Slashdot Mirror
The Searchable Life
oni writes "Here's a story on wired about a Pentagon project called LifeLog. It seeks to record every bit of information that can be had, index it by name, or SSN, or even location, and make the database searchable. Furthermore, '[LifeLog adds] physical information (like how we feel) and media data (like what we read) to this transactional data.'" If you think you can build such a system, apply for a grant. There's also a current AP story about Total Information Awareness.
Big Brother reference in 3.. 2... 1...
About how angry having my privacy violated makes me feel... and about how my herpes has flared up again.
That our government wants to do *completley* evil things that make dystopian futures depicted in movies like Brazil and 1984 look pleasant ?
Religion is a gateway psychosis. -- Dave Foley
SELECT * FROM tblLife WHERE objName = "Keys"
This might come in handy.
"Moderate drinking can help prevent amputated limbs" -- Abigail Zuger, NYTimes, 12/31/02
You're only on your second serving of government funded assrape? You must be 12!
You think that I'm crazy, you should see this guy!
Hello sir. My name is Mahmoud Albin-Ahmed, and i am from Kentucky. I would like to have applied for grant to developing wonderful system like echel... er, life so i can sear... er... serve my fellowing americans. i am havening wonderful oportunity.
thanks you and regards. plz send money soonest.
Of a Journal.
With the general failure of Linux as a desktop
operating system, as well as the recent
lawsuits from the SCO group, it is clear, like
BSD before it, that Linux is dying.
Linux is dying.
The government is still trying to live our lives for us and protect us from ourselves...
There's a growing sense that even if The Future comes,
most of us won't be able to afford it.
-- Lemmy
Furthermore, '[LifeLog adds] physical information (like how we feel)
Soft and squishy, mainly around the belly area.
But I'm getting thinner slowly.
Norris/Palin 2012
Fact: We deserve leaders who can kick your ass and field dress your carcass.
6000000...that's a lot of posts...
::meta LifeLog::
:: == 'open bracket' or 'closed bracket', with respect
I feel happy
123456789
eat me
good bye..
k
where
I am a loser, and therefore have no life to log.
Slashdotter are stupid and biased.
1) Make such a system. Run it for a few years so it's full of goodies.
2) Make it open to the public.
Suddenly, it becomes quite clear that innocence is a fiction, and everyone does things that we persecute each other for. Faced with such such evidence, either tolerance or societal implosion must result.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
You sir are the lucky winner of post #6000000! Yes, 6 million! And it wouldn't have been possible without you. Thank you for your hard work here on Slashdot!
Now on to 7 million!
For being #6000000? Come on /. editors, award people for a change.
:-)
See today's Washington Post article: U.S. gun laws can easily be exploited by international terrorist operatives, who can obtain assault-style firearms or explosives by taking advantage of delays and loopholes in the federal gun control system, according to a Congressional Research Service report to be released today. And keep in mind that the CRS answers to a Republican Congress!
"Love is a familiar; Love is a devil: there is no evil angel but Love." --William Shakespeare ('Love's Labors Lost')
The supreme court has been pretty rigid about this, too.
However, collecting information on non-citizens is allowed (and even required).
I've gotten into so many arugments with people about privacy and it usually boils down to trust: They trust, I don't.
,2 3008,3387549,00.html
They trust safeway to be kind and gentle when collecting all their iformation on every item they have ever purchased, they trust bars to maintain privacy when scanning a person's license to enter a bar. But that is folish.
[Shamelessly copied from latimes...]
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-celebs8apr 08,1,1932749.story?coll=la%2Dheadlines%2Dcaliforni a
Officer's Star Searches Raise Liability Worries
City studies possible legal fallout from use of police computer to get data on celebrities.
April 8, 2003
By Wendy Thermos, Times Staff Writer
For six years, Officer Kelly Chrisman used Los Angeles Police Department computers to look up confidential law enforcement records on celebrities and other high-profile people, including Sharon Stone, Courteney Cox Arquette, Sean Penn and Halle Berry.
Chrisman says he was just carrying out orders from superiors, but a lawsuit recently settled by the city for nearly $400,000 alleged that the officer had accessed the records to sell the information to tabloids.
Now Los Angeles officials are assessing the city's potential liability.
According to internal LAPD documents, between 1994 and 2000 Chrisman tapped computer files on scores of celebrities, including Meg Ryan, Kobe Bryant, O.J. Simpson, Larry King, Drew Barrymore, Dionne Warwick, Farrah Fawcett, Cindy Crawford, Elle Macpherson and Berry Gordy.
[Shamlessly copied from techtv]
http://www.techtv.com/cybercrime/privacy/story/0
Top 10 List of Police Database Abuses
Law enforcement officers are supposed to protect and serve, but some cops misuse police databases to get dates and more.
By James Hamilton, Web producer
Printer-friendly format
Email this story
Your address, telephone number, Social Security number, date of birth, criminal record -- all this data and more can be accessed by police officers if they have basic information about you. Some cops, however, use their database access for less-than-honorable reasons. This week on "CyberCrime" we show you how some cops used police databases to harass exes and even get telephone numbers of women they see in cars.
These abuses happen in law enforcement departments around the world. Here's 10 stories about cops who have abused their information privileges in police departments in Michigan, California, Ohio, and even as far away as Australia.
Cop Suspected of Using Database to Plan Murder of Ex-wife
A State Police detective whose estranged wife was shot dead at a Michigan zoo admitted using the Law Enforcement Information Network (LEIN) to check on his wife and her acquaintances, according to Lansing police search warrant requests. Although the detective is not suspected of pulling the trigger, the Lansing, Michigan, police department says it believes he knows who shot his wife a month after she filed for divorce. Read the story.
Rookie Cop Checks on 'Potential Girlfriends': 6,900 Database Searches in Only Two Months
An Australian constable new to the beat used the police database to check on potential girlfriends. In just over two months the then 20-year-old policeman performed an unprecedented 6,900 searches on the police database. The counsel assisting the case says that of those 6,900 searches at least 300 weren't connected to official duties. Read the story.
FBI Files Sold to Mob and International Criminals by Nevada Attorney General's Office Employee and Former FBI Agent
Dubbed the "Secrets for Sale Scandal" by the Las Vegas media, an attorney general's office worker and a former FBI agent we
It seeks to record every bit of information that can be had, index it by name, or SSN, or even location, and make the database searchable.
Huh? I have never heard of a database that was not searchable. I have run across a few that were real messes, but all were searchable even if the person inputing the data messed it all up (still searchable, just not too useable).
According to the spec above, both the Social Security Administration and the Internal Revenue 'Service' have existing databases that meet this portion of the requirement. However, there is that little detail of data accuracy.
Thank goodness they are not asking for something to track all the folks that refuse to participate in the system, as that would be REALLY hard.
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
The more we centralize things, the more vulnerable we are to a single point of failure with absolutely catastrophic consequences.
Historically, the core value behind the second amendment was not the right to go deer hunting, but the idea that we needed to reserve to the states and to the people enough power to protect itself if the federal government seemed overpowerful or out of control.
As information becomes more and more literally a form of armament in modern society, perhaps we need to ask the Supreme Court to start to construe control of information as covered under the second amendment, and to say that the unfettered protection of private information by the states and by individuals is Constitutionally protected. I've seen the courts look to the 4th and then 9th amendments for privacy protection, and having trouble finding it. Maybe they're just looking in the wrong place.
Kent M Pitman
Philosopher, Technologist, Writer
Why bother, some guy named Winston will just along behind me and change my past...
jmr
Doesn't doubleclick.net already do this? :)
No one has ever fired for blaming Microsoft.
OK... lets see, you need an ID for each Event, and event type, a "person", a time and place, lat/long, and an ability to "string" events together (so you can do Ogg packets for audio) (all Id's being 128bit unqiue id's) [EventID][EventTypeID][PERSONGUID][timestamp][lat/ long][Data segment]
[Datasegment] may also include [REFERNCES EventID]
Comes out to about 64 bytes+ your data segment (which is interpreted based on the EventTypeID... lets guess each "packet" is about 1k with this header, you'd be looking at (if this was a good enough header) 30 gig/year is you captured one record per second... which might just suffice for your position alone. add mood logging each second, audio (say 1 meg/minute) ~510 g/year ... what else, heart rate? I suppose the "position" could give basic biometrics like heart rate, pressure, skin conductivity, etc... your still looking at terabytes per person.
It might be fun to do an opensource "version" of this to prevent it from becoming patented.
meh
Outstanding, now I can find out 20 years from now how many bowel movements I had back in 1997 (sigh)
Can we say identity theft? I wonder how long before they start selling identities on ebay?
Yay! Congratulations! Yours is the 6 millionth post on Slashdot!
Woohoo!!!!
AND it's funny, which is a pleasant surprise.
Congratulations on the arbitrary ordinality of your post!
I'm sure glad the second article made the all-important Library of Congress comparison! Otherwise, I would have been totally lost. I mean, 900,000,000 is way too big to understand, but 50 * 18,000,000 makes it much easier.
I moderate "-1, Fool"
Terrorists don't follow the law. If they did, we wouldn't have to worry about them, because they wouldn't kill people or blow up things.
Now I will finally be able to type into Google (TM) "Where did I leave my car keys?"
which suggest that a chafing scheme could be used to mess with the logs on my web usage.
for example, I have perl script that continously goes to random web sites and pretends to browse web pages 24/7. My own usage is potentially lost. and by random chance I will of course visit al queda web pages, child porn sites, and many other dark alleys of the internet and thus launder them at the same time. Of course this idea sucks for its impact on web bandwidth but I suspect that by the time it becomes possible to track everyones's moves in a data base there will be lots of bandwidth available too.
Another schema is of course Anonymizing things via encryption and bitTorrent like peer-to-peer access to pages.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Or, in other words, the need for control is a symptom of lack of trust and fear. Why are those who govern, our public servants, so afraid?
Is it that we live in a perfect world interrupted by too many freak accidents or is it that the set of rules we have created/agreed upon does not serve the majority of people. I feel that there is something rotten in state where everyone is a suspect.
Just stating the obvious.
And yes, that's right, I am an anonimous coward.
Welcome to the future -- the future we've agreed upon, through action or lack of.
I *am* afraid.
Is this feasable in any way? Yeah it is possible to create the database, but who's going to be inputting the information? It would take massive amounts of person-power to keep such an endeavour up to date. Also, what kind "experience" would get logged. Are we talking "Joe Blow just purchased a copy of Guerilla Warfare" or are we talking "Joe Blow just had his first wet dream". I'm curious.
Mao, Stalin or Hitler would weep with joy at the thought of such complete and total control over the individual. And make no mistake about it, in order to have complete control over each and every one of us it is necessary to have knowledge. Knowledge really is power and total knowledge of every aspect of your life is an important step in the governments ability to completely control you. Those civil liberties or those freedoms you thought belonged to you will eventually be crushed under the weight of the governments need to know. The Patriot Act, Total Information Awareness, Lifelog- welcome to your 1984/Brave New World.
Enjoy your Karma, after all you earned it. Feel your Karma Joe, feel it burn.
Why dont you use real SQL instead of that mickeymouse OSS MySQL bullshit?
And, btw, 36C is a bra size, not a breast size. If you'd any experience with women, you'd know that.
FROM TABLE... &&... gimme a break
SELECT phone_number FROM populace WHERE sex='female' and bra_size='36C' AND id_num NOT IN (SELECT id_num FROM slashdot_users UNION SELECT id_num FROM transsexuals)
Subselects, triggers, and transactions. Ah, the joys of a REAL RDBMS.
Haven't Experian and all those other credit report asswipes been doing this for years?
Step 1. Create universe U. Return U.
The resultant data structure, U, contains all available state information indexed by location of each particle in the universe, hence comprising "every bit of information that can be had" within the scope of U. (Attempting to reference a variable outside of its scope is generally not permitted, and is definitely poor programming practice, so information outside the scope of U is not considered.)
The algorithm for searching this data structure is left as an exercise to the reader. Bonus points will be awarded for devising an algorithm that requires minimum time (sorting the data beforehand is permitted).
This sure would make job interviews a lot easier.
I think MIT developed something along these lines a long time ago. (Here's a link.) The idea was not to empower the government, but to provide a sort of Super PDA for the individual. Oddly enough, I think it uses Emacs.
;-)
Another interesting system was Gelernter's LifeStreams, which time-indexed everything...
Of course, half the world seems to be blogging all the time anyway, which tend to be weak on the indexing and searching, but provide a nice low barrier-to-entry for inputting all kinds of trivial crap about one's life.
It's not necessarily entirely about dystopian government power
to describe how EVIL these people are.
They make SATAN look like Mr. Rogers.
I hope that someone puts not only a stop to this now, but puts an end to this reign of digital terror.
This can not be allowed to continue.
George Orwell was pretty much right, but he underestimated the depths that this would sink to.
I am currently researching the state of affairs in other countries because I just can not live in a country where you are a piece of meat.
You are born to be a good little consumer. You may not question the party line. You slave away to generate revenue for the state so that the state can grow more powerful. ALL of your income goes towards purchasing disposable crap and taxes.
You are not allowed to own anything that will last long enough to pass on to your kids. And when you die, the state takes most of your income in inheritence taxes.
Can you say "coppertop" ????
All the news they put up on arstechnica. Delayed 10-4320 minutes, thoughtfully reposted from 1-21 days later.
I can't help it - I'm a 19D.
"The technology could allow the military to develop computerized assistants for war fighters and commanders that can be more effective because they can easily access the user's past experiences," DARPA spokeswoman Jan Walker speculated in an e-mail.
It also could allow the military to develop more efficient computerized training systems, she said: Computers could remember how each student learns and interacts with the training system, then tailor the lessons accordingly.
Fine. So limit its scope to include only those enlisted in the military. I see no reason whatsoever for anyone at all, much less the Pentagon, to have a record of everything I've ever bought or everyone I've ever emailed or called on a phone.
the coolest club on
But I have a sudden urge to go reread Zelazny's "Home is the Hangman"...
All of our elected and appointed government officials, federal, state and local. then we can add all military and police. These folks should be easy to document since everything they do is in triplicate. Then we can add anyone accepting money from the government (i.e , our public funds) and then anyone who is an officer of a business incorporateed in America. Hey, the corporation is an individual, let's include them too. Now were having fun!
Demographers can already do amazing things with small amounts of data. I once talked with one who was able to tell me a lot about my hobbies, my political beliefs, religion and personal life based on three or four simple questions about alcohol, music, and color preferences.
Intelligence analysis (the military sort) is based on getting all sorts of data down to the pictures in a wallet and making connections.
What they are doing here is automating the process and feeding it all the data about everyone. There has been some talk here about the enormous amounts of processing power, the huge databases and whatnot making it impossible. I'm not so confident. The data don't have to all be available at once. Just as long as they can be accessed and processed eventually.
When they are combined and the patterns teased out (which the above-mentioned disciplines already do very well) you can get a pretty accurate picture of the person. And know what sort of things that person likes or dislikes. Whom they are likely to associate with. Political leanings. Mental stability. And so on.
Not only privacy but free will are at risk. The propaganda or the interrogation techniques or so on can be individually and automatically tailored to you personally. In advance. And they will almost certainly work.
You can even tell a lot by lack of data. There will be patterns that people who tend not to show up much in the databases will fall into. What things they are hiding. Transactions that they are trying to hide. Likely associates. With so many data the lack of information is itself information. Sort of like the soldier whose military records consist of a rank, an entrance date, and a discharge date. You KNOW he was doing special operations and was probably on loan to Three Letter Agencies.
The man who never alters his opinion is like the stagnant water and breeds Reptiles of the Mind -- William Blake
Like any tool, this is not, it itself, bad. This could be useful in criminal investigations. Say it is found that someone was planning a terrorist attack. This could be used to find if anyone else was in on it.
The key here, is that you couldn't look up someone's information in this unless you have a warrant or something like that. This would be a great tool but could have great abuse. We just need to find a balance.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
...I don't WANT to remember that crazy bitch I went out with 2 years ago?!?
Once you get past the amount of storage space something like this would require, the next big hurdle seems to be actually gathering the information. Some of it can be had through traditional spying methods, but that security camera can't tell how I feel. The only real solution is self-reporting.
To that end, I submit my proposal...
Universal Mandatory Blogging
Before you say that nobody would ever build something as purely evil as the system in question, think about this: Somebody writes the spamming software.
This should be one of the first queries:
$sth = $dbh-> prepare({SELECT from tblAll WHERE status="immigrant"});
$sth->execute();
@val = $sth->fetchrow_array();
deport(@val);
TIA^3 = (1984)^2
Yes, indeed. The society depicted Orwell's "1984" didn't even go this far. They didn't try to track this much information about people, IIRC. This idea, however, still has a long way to go before it is materialized. And even though DARPA seems to be giving it a push, I don't expect it to take off. Why? Let me explain.
TIA, which apparently keeps track of much less information has come under much criticism from those who are familiar with it. In fact, I understand that they decided to change to the TIA logo because it had an eye on it, implying that Big Brother was watching. People will become aware of this and not allow LifeLog to do the Orwellian things that TIA is supposed to do. It may not have many applications beyond military training systems (which was suggested in the article.) And TIA, and its petabytes of information on U.S. citizens it's supposed to store, was barred against use against U.S. citizens in February. Still, we need to watch for whatever Orwellian ideas gain popularity with those in power.
I want access to my own data. No more forgetting faces and names! Wouldn't that totally rock? And go to the bathroom to get a playback of what the chick told you the last time, so that you can fake caring? Yay!
Stop the brainwash
I wonder why the government is spending money on a program to document EVERYTHING a person does in their life...I mean, isn't the porn industry already doing this? Why spend taxpayer's money when, if you add a little a backstabbing element and a cash prize the networks would call it a reality show and do it for free?
At the risk of being flamed, I'm not so sure this is a horrible idea. Now, I'm not particularly thrilled that some government employee (who knows what the restriction on access to this data is going to be?) can read some love-sick email I sent to some girl when I was 15 or whatever, but then again, I don't really care all that much. Do you people have any idea how boring your life is? Sometime ya'all need to ask a security guard that watches the monitors all day what they do. I'm betting most of them will claim their job is incredibly boring, and that they tend to make up stuff about people they see, but don't know, just to hold off the boredom. Anyway, sure, I'd rather not have the government playing with this garbage. However, as Mr. "SELECT * FROM [tblLife] WHERE [object] = 'Keys'" alluded to - I'd love to have this tool for just me to use!
Step #1: Invent Blog Software
Step #2: Distribute Blog Software for Free
Step #3: People everywhere log their life in excrusciating detail.
Step #4: Google Creates Blog Search Engine.
May I have my grant money now...in tens and twenties please.
What were you expecting?
Every information-rich modern convenience will be used by government agencies to protect us from threats and to enforce laws. Its why we hired them, right? As big as the U.S. gov looks, we pay it to do what it does.
We can use our votes to try to limit or shape government, or put our trust and support in advocacy orgs like the EFF. Ultimately, through, it is up to citizens to protect their own data if they feel uncomfortable with the gov knowing what you do every day.
What the gov is collecting together now has been collected and thoroughly analyzed by corporations for years.
- JML
Every time a new story comes up on the front page, resubmit it. You've got a good chance it'll get posted again, and you get to hear everybody scream at Taco about the DOOPS!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I can't understand why you accept this.
t m
some don't:
http://www.cnil.fr/uk/cnil/6january1978.h
The year: 2045. A grandfather, not long for this world, is handing over the family server to his children.
"Son, this here Petabyte array is the digital recording of my entire life. I've been building it, expanding it, adding to it and migrating data onto it since 1996, when it started out as a single 200Mb disk in a Win95 box running dbaseII. Thankfully it survived those dark days, those hard times. Now, it contains every digital photo I've ever took, every file I've ever downloaded, every mp3, avi, and mov I have seen. The entire family financial history in on there, including the papers from when William almost had to file for chapter 11 protection in 2021. All your baby pictures, all my grandchildren's schoolwork are stored in the hierarchy somewhere, those I've recently reviewed on are fresh on disk, those I haven't seen in 20 years are archived in the tape library. Every plane flight booked, every libraray book checked out, every speeding ticket, it's all there. Now, Son, I give you the key to the tape library and the root password. Promise me you won't let the UPS batteries fail, and check the RAMArray for cell errors periodically. If you do these things diligently, may your life's image merge into the family database tree, and when the time comes you will join me in cyberspace as your children tend the server farm. Bless you.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
fuck you, uncle sam. i'm moving somewhere else
Reminds me of a certain Jim Carrey movie.....
"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." G.W.Bush
The have been collecting citizen information for years. Perfect opportunity to use their skills.
"Miss Johnson? The is the Pentagon. We have found your soul mate. Mr. Hussein will be arriving at your home soon to start the beginning of a beautiful relationship. As our service was a match or don't pay system, we will be billing your Visa card $125,400.00. Thank you for your business."
--- Ban humanity.
Been there done that.. next!
Go to http://www.qlogger.com and read about its logging services. It already does most of what they're looking for in the contract.
Your query works fine in MySQL as well, the one in the original post doesn't.
Ah, the joys of actually UNDERSTANDING what you are bashing.
I use MySQL (for personal projects) and SQL Server 2000 (at work) daily. Obviously you don't.
Department of Homeland Security: Removing the rights real patriots fought and died for since 2001
The current storage technology can't dream of keeping up with such a program. So for now, I'm not terribly worried. But that probably means there will be new funding for storage and database research, which will advance the state of the art for the rest of us so at least we can all do the same thing too.
Failing some major political shift concerning privacy, the only hope we have is to shove as much invalid data as possible at them until it makes the results so useless that the entire concept will be scrapped.
Cue Three Dead Trolls in a Baggie: The Privacy Song...
Here's a story on wired about a Pentagon project called LifeLog. It seeks to record every bit of information that can be had...
So that's what the iLoo was for!
Gives the concept of "tracking the movements of every American" a whole new meaning...
This is absolutely startling! Why would such a project even exist? This is simply a tool for spying on society. There would only be limited benefit (real world benefits) to a database like this; and it would only benefit the most corrupt segment of our society; the government. Judging by how the government has leveraged this sort of data in the past I would say this is moreover a tool to help incarcerate more people for ever smaller infractions. There would be no anonymity from your own government and that is not healthy to any segment of society. I would gladly waive my American citizenship if it came with the caveat that my entire life would be documented. I enjoy being and American for its freedoms. This stomps on that freedom from every angle!
"Reality is a crutch for people who can't handle drugs" - George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950)
Today we live in the whiz-bang, mile-a-minute massively distributed peer-to-peer future.
This is why loosely networked organizations like al-queda can regularly best hide-bound societies like the United States and Saudi Arabia with impunity.
Woah.
"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one " -Albert Einstein
Because they can. That their means surpass the vision of Orwell is not much of a surprise. It's not the ability to monitor and control that must be checked, it is the will and acceptance. There's nothing wrong with cameras, emotion detectors and networks. There's something terribly wrong with the the way some people would use and force them on others.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
The process of searching BLOGs to profile people.
With a secondary market creating "Normalized BLOGs" to make you look like something your are not. It comes with daily updates.
Anyone want a license.
Can you open source a patent?
There are 10 type of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
It was the #1 season pass on Tivo, don't ya know.
--- Ban humanity.
SELECT credit_card_number
FROM finances
WHERE limit> $10,000
I do not see how it would be helpful anyway. The technology for advanced enough AI to process, comprehend, and then actually DO something with the given data just does not exist. The whole thing sounds like a waste of processing power and data storage that would be better suited for recording the milage on your mouse..
Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power. -- Mussolini
It hardly seems likely that the Pentagon's plan to spy on the population includes mounting cameras, microphones, tactile sensors, etc. on our bodies. Instead of a 1984-like intrusion, I think a better description of LifeLog might be as an intelligence augmentation device:
Imagine being able to recall the name of the little restaurant you went to three years ago -- and to have a ten second video of the place pop up on your HUD. You can argue about what it is that makes us human -- forgetting things, making our own memories, etc. -- but I think it's safe to say that LifeLog is not an inherant or direct threat to our privacy.
I particularly like the idea of collective/collaborative applications. How would, say, a group of five construction workers benefit from such high-level connectivity while on the job? How about five surgeons? Five poets? Five cops?
Until people get used to it, and then they make it so in order to apply for any job, you are required to sign a release form waiving your right to privacy, similar to the way companies can require drug testing today.
I can hear the speeches now, "If the government is aware of a risk in a potential employee, perhaps one that could present a dangerous situation to the other workers in the company, how can we not allow employers to ensure the safety of their employees by conducting a background test?"
Next thing you know, everyone gets an email telling them about the new condition in their work contract, and your boss is asking you into his office wondering why you recently bought a copy of "Resume Writing for Dummies."
And don't worry kids, it will remain confidental, just like the results of your drug test are confidental today.
Geez, it seems like every story that shows up under the "Your Rights Online" should really be under the category of "No Rights Online." (And the "Online" part is really moot, except that it makes a way to connect the topics to the tech-news theme.)
Instead of me having to justify my life to the military, let the military justify everything it does to me (and all other US citizens).
Information is power. When the government has all information about its citizens, we have tyranny. When citizens have all information about the government, we have democracy.
What, you say? Then citizens will have access government secrets, and could harm our military defense by handing them over to our enemies. Well, I don't suppose the government (or some government official) would EVER hand over details of our life to people who want to harm us?
or, you might say ordinary citizens just aren't qualified to make decisions about national defense. These matters should be decided in secret, by qualified experts. Well, who has decided the Pentagon is qualified to judge my life? What gives the government the expertise to make decisions based on a database of individual's actions? After all this must be their intents for this information, they wouldn't just hoard it for the sake of having it?
"dope will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no dope"
Hi, this is your boss. we noticed you were grazing slashdot. please get back to work now.
So it's 1933 and you're Chancellor of a struggling European country and you want to round up a bunch of Communists.
Finding them all is going to be a chore. Wouldn't a LifeLog be helpful?
As for checks and balances, you've enacted the patriotic Enabling Law, which allows you to legally ignore what the rest of the government has to say.
Of course, such a law could never* pass here, right?
* "On October 26, 2001, President Bush signed the USA Patriot Act (USAPA) into law. With this law we have given sweeping new powers to both domestic law enforcement and international intelligence agencies and have eliminated the checks and balances that previously gave courts the opportunity to ensure that these powers were not abused. Most of these checks and balances were put into place after previous misuse of surveillance powers by these agencies, including the revelation in 1974 that the FBI and foreign intelligence agencies had spied on over 10,000 U.S. citizens, including Martin Luther King."
Resist!
1. Pay cash for all your transactions.
2. Take every opportunity to supply false information.
3. Refuse to divulge your SSN, phone number, etc., except as provided for by point 2.
Seriously, if every one of us clogged lifelog in this manner, what use would the database be?
Someone should start a LifeLog of Doug Gage. He seems to be running the program. What's he done in the past? Sounds like time for "This is your life, Dr. Gage."
Ted Nelson already writes down and records everything, for fear of forgetting things or losing his train of thought.
Imagine having a record of everything after your next traffic stop, or when you just can't recall why you wrote that piece of code that way. Tempting, if only there were some way to guarantee that you'd keep control of the information.
There's a problem besides the risk of governments misusing the information you gather. What if people need to forget? Spider Robinson pointed this out in one of his stories, "Melancholy Elephants". Elephants never forget -- and have you ever seen a happy elephant?
There's a saying, "the secret to a good marriage is a bad memory". Would your quality of life improve if you always remembered where you put your keys but also remembered every time your spouse hurt you?
Even if you can't build it. Odds are they will give you the money anyway. Just put lots of big words in the proposal.
....your life are belong to us.
I laughed five years ago when tinfoil sites babbled about this happening "soon". Mmmhhh...
OK, I understand it like this: Governments need to know every detail about their populations in order to secure them, to keep them safe. You see an unemployed anarchist buying an explosives manual? Nab him. You see some student dropping out due to failing to pay tuition, starts buying steel pipe? Get him. Some laid-off workers from some failed company (that cheated them from their stocks and savings while cozily parachuting the top brass) start stirring up some messy marches and picketing, start asking some uncomfortable questions? Book'em.
It's easier to get all them than attacking the sources of those problems.
Or did the terrorists win?
Hmm, it seems that we need a new version of Godwin's law.
... you mean they don't have this already? I mean, what kind of two-bit evil totalitarian regime do we have here anyway?
Call me when someone finds nanochip GPS receivers in McDonald's McFish sammiches, until then it's just no fun.
Right now, any bank, cc company, or mail-order grapefruit place is light years ahead of these people.
...are best left forgotten.
:)
Blogs are bad enough as they are, containing the (mostly) inane drivel that the authors deem fit to record.
These same people, leaving open to scrutiny every facet of their lives, frankly, fills me with trepidation.
It`ll be like Big Brother for boring geeks.
\\ Mitch
I have always been annoyed by data harvesting, either from the private sector (credit report, etc) or by the governement (this Life thingy, Echelon, etc). It is pretty much granted that this trend will not revert since the public is apathic and legislators (governements) have a vested interest in these mega DB. Unless you live like an hermit thousands of miles from civilization, it is almost guaranteed that your personnal data will be collected somehow. The only way I can think to fight back (beside complaining to legislator, which have a razor thin chance of changing something) is to somehow find a way to inject bogus data in these collection systems, thus making the whole DB less accurate and reliable. So far, I have not come up with an efficient and legal way to do that. Certainly, there is somebody smarter than I that have tought about it. So, what is your way of fighting back ?
:wq
Certainly in the Second Century of the Common Era, the concept of an implanted RFID chip would not be known, but instead it would be seen as a "mark."
I wonder if Dubya thinks it through...the way he's going, he's making it possible for the Antichrist to do his stuff.
Then again, maybe he has thought it through...shudder.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
Why don't they just licence the Google code and be done with it? That will save them a lot of trouble and they will have an immediately working system...
Kind of like having someone watch and catalog every time you pee. How is this kind of data gathering even remotely useful?
This signature has Super Cow Powers
Blogs are people's opinions mostly, or their intrepretation of what happened. LifeLog would be actual useable data. (Yes, I am implying that the blog data is NOT useable)
Think about it like this; If it collects Medical Data (bSick == True?) and geospatial data (bBeenToCanada == True?) it can track the common cold, and irradicate it.
M@
Krispy Cream is people
And please, if you think you can squander the project's resources and publish confusing red herrings, also apply for a grant so that this thing never happens.
Let's see ... fix the cable ... clean the pool ... constantly surrounded by naked women ... yep, sounds like they've been documenting my life all right.
Oops -- that sorority just ordered another pizza. BRB.
Uncle Sam is dead, and has been replaced with the :P Yeah, mod
child abusing drunk Uncle Herbert.
me down..... I'm bored.
Hmm... actually it sounds to me like Prof. Steve Mann (http://wearcam.org/) would have the best chance at this contract.
And maybe he's ready to leave Canada, after being roughed up by Air Canada security last year.
Come over, Steve, the water's great. Just watch out for those security checkpoints.
At the end of my file, they will find a picture of me doing my goatse imitation.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
Well, this is the fucking Pentagon (your department of war on other countries) that wants to have a complete database of every tiny little thing about American citizens.
Heh. You have no idea what you're talking about. From DARPA's own TIA page:
The goal of the Terrorism Information Awareness (TIA) program is to revolutionize the ability of the United States to detect, classify and identify foreign terrorists - and decipher their plans - and thereby enable the U.S. to take timely action to successfully preempt and defeat terrorist acts.
I also urge you to read question 5 from the FAQ:
Is DARPA developng a domestic surveillance capability to create dossiers on each and every American?
No. The goal of the TIA program is to develop information technologies that will provide important capabilities to detect foreign terrorist threats before they attack Americans.
So DARPA specifically denies your assertion. Now you may think DARPA is lying... But lacking proof, you might as well joing the Area 51/cattle mutilation crowd. Assuming you haven't already.
Q
I see NO limits to what these people are proposing and implementing,you can clearly read what they want and have "granted" themselves, with a tame federal court system and a "supreme" court that rubber stamps almost every big brother move, and I DOUBT many people "voted" for the level of command and control and surveillance that is happening now, let alone what all these new plans are.
And to clarify a little of this "terrorist" nonsense, here's some links for you to peruse.
Prior knowledge, 9-11
Inforwars, archive
Joe government is a liar and bungler and a crook. Everything these guys especially target and declare a "war" on just wastes money, gets corrupt, and doesn't fix any problems, and usually creates more problems. "War on poverty", "war on drugs". Well, we got as much poverty as we ever had, and the "war on some drugs" is a total failure, costs mega billions, put huge numbers of people in prison, and there's more drugs and corruption and crime then when nixon started it way back when. It's a scam. Mena arkansas ring a bell? Government planes, cash, tons of snow being imported by people getting a government check, plus the cash they make on the side??? Ollie north, george bush senior, bill clinton, iran/contra? Money laundering, BCCI bank, high level named fatcats involved? Ever hear of those things? And now they announce this open ended hundred years vague war on "terror". uh huh. By the way, latest figures, what a coincidence, since the US took over ashcanistan in round one of "war on terror" it went from a low of 80 something tons of opium when the taliban agreed to eliminate it, (estimated produced) to now it's at all time record levels, maybe up to 4,000 tons, with the US being "in control". No, I don't like the taliban, but the other is true, too. They agreed to eliminate it, and did, close to all of it.
Surprised hell out of some spooks and government and banking fatcats who were making truckloads of cash off of it. Losing 100 to 200 billion a year black market cash sure seemed to upset somebody.
Maybe this government got some of the people conned, but other people, it doesn't.
The term "checks and balances" describes the means by which it can be ensured that neither of three coequal branches of government (legislative, executive, and judicial) will abuse or overstep the powers and tasks specifically enumerated to them in the Constitution.
The President's veto power is a "check and balance" on Congress. So is judicial review (the principal that the courts of the United States can determine the constitutionality of any act of Congress, and nullify any laws they deem unconstitutional). The nomination by the President, and confirmation by the Senate, of judicial appointments is another check and balance. Congresses' power to impeach public officials is check and balance on the executive and judicial branches.
Arguably the most important check and balance of all is the trial by a jury of your peers, and protection against retrial after being acquittal by jury of your peers (double jeopardy):
"I consider trial by jury as the only anchor ever yet imagined by man, by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution." - Thomas Jefferson, 1789.
Big brother finds out about A.
A finds out that big brother knows about A.
Big brother finds out that A knows that big brother knows about A.
A finds out that big brother knwos that A knows that big brother knows about A.
disk full.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
what are YOU doing about the situation? are you willing to die in the fight against the man? want to come to the front lines in mexico? email themusicgod1.at.cryptomail.dot.org.
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
that's very disturbing.. fifty a day.. would be potentially normal.. shudder
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
You might want to reconsider whether or not that camera can tell how you feel...
Emotion Recognition Using a Cauchy Naive Bayes Classifier
Facial features detection and face emotion recognition
I meant that it *WILL* be the first query, not that it *SHOULD* be the first query.
How would they backup such a monstrous amount of data anyhow? If the place housing the data goes away, what would happen to the data? the only way i can think of backing it up is to have a huge offsite backup drive farm. i don't think tapes would be an option.
Most annoying rhetorical device on Slashdot?
Teaching a Pig by jefu - Jan 2, 2003
The seventh million post is estimated to happen in mid-September.
I'm sorry, it sounded like it was.
"Has [being a kidnapped teenage girl, raped repeatedly for months] changed you?" - Katie Couric to Elizabeth Smart
the AP story is called "Pentagon Reassures Congress on Spy System"...?
