of vehicles?
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
It blocks these sensors. But the Forbes people didn't want to let that out. Tin foil and duct tape are our last best hopes.
---
When you come to a fork in the road, take it! --Yogi Berra--
"player 4 hit player 1 with 0 stroms"
lets not confuse "sensors gone wild" with "girls gone wild", where ya have a bunch of girls running around topless.
nor should we confuse this with "censors gone wild", where you have a bunch of girls running around with black blocks and blurs over there chests.
There's nothing Intelligent about Intelligent Design.
Seems like you can aler your car's magnetic signature by putting a couple of slabs of sheet metal in the trunk. (Or for that matter... a couple of giant industrial magnets.)
Am I wrong?
The article was about catching all the squirrels trying to steal berries!
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
Here I've been collecting all those rare earth magnets out of harddrives for years while my friends and family laughed at me... HAHAHA, see now, who was the fool!!!! Every day I'll go out side, roll some dice and hide a couple of them in different spots, that should shank their bell graphs!
Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
I'm guessing by "identify" they mean something more like counting jeeps vs. trucks vs. tanks.
I think you are correct. The ability to distinguish gross classes of vehicles is much easier than trying to distinguish between models or manufacturers.
Is there any reason to belive that any physical aspect if a single model of car varies enough to be measurable as any sort if identifier?
This research is in a very early stage so this is probably one of the questions they are trying to answer. However, if their system is accurate enough to pick up minute differences in vehicle types like this, it renders them susceptable to mistakes due to slight modifications of the vehicle. A sensor net that is super accurate is likely to not ID a Honda Accord with a big dent in the side as an Accord. And good luck trying to deal with one that has a mountain bike attached to the the roof!
Bottom line is that Automatic Target Recognition (ATR) and Unattended Ground Sensors (UGS) are two technologies which are very much in their early stages. Don't get super worried about the Feds fusing the data from sensors sprinkled all over your hometown to construct a detailed map of your driving habits.
GMD
watch this
I remember reading some short, asimov i think, where this guy invented this device that canceled all sound waves within like a 10 foot radius. He invented it so you could get a little peace and quiet, but the device ended up being banned after people went around using them to blow bank vaults without anyone hearing the explosion/alarm.
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
I talked extensively with a fellow who was maintaining a red light camera. He was very open, and largely responsible for implementing red light cameras in British Columbia.
There are two sensors about four meters apart, one just before and one just after the stop line. These sensors can identify speed and "weight" (magnetic mass) of the vehicle. The magnetic signature is unique to each vehicle model.
In BC, the sensors activate the camera only when the car actually enters the intersection on a red. If you've entered on a yellow, no camera.
Because of the speed-measuring capability, some Vancouver-district municipalities have also really put the screws to the boy-racer fuckups who are street-racing -- speeds like 140kmh through a red light. Ticket for running the red, ticket for reckless driving, ticket for speeding, etc.
Ticket revenue goes directly back to the red light camera operations. The municipalities and government see no money from this system, thereby eliminating any incentive to generate additional revenue by diddling the yellow-light timing and or going all heavy on the marginal cases. The camera supplier doesn't get money, either (and, thus, were of absolutely no use whatsoever when it came time to provide technical support.)
Camera-monitored red lights in BC are showing significant reductions in accidents. Indeed, the savings generated by not paying out claims is proving to be a remarkable value, and insurance companies across North America are starting to realize that spending money on accident reduction will increase their bottom-line profits.
All in all, it's a hella fine system. Our government-tamed insurance monopoly provides us with basic insurance and uninsured driver insurance, plus is mandated to work with municipalities and the RCMP to increase road safety and decrease accident rates. Our public insurer operates in a not-profitable manner: they're not expected to (and are, in fact, expected to not) produce profits.
All our other insurance (liability, collision, whatever else you dream of having) is provided by third-party insurers, so we really get the best of both worlds: a public insurer who's looking out for our basic needs and safety; and private insurers who compete to provide all else.
Sorry this turned into a bit of an insurance/insurer rant, but the public insurer aspect is crucial to the success of our red light camera system, because it eliminates the urge to use the cameras as a profit center instead of a safety tool.
The one thing that keeps popping into my head is how this system can be characterized in its usefullness. Its like a sense for a simple organism.
The implications that are present here produce visions of gathering nodes of information and data not just in the random and simplistic fashions of the internet's present structure, but in the processing fundamental functions of seperate personalities and intelligently focused mini-brains automatically approaching a consciousness as they communicate.
I think the statement made in the article about this "tech being better than the internet" could be accurate, but only when you think on how this could be connected to the internet in some useful way. Where, if the internet is a simple organism, this would be one of its senses - one using the other.
--"The perfect example of the man of action is the suicide." - William Carlos Williams
Besides, soon we will have cars with ceramic engines and kevlar body... :)
J.
I recall the navy had a system of running current along loops of wire in the hull of the ship to nullify the magnetic signiture of their vessles when they suspeced that they were close to magnetic mines...
