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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."
Unfortunately, it's Jade Goody's
How orwellian our world is becoming. He must have had a time machine or something. Seriously if you havn't read 1984 you really should. Everything is coming true!!
-- Karma Karma Karma Karma, Karma Chameleon - Boy George
I pretty much guessed as much when the DMV in our state issued everyone new license plates. The primary difference was that the new kind are many times more reflective than the old ones, making them ideal for tracking via camera at lengthy distances.
pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
It's like Newtonian Physics to them.
They just want to know where we are, and what we're doing at all times, so that they can extrapolate what we will do next, and thus know the future.
I mean, it's not like this raises privacy concerns or anything
Mod Note: Funny, Insightful, Interesting... g'luck, I think it's all just measuring our cycnicism right now : )
I assert that my comment is only my opinion, not that of any employer, past, present or future.
If Darpa is getting a brain, Does that mean Hussein is getting a heart, and the part of Dorothy is being played by Bush Jr?
(And introducing Ret. Gen. Powell as Toto.)
"Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus."
I'm not too bothered if someone is tracking where I go and where my car goes within a city. I still have the privacy of my own home, which is the only place I really had privacy in the first place, and I have the added benefit of knowing that if my car gets stolen, then someone is tracking it for me. My only worry about this is what happens if the data collected by the government falls into the wrong hands? If someone had enough information about you to know what places you went to on a regular basis, they'd have enough information to know when you're not at home (and therefore the best time to break in and steal things from your house).
I feel the same about the government or my ISP tracking what I do online. If someone know what sites I visit and who I chat to, I'm not really that bothered. If I want to talk PRIVATELY, I'll use an encrypted connection. I don't do anything illegal online (warez, stealing music, etc) so I've nothing to worry about.
Follow me
The USGovt can't even manage the information they receive now. There are reams of information they had about the 9/11 plans that just didn't get invetigated, interrogations that are untranslated years after they happened, untold bytes that are simply stored and unexamined, we should abandon the notion that the government wants these capabilities to protect anyone.
The government wants this information because of a desire for power. Will this be used to scan for threats to the general public or to curtail and monitor the activites of those who threaten governmental power, like dissenting political activists? Look at the history of the abuse of the FBI by almost every executive administration for those answers.
This won't stop until the people pull the plug.
The best way to do is to be.
Ashcroft really scares me. Libertarians were all supported Bush in 2000. I wonder what they will do in 04. My guess is they are more unhappy with Bush then Clinton at this point thanks mostly to CHeney and Ashcroft.
http://saveie6.com/
Guy: Hey, I was on holiday all last year, abroad. I didn't file a return because I didn't make any money.
IRS man: No you weren't. You were in San Francisco all year.
Guy: Oh. I didn't know you could find out that kind of thing.
IRS man: We have photos. Look, some of them are quite good.
Guy: Oh yes. Can I have a copy of that one of me selling stolen car radios at the beach?
IRS man: How about that one? Your hair looks really cool in that one.
Guy: Great!
IRS man: We'll add it to your bill...
You could easily use credit card information to track where people are going, or even record the numbers on their money when they go to the bank, and then see where the money goes. It's not that difficult. It baffles me to think that DARPA could actually track everyone... maybe they could prevent those Jerry Springer episodes by calling you in case your wife's at your brother's house!
stuff |
Either that or people that don't like the idea of being followed 24-7 by a computer system, monitored by a random individual that can look up what the hell they want to about you. I work for the government in Britain, and I accept that while I am in the building my movements will be monitored, but when I leave I can do pretty much what I want, without the worry of people watching me, making assumptions based on someone I walked past on the street. At this rate the next stpe will be to accept this as evidence in a case, at which point you have to worry about people being falsely imprisoned due to their system saying "X has followed the same route as Y to every day at precisely 12:30 pm, therefore we have reason to imprison him under the homeland security act" Would it be my fault that I get the same bus to lunch every day as a terrorist??
I pretty much guessed as much when the DMV in our state issued everyone new license plates. The primary difference was that the new kind are many times more reflective than the old ones, making them ideal for tracking via camera at lengthy distances.
It couldn't be that a more reflective license plate makes your vehicle more visible, and thus less likely to be hit, could it?
That's why I voluntarily chose a highly reflective plate, when it became available.
If 'they' were really interested in tracking the "suspicious people" 'they' just have to hang out in front of "The Village Voice" and WBAI offices in NYC :-)
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
Jesus Tapdancing Christ. Don't you feel that there are people way too close to the levers of power who would be happy if every citizen reported to their local Patriotic Office every day to prove that they were not a terrorist (powder residue tests, full cavity search, lie-detectopr test)?
I'm praying for a rip in the fabric of spacetime that lets the Founding Fathers through. They would be bitch slapping these bastards so hard....
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
Frankly, I don't mind -proposals- and -concepts- like this, if they can be executed properly.
Yeah, I'd like to meet Bob at the server farm, and Bill behind the data feeds, but hey, that's not realistic. I can't remember who said it, but those who do nothing wrong have nothing to fear really. Now sure, if they hit my house with cameras, I might have some qualms, but being out on sidewalks, things like that, it's not too bad if somebody knows that I just got my arse mugged and hunts the perp down using a network of cameras.
Just imagine, something like this could end the high speed police chase once and for all. Just let your perp go right on home, the cameras follow him home. All you need to do is go up there after he parks, "hi, you're under arrest", read the rights, and no death, mayhem, or destruction associated with a chase.
Another thing I heard recently was that maybe, just maybe, the government is actually there to protect and serve. Sure, I would probably run screaming from the USA if they put a Bush behind the controls of a system like this, but they aren't.
I just think it'd be neat if they could actually get this system to work. Just imagine - being able to walk the streets wherever you are without fear of getting mugged, raped, murdered (you might not want to live there if that's a common fear), or anything. It'd be incredible. A system like this is a fine balance between privacy concerns and legality.
So you ask, what happens if the system sees you go from your house to the porno shop? Big deal in my opinion. If somebody leaks the information and you're running for office, big deal - we all have hormones, you know.
So I say let them show what they can, and if they can help out our police force in enforcing laws (yes, they're there, folks), that'd be awesome. I just don't want to see these cameras report DMCA infractions, but I want to see them report muggings, murders, you know, the usual gamut of things one person does to the other on a sidewalk or street. Although it makes me wonder...would a system like this put the guys behind COMAND and OnStar out of business?
While you may not be in college or high school, its views like yours that let democracy fall. So Bin Laden trained a few hundred terrorists (because of our egotistical superiority over the middle east, but thats a whole 'nother topic)... does that give the United States any right to "suspect everybody"??? ABSOLUTELY NOT!!!
The reason that people live in this great country is because people have the freedom to do what they feel is necessary to protect their rights. If someone wants to "steal gas trucks and ram them into office buildings," certainly the government should take steps to stop them from doing so, but not at the expense of giving up our personal freedoms such as the right to privacy.
Sure, its a scary world, and the possibilities are definitely endless for terrorists who want to blow shit up. But being so gripped by fear to give up your freedom to live your life is the most idiotic way to live I've ever heard. There are millions of people around the world living under that kinda of facist/militaristic rule, and I'd be willing to bet that any one of them would LOVE to trade places with you, with the ability to use the internet to look up information they never knew existed before, to drive around in a car wherever they want, and if they desire, to rise up against an evil government and overthrow them!
>I think the US government is now far worse than >the british government was in 1776.
Yes, it's inferior to the Dutch government of 1491 but not as bad as the Ethiopian regime of 1732. On the other hand the French monarchy of 1288 was worse than the Xixian theocracy of the late 14th century, and almost as awful as the Tupi tribal councils of the 1920's.
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
1984 was cool because everyone got thin and flat, big screen tvs in the apartments - for free!
Sure, the downside was that you were monitored, but the units were shiny!
The Big Brother type stuff has always been a dualism for me - part of me thinks it cool to be able to track XYZ and watch the stats of it all, but then there is the part of me that doesn't really personally want to be watched so much.
Of all of the Big Brother type things, my favorite of all time was the AT&T Labs thing where there were units installed into the ceiling tiles that would monitor locations of id trasnmitters that were in id cards, worn by employees.