Somehow, the notion of being "reassured" about a "spy system" seems a little...oxymoronic?
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
Give me a mailing address and a couple of burritos, and I'll mail it tomorrow ;)
the rest of us honest patriotic god loving americans follow the rules. We don't need rights.
I say we abolish them, to make the country safe for our children.
(some people really think this way. saying it out loud reveals it's stupidity)
19 f***ing 84
It is now as easy as 1. 2. 3. 4.
1. Get internet
2. Pay fee for lifelong service
3. Search for someone by name or SSN!
4. PROFIT by using their identity to buy items!
I am glad the government finally filled in the third step for me.
If you don't vote, you don't matter, so don't waste your time telling me your opinion
Why can't you guys stop baiting Larry Ellison with story submissions that are a blatant attempt to get his hopes up.
And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads. And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name . Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six. (Revelation 13:16-18)
it's interesting how employers can't "discriminate" based on skin color, gender, or religion, but it's okay to discriminate based on what people do in their freetime as well as age weight and various other things people are consistently and regularly discriminated against for..
this database is one more reason to move to canada and start signing up ashcroft for beastiality transexual midget porn
Quite the disasterous ruling that was. Seeing as the American government was designed for responsiveness to weath and power -- this was a tremendous step forward at the time, mind you -- the corporation absolutely trashes the equation. It is absurd for us to compete with immortal, resource-full metacitizens for the attention of our government. We can prevail against them, but it takes constant, heroic, unrelenting, effort. We all do need to go work for these meta-citizens, too. Ironic.
Can someone get around to designing the next version of the government kernel already?
-------------------
Together, we will drive the rats from the tundra.
Instead of using all these methods that are blatently obtrusive, they should buy blogspot, livejournal, and the other blogs online.
It can be easily understood why the military need this kind of monstrosity. Terrorist attacks worldwide become much more frequent and this tendency is likely to grow.
The question is, why not concentrate the efforts on building a targeted autonomous surveillance drone. Some kind of self-spreading virus-like software, or, better, a piece of hardware tracking every suspicious move and escalating the efforts in all the possible directions. This is no different from manned surveillance, but involves less manpower.
Difficult? Maybe, but much more feasible than building a huge super-expensive network and convincing everybody that the civilians' privacy will not be harmed. Plus, no network can be ubiquitous, so the goal is missed.
Post 6000000 is the 6000001 ish. Whats about the post zero? ITs the post 1 the first
-Woof woof woof!
There is something called "alibis" (plural alibus?)in Robert Sawyer's recent book hominids (ISBN: 0765345005). It is a device that captures vital signs and continuous audio and video from a nearby third person perspective.
A lot of the book's plot revolve around the device so I will try to avoid any spoilers but there are a couple of interesting things that may be useful here.
1. All data is uploaded to a central repository on a continuous basis.
2. The records in the repository are open to their owners, but only onsite. There is no alternative access.
3. Courts can order the opening of an individual's alibi. The process is similar to getting a search warrant.
4. There are no search mechanisms. If you want to find something, you have to rewind the record to a time prior to the event and search by fastforwarding.
The system as described is quite useful (partly because it is deployed in a small community) and security and privacy problems are quite balanced with potential benefits (basically you can clear yourself from any false accusations).
This is of course very different from the system requested in the PIP. Their basic problem (or at least one of them) is to interpret the data stream and assgin it into a higher construct such as translating a three hour video footage and GPS coordinates into "A flight from Milwaukee to New York on Midwest Flight Number 345 on seat 6E".
This crowd, of all people, should see Lifelog as an attempt to do the
book (e.g. primer) from Stephanson's novel Diamond Age.*
The point of making this system WEARABLE is that the user has both
physical and functional control of what information is given to other
systems in the environment. My interpretation of the project is that
the data is gathered BY THE SOLDIER, FOR THE SOLDIER. In other words,
Lifelog will enable soldiers to remember their training, analyze their
own actions, and improve their abilities. Comparing Lifelog and
TIA is completely wrong-headed and misleading.
One of the reasons we started the wearable computing projects at
Georgia Tech (www.cc.gatech.edu/ccg) and MIT
(www.media.mit.edu/wearables) is as a response to the privacy
concerns with the ubiquitous computing idea. If sensors and computers
are put into the environment, the user has to rely on the
trustworthiness of those who maintain the system. If, instead, the
user carries his own infrastructure to get the same functionality, he
has direct physical control on both the security and privacy of the
system. I've been wearing my computer on a daily basis for 10 years
now (the longest such experience I'm aware of), and this idea has been
one of the design principles since before I put on the first machine.
Unfortunately, when the press reports on my former colleague Steve
Mann's webcam, they completely ignore the concept that Steve controls
the information that he sends out. Any privacy violations are subject
to his control - that was the point.
*For those who haven't read Diamond Age, the primer a prototype
electronic book falls into the hands of an orphaned girl. The book
acts as her companion, sensing and reacting to her environment,
teaching her about the world, and allowing her to reflect on her own
situation and actions. In many senses, it was designed to be the
ultimate educator's tool.
...called "the Sims"??
Down with the sta... Oh crap, are they monitoring this? Never mind.