It won't make you totally invisible, however.
FYI - Deployable remote sensor systems are not a new concept. The U.S. Army has been using them since about Viet Nam in one form or another. I had the pleasure of visiting Iraq in order to deploy sensors during Desert Storm. The systems in current use can be seen here.
The system in this article appears to potentially be the next generation of this sensor system.
(Any current or former GSR feel free to drop me a line)
DARPA has made sensors a top priority, putting up $160 million of its own money and $500 million in matching funds from other U.S. government agencies....the data being sent (video, audio, chemical signature)
But don't worry, top heads are working on the implications.
I'm told that the University of California at Berkely has a copy of 1984 in the library. Someone there might have read about what happens when sensors are so pervasive that it's possible to listen to someone's every word and gesture. Orwell, however, did not imagine intelligent machines such as Carnivore, which could filter "suspicious" paterns and people from the noise. Double plus good purgewise.
People must bellyfeel crimethought. Double plus good kill terrorist and five unidentified accomplices, one US citezen without trial. When big brother knows, everything you do will be easier, safer and more fun.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
How many bridges collapsed last year? In the same period, how many electronic gadgets failed? Fail safe is false positive. It won't work till the sensors are monolithic and embeded within the structure itself, such as part of a composite build up layer. I've got little faith in conventional epoxy on steel strain gauges to report anything but false fails. Critters, frost, dew, corrosion and gremlins will break them.
The "Smart Dust" project refered to in another post and the goal of pervasive audio, visual, chemical and other monitoring is a much more disturbing notion, however. Combined with intelligent local filtering, such a network would enable personal tracking and monitoring of all "suspicious" people and conversations. It would be like a giant prison with robot gaurds to keep us all correct. Lierally, no place would be private and there would be no need for the embeded "ID tags" some fools seem to desire.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
There are sensors just like these along various stretches of the border between British Columbia, Canada and Washington, USA where the two nations have parallel streets separated only by a shallow drainage ditch. They are presumably there to detect when cars stop to toss bags of marijuana over the border.
While we were learning about induction, my high school physics teacher talked about a friend he had who worked for a large company who worked on the technology behind the unique magnetic signature detection. It worked very well, and was tested somewhere (I think it was Germany), with very good accuracy. A vehicle could be identified moving throughout the city.
The major drawback to this was that the technology relied on specific patterns formed by the car running over coils under the street (creating inductance). This worked very well if the car's physical makeup didn't change at all, but if someone were to put some scrap iron in the trunk, the unique signature would be changed.
This was actually done quite some time ago, I think in the 1980s. It's pretty cool technology, because the underlying concept is so simple, but it isn't practical in the real world.
Check this.
I guess the novelty is "self-organization" of the data flow over the network itself, but that just feels like buzzword-compliance and military contractor snake-oil to me. And I'm in the military, and recognize snake oil at 30 paces.
But yes, the network traffic will have strong mil-grade encryption, and also have tamper-prevention doohickeys which will destroy all the sensitive and expensive bits if Joe Badguy tries to pull an "all your keys are belong to us".
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
Wow. Roads that run parallel? And they are expecting people to stop on them? Wonderful. :) Now I know what I have to do in order to retire... Move to BC, get some shady friends, and then build a fairly consistant trebuchet. The trebuchet would be relatively quiet, as would the bags of organic matter hitting the ground. Now the trebuchet would be hard to explain, but that's what the SCA membership would be for.
Has anyone thought about just taking a few old speaker magnets (or the nice ceramic magnets from hard drives) and epoxying them to the frame of the vehicle at various points? Or perhaps in a line running width-wise on the vehicle?
I think it would be safe assumption that this would cause horrible problems for these sensors...
A valid point... but think of this... chaff... invented to fool radar systems of the WWII era was simply strips of metal or some other reflective material. Chaff cost very little compared to radar which cost a very large sum of money, and it severly reduced or eliminated the effectiveness or radar. Simple tact and using countermeasures when crucial is what's important.
There is nothing in the current motes that can not be miniaturized. In three years this demo will be done with a 6" aircraft, and millimeter-scale sensor nodes.
This is all leading to "Smart Dust".
You could also probably identify the vehicle by the characteristic radio frequencies given off by the electronics. If not the style, at least the manufacturer and model year.
Then calculate and display its location on the heads-up display on your windshield. But someday vehicles will all be RF tagged anyway... "CowboyNeal's Pinto at 5 o'clock and closing fast."
If you're only collecting occasional data, rather than full scans of everybody, technology's been there for a while. A couple years ago, when San Francisco was going to close the Central Freeway, they spent a week videotaping license plates of cars that took it, had a bunch of convicts at the local prison read the plate numbers, and sent everybody a postcard saying that they were planning to close the freeway and please find an alternate route to work. Did the job just fine.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Another group that's doing research in this space is Aether Wire & Location. They're building localizer frobs with the objective of getting down to coin size, and doing lots of work on Ultrawideband networking technology, which is good at very-low-power connectivity.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks