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Big Brother Gets a Brain
Gregus writes "The Village Voice delves into the DARPA's latest plan to track people and vehicle movement in cities, ostensibly for urban warfare, though this would be really handy watching 'suspicious' people in any city. "The goal, according to a recent Pentagon presentation to defense contractors, is to 'track everything that moves.' " The actual DARPA RFP and briefings. I just feel more safe all the time."
The UK's military comms satellites are called Skynet.
I wonder if I should be afraid?
If anything it's so that they can bounce their laser guns more effectively off of your car, thereby writing you a ticket and increasing their revenue. Pigs...
If you have not ready 1984 here is where you can download an digital copy.
I highly recommend this book, however if you have a paranoid nature you may not really want to read it.
10: PRINT "Everything old is new again."
20: GOTO 10
We have this already in London - all cars in and out of the congestion charging zone get clocked by cameras and their number plates are fed into a central computer. Women wanting to know if their husbands made it into work today - or skipped off to play golf/see the mistress can call up and check if a plate has been in the zone. It wouldn't take too much effort to extend this out and use other vehicle characteristics rather than just number plates to track vehicles continuously.
It's hard to measure Quality of Life, but before assuming that Americans are really well off consider the findings of the UN's Human Development Report. In particular look at how many Americans live below the median income (compared with other "developed" nations), or people living under (the equivalent of) $11US per day
One could go on about life expectancy, infant mortality, and other such "quality of life" stats... But you've got the relevant link and can look up these topics to your heart's content.
The Institute for Applied Autonomy has a nice tool to plan paths through Manhattan that will take you past the fewest cameras. I imagine these kinds of tools will spring up in other areas
Or you can get ahead of them like I have. Get a tracking cell phone while it is still optional
Free cell phone tracking
I wouldn't be so sure that it doesn't work technically. There is a congestion charge for an area in Central London, people who enter an 8-square-mile area during working hours have to pay (see e.g. IHT article on that subject). The number plates are read automatically, only when someone doesn't pay, the pictures are viewed by a human being before a fine is imposed. The system relies on automatic reading of number plates, as do other systems for tracking car drivers illegally using bus lanes or speeding.
Of course, all these systems only control a very limited area, building a system that controls "everything that moves" in a large area would be very expensive at the moment, but, judging from existing experience, it seems to be feasible technically, and it can well be that it becomes much cheaper in the future.
Another question is, of course, how millions of information items of the kind 'X drove from A to B at 12:34' could be interpreted. If it is to get payment from X, it's clear what the aim is (which of course doesn't mean that the data could be used for something else, as well), but that's not the aim of DARPA. I think we shouldn't rely too much on such systems not being feasable technically, but think about possible abuse in time, before they are in place.
> Well, to be fair, those drugs never have been legal per se, just a bit less criminal.
Oh dear. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. Unquestioning acceptance of the Party line? Plus good.
Read about the history of drug prohibition. It's come in piecemeal, and it's come because right thinking White Anglo Saxon Protestants want to protect niggers, chinks and spics from their own brutish, unevolved natures. If you think I'm trolling, read the link and read the quotes from eminent US statesmen.
The history of drug prohibition in the USA is a pretty repugnant one. Get back to me if and when we ever admit that, turn it around and legalize (not decriminalize) any of those drugs so beloved of Uncle Tom and his dusky skinned cohorts. We won't, because we'll always need to have a boogieman under the bed, smoking crack and planning to rape our white virgin daughters.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Woody Harrelson's movie "weed" is also a great source of info on the war on drugs; lots of archival footage, interviews with researchers, etc.
Funny as hell, also.
Why, yes, I AM a Pagan Libertarian.
They're already starting to track vehicle identity in Australia to give out speeding tickets.
Camera network set to catch Hume speedsters
The main paragraphs since no one on slashdot reads the articles are:
Ten cameras to be installed along the Hume Freeway soon will measure the average speed of cars over the entire 300-kilometre journey between Melbourne's northern fringe and Wodonga.
Drivers whose overall progress is faster than the speed limit allows will be fined. Drivers will also be caught if they are speeding as they pass a camera.
The company said yesterday the cameras combined digital imaging and optical character recognition to read vehicle number plates. The cameras would be networked and synchronised.
riding round the world on an old motorcycle