It would allow someone to finger a user and see what room in a building he/she is in. Or a room could be fingered and then you could see a list of users that are in that room.
That is cool as hell - you could set it up to have a GUI with the building blueprints, and you could setup stats. Show that Joe User spends 5 hours everyday at his desk, and 3 hours at the watercooler.
Cool in the sense that I like it and I'm a stats junkie, but in reality, I'm not so sure I want someone to be able to track that I spend N minutes of the day in the toilet, and then the rest curled up in a ball under my desk, crying. Although I'm pretty certain the resolution on these things isn't good enough to determine the difference between sitting at my desk or sleeping under my desk.
Also, it is an id badge that one wears - one could easily leave it anywhere and bypass the system. That is why we must all get them implanted immediately. Did I just say that?
I am pretty sure this is it here, the Active Badge (the same people that brought us VNC, antoher incredibly cool tool).
There are some odd things afoot now, in the Villa Straylight.
...how would the system react (even one with a 'brain') to people who participated in the Ministry of Silly Walks?
Cruising the internet on my TI-99/4A @ a whopping 300 baud!
Commander: Sweet mother! IFF signal!?
Operator: Unknown, sir!
Commander: Damn it! Any units ready!?
Operator: Negative, fifth armour is stuck in a traffic jam at Main street!
Commander: Damn it all to hell! Get me NORAD on the line, someone inform the president!
Operator: Visual confirmation coming in by TrackSat2 Delta... NORAD will be notified, unable to notify the president sir!
Commander: Explain yourself!
Operator: The president is driving that segway, sir!
Commander: By all that's unholy...
Hate me!
Yeah, but can they see me with my foil hat on?
Linux: Helping nerds look smarter since the late 90s.
Too bad for them, though, that keeping tabs on my position will cause them to lose track of my velocity...
In Soviet Rush, today's Tom Sawyer gets high on you.
In the true penny-arcade style, I propose the following:
We gather a large group in a major urban center. Taking our cars, we drive en masse along a pre-planned route that, to the pattern-matching machine, will appear as a giant wang on the map.
This wang will be awe-inspiring, perhaps enough-so to cause the AI in the machine to become envious, thereby destroying it.
President: What's that on the map? Some sort of terrorist cell!?
CIA guy: Ummm....
President: I want answers!
CIA guy: Well... It appears... to be a... wang, sir.
President: Wang, eh? That some sort of dirty bomb?...
GeekNights!
Late Night Radio for Geeks!
I wonder if DARPA makes a model for my room, or for my house. A consumer model would always be able to tell me where I left my car keys, or where I lost my bookbag. Or where my mind ran off to...
The UK's military comms satellites are called Skynet.
I wonder if I should be afraid?
That means DARPA employees, NSA, CIA, FBI, police, Congressmen, Senators, the Executive, Fortunate Sons of Blue Chip dynasties, [RI|MP]AA execs, Enron/Worldcomm/Haliburton CEOs, high class hookers, roofied teenage pop star wannabes, assorted Princes and diplomats from oppressive oil rich dictatorships, coke dealers, transexual Thai ladyboy dominatrices and all, right?
I ask this because it'll be very interesting to see if Freedom of Information extends to letting We, the People find out the locations of those people, and specifically, interesting intersections of them in space-time.
I'm betting not in practice ("National Security" == "IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH"), but it'd be nice to assert it in principle about now to hopefully give Them a chance to pause for thought.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Even if they get the infrastructure set up, how do they implement this in our legal system? I figure that the images they have will be grainy, black and white, and of blurry, moving cars at night. I don't see how you can hand that to a jury and say, "Well, even though you can't see anything here, our program is nearly 87% certain that this car is in fact the car of the defendant." Is 13% reasonable doubt? Is 12%? We know that .5% isn't, or cases involving DNA evidence would be thrown out. At what point does jury duty become the analysis of quantatative figures as opposed to qualitative arguments?
To some extent I feel like a logical justice system is a step forward for society. At the same time, I'd prefer a trial by my peers, were I ever faced with the choice. Some day a jury deliberation may be number crunching:
"Well, the computer on 4th and Broad Street has determined with 75 percent probability that the defendant was moving towards the scene of the crime, and the computer on 5th and Broad Street gives us a 80 percent probability that he stopped at the scene. That gives us a 95% degree of probability that he was at the scene at the time of the murder. According to the Numerical Methods Act of 2015, we have to convict him."
while (!sleep){
sheep++;
}
That's the passive way to do things.
While the afformentioned inner-city thugs or extremist groups may or may not have legitimate grievances, the United States (or any other country) simply cannot afford to appease these groups, as this would set a precedent for others who would then also use violence against civilians as a means of achieving their sociopolitical goals.
Inner-city drug dealers and hoodlums, regardless of color (because (if not joking) association of inner-city crime with blacks reeks of racism), ARE the problem. They may result from conditions of poverty, but they are in and of themselves a problem w/ society. The USA, and other countries, can largely stop this problem from recurring by adopting an educative welfare program to put inner-city children through school, give them employment opportunities, and mainstreaming vouchers, including post-secondary education in the program. Our current system of simply handing out money, or utterly neglecting the inner-city poor, is doing nothing but failing them. Nothing we do with this system, no amount of money, will solve the underlying problems (lack of education, mismanagement of funds, lack of hope/direction leading to frustration which in turn leads to crime).
As for extremist groups, the answer is not to fix our foreign policy. Sorry. Groups like Al Qaeda are comprised of bigoted, maniacal individuals who pervert good religions (in this case, Islam) to suit their goals. The Palestinian terrorist groups (such as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Fatah (yes, Fatah), and the Palestine Liberation Organization), who claim to represent the interests of the Palestinian people, are also extremists who must not be dealt with or had concessions made to. Groups that brainwash the helpless children of a foundling nation (Palestine) to perpatrate attacks on civilians do not do so to further Palestinian interests; they do so out of rabid hate. I personally think that American foreign policy towards the Palestinians should be as such: offer to extend a helping hand to Abu Mazen and the legitimate Palestinian government, either through a multinational task force such as a UN peacekeeping contingent, or some sort of coalition, by deploying troops to help remove the radical groups that forment anti-Israeli sentiment, perpatrate attacks that endanger the road map, and undermine the authority of the Palestinian government.
On one hand, our government wants to track all movement.
.
On the other, they're terrified of a dissertation that uses simple data mining to reveal infrastructure weakness.
So . . . they're going to build a massive system, rely on it, and thus give people a nice jucy target to screw up. Knowing the government, it won't work anyway, or if it somehow works it'll be misused, making it only more laughable.
Besides, imagine what happens when someone Bluescreens national security . .
"The Sage treasures Unity and measures all things by it" - Lao Tzu
This stuff all already exists in various components. It is just being pieced together a little differently. It is another tool developed from existing components. Like most tools it can be used for good or evil. Even a hammer can be used for evil but nobody would consider outlawing hammers.
Like most people, I value my privacy. Matter of fact, I place a high value on my privacy. But when I am in public, I behave like I am in public. By doing so, when I am out and about I attract very little attention and I remain more private than if I were to draw attention to myself.
I can see this tool being used for good, to catch criminals, to determine where stashes of drugs are hidden and so on. But just as importantly, I can see how it can invade privacy of innocent people.
Hopefully it will never be used for anything outside of the battlefield. If it is hopefully the courts will see it as an invasion of privacy and require law enforcement to have a warrant to employ it and place significant restrictions on the data it gathers! By that I mean the courts should require all data gathered that does not lead to criminal prosicution to be destroyed.
I can see how this tool can be used for good but I can also see it's evil nature. Let's make sure it is very tame before we let ot out of the coral. If we don't we as a society will be living under the thumb of as society no better than the Nazis
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.
We are always quick to point out that just because something CAN be used to do something illegal, it should not be illegal itslef. DeCSS, modchips, software cracks, file sharing, you know what I mean.
Well.. are we not then two faced if we sit here and complain that the government is developing something that could be used to track people in cities? We all know what happens when you block technology, right? It goes underground.
If your government wants to spy on you, you need to make sure that spying is clearly illegal, so those involved can be prosecuted... not try to keep technology out of their hands.
that Conservatives stood for smaller government... surely creating equipment to monitor each street in the country (because it seems to me it'd be a lot easier to install cameras, or use existing ones in our own cities rather than it would be to send technicians out to a war zone and start installing cameras while people are shooting at you!) is the opposite of that.
As a matter of fact, the first time you do something "erratic" or "suspicious" to the computer system and it sends a police car to follow you around and/or arrest or harrass you, you will be so glad we live in a free country that is just protecting us from terrorists.
I'm in my late 20's so I still get harrassed often by police because young men often look suspicious to police because of our age and when we do suspicious things such as drive around or walk. Just last week I was followed around my apartment complex all the way to my house because I looked suspicious... I was going to ask the officer what the problem was but unfortunately there is no way to question my local police...
Once I tried talking to one as he was about to follow me into my gated apartment complex (a separate incident) after he unsuccessfully tried to guess a gate code for a few minutes rather than using the emergency code (because he really just wanted to drive around and harrass people and had no reason to be there). I told him, very politely, actually, because a friend of mine who is a policeman in Ft. Lauderdale that was visiting me was in the car with me, "Sir, please use your gate code". He then almost broke down the gate with the car that my taxes in part paid for and screamed (at the top of his lungs and in a very inappropriately rude and loud response to a very calm statement on my part (I have a witness)) "Boy, move your car or I'm gonna arrest you and kick your A**". After being threatened by the cop, my Policeman buddy explained to me that, though the cop was being a prick, was absolutely wrong, was trying to break into my neighborhood (there is an emergency gate code for official police business he did not use and the fact that he was trying for about five minutes to guess a resident gate code so it wouldn't be on the record that he used the emergency code for no emergency), and threatened to beat the crap out of me, I better let him in because I should show him some respect.
After this incident, I am afraid to speak to police because, in their line of work my friend told me, they are suspicious of everyone for their own safety. That's fine, and I think wise, but there is a serious difference between being overly cautious and suspicious and beind downright disrespectful, threatening, and harassing young people and minorities because we all "look suspicious". Perhaps I should spray paint my hair grey so I don't "look suspicious" anymore.
I know my experiences with police have been extremely mild in comparison with other people's experiences, fortunately for me, I never was up to no good when encountering police. Well, this is certainly an off-topic rant, but it goes to show how enthusiastic I am to be visually followed around a city, marked as "suspicious" because I'm young, then pinpointed for harrassment by the police.
Surely there are more respectful ways to treat americans!
-Joe
If we're all god's children, what's so special about Jesus? - Jimmy Carr
Way back in the 1980s I used to do a lot of travel between England and Ireland. As an American citizen liveing in Ireland, I carried a passport issued by the US Consulate in Dublin.
I swear, every time I was stopped at Heathrow, they'd pull out the book of wanted IRA men and compare my picture to every damned one. Thank you, NORAID.
More recently, passing through Gatwick, I had my picture taken and compared programatically to a list of wanted faces. The camera was right out there in front of me. I've yet to experience the same in the U.S.
I guess the point is that the US may be going to hell, but it's doing so more slowly than everywhere else.
668: Neighbour of the Beast
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
A programmer is a machine for converting coffee into code.
Your arguments are almost completely based upon personal conviction, thus they are difficult to reason with.
However, I must take issue with you on this point:
For over 95% of the inhabitants of this planet, spiritual matters are a factor in life.
This is simply not true. According to Encarta, non-believers comprise approximately 21 percent of the people on the planet.
Just because your broadly defined "organized religions" are a majority in a sense, does not indicate, to me or most others who value the idea of democracy, that they should inflict others with rigid and arbitrary personal morays.
Also, I find this interesting:
People's convictions don't change simply because you change a law
Right. Laws change because societies convictions change.
Also, many of the religions you are putting under the same hat embrace diversity. Even some Christians believe it or not.
(Apparently, some ancient technology known as the "media" used to work, and another called "the Constitution" was also formerly useful. But we didn't replace the dilithium crystals or something.)
Tracking terrorists? While dozens of police cars head for the "last known" location of a target, the real terrorist can have a wonderful time planting bombs somewhere the hell else.
We're probably about 5 years away to improving any such system to the 1% level.
Tech Public Policy stuff