New Radar Sees Through Walls

artemis67 writes "A small Israeli company has developed a radar system that uses ultra-wideband technology to produce three-dimensional pictures of the space behind a wall from a distance of up to 20 meters. The pictures, which reportedly resemble those produced by ultrasound, are relatively high-resolution and are produced in real time. Wow, it sounds like the potential benefits of this device are huge, saving lives of soldiers, firemen, or police; the potential for privacy invasion, however, is similarly large."

Comments

Our gratitude

[andyrut]

On behalf of the Peeping Tom Society I say thanks, RadarVision!

If it's not already Slashdotted, you can download the sample video off of the RadarVision website. The display doesn't give you Superman see-everything-in-detail-through-walls kind of powers (Lois Lane: "what kind of underwear am I wearing?"), but it's still pretty cool that this kind of thing can be done without using heat signatures and whatnot.

Re:Our gratitude

[DHR]

wow, a glowing blob, what an invasion of privacy.

Re:Our gratitude

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't wait to see the *hot* new sexy Palestinian Girls Gone Wile video!

Better start checking empornium for a bit torrent...

Re:Our gratitude

[Short Circuit]

Actually, I think a low-resolution system is a worse invasion of privacy than a high-resolution.

A low-resolution system is liable to lead to much more subjective interperetation in court. So you see the shape of the blob change slightly while he's at his computer. Is he drinking coffee or is he getting off looking at child porn?

Re:Our gratitude

[SparklesMalone]

Cool link, but it's the "old" Time Domain brand, not the newer Camero brand. The newer brand has better res according to the article. Here's a couple other news sites that popped out of Google:
Isreali press and an investor announcement.

Re:Our gratitude

[geoffspear]

That's why we have that whole "beyond a reasonable doubt" burden of proof thing.

If they have a low-res recording of you building a bomb, your defense attorney can reasonably argue that the blob the jury sees could be doing anything. I doubt such images would ever even be considered admissible by the courts if they were of such low quality.

Re:Our gratitude

[DrFrasierCrane]

"Is he drinking coffee or is he getting off looking at child porn?" The answer, of course, is: Yes.

Re:Our gratitude

[Anonymous Coward]

That's why we have that whole "beyond a reasonable doubt" burden of proof thing.

Yeah, but that takes too long and then you get where we are now: legal system bogged down in cases, half the population in law school, etc etc. We don't need perfect justice, just "good enough" justice. Like maybe a couple of guys with a pitchfork and some rope.

Re:Our gratitude

[Jesrad]

And blinded by any cheap air ionizer !

Re:Our gratitude

[WoodenRobot]

Pfff. We've had the technology to look through walls for ages.

It's called a 'window'.

Re:Our gratitude

[geoffspear]

The reasonable doubt provision does not aim to provide "perfect justice". Perfect justice would be if everyone who committed a crime was convicted and everyone who was accused of a crime he or she did not commit was acquitted.

Fortunately, the authors of the US Constitution believed, as I do, that it's "good enough" to let some people who commit crimes get acquitted if the government can't prove beyond a reasonable doubt that they're guilty, to ensure that not a single innocent person is convicted.

The real problem is that our law schools produce people who can, as Socrates was accused of doing, make the weaker argument appear to be the stronger, and convince juries to convict people who not only aren't guilty beyond any reasonable doubt, but who are later proven beyond any doubt whatsoever to be not guilty when new evidence or new techniques of analyzing evidence are used. Just having one person on death row exonerated by DNA evidence shows that the system is horribly broken.

Of course, the sort of "strict constructionists" who believe that the government should never, ever, even think of overstepping the authority granted to it in the Constitution are, ironically, the exact same people who think it's a "technicality" when an alleged criminal is set free because the Constitution includes specific provisions to protect the People from abuse by the government.

Re:Our gratitude

[sharkey]

Now, this technology is new to me, but...I'm pretty sure that's Homer Simpson in the oven, rotating slowly. His body temperature has risen to over 400 degrees -- he's literally stewing in his own juices.

Re:Our gratitude

[hoggoth]

> Is he drinking coffee or is he getting off looking at child porn?

That all depends... is he drinking the coffee in quick little sips over and over again, drinking faster and faster until he appears to spill some coffee and reach for some napkins to clean it up?

Then he's just drinking coffee.

Re:Our gratitude

[Anonymous Coward]

wooooooosh!

Re:Our gratitude

[EvanED]

The real problem is that our law schools produce people who can, as Socrates was accused of doing, make the weaker argument appear to be the stronger, and convince juries to convict people who not only aren't guilty beyond any reasonable doubt, but who are later proven beyond any doubt whatsoever to be not guilty when new evidence or new techniques of analyzing evidence are used. Just having one person on death row exonerated by DNA evidence shows that the system is horribly broken.

Oh, bull. You seem to be arguing that having any false positives are unacceptable. What if all the evidence that *was* available pointed very strongly to the accused, but by some enormous coincidence was wrong? You can't have a 'proven guilty beyond no doubt' standard, or no one would ever be convicted...

Re:Our gratitude

[bckrispi]

You're kind of missing the problem here. The "blobs" being admissible in court isn't the issue. Using this technology to establish probable cause for executing a warrant *is*. Let me clarify this with a "real world" example that I read about a couple of years ago.

"John" was suspected of growing Marijuana in his attic with intent to sell. The police tried to get a warrant to search John's house, but they hadn't established enough probable cause to get a judge to sign the warrant, even with John's house under surveilance(sp?).

The police then used an Infrared camera to look "inside" John's house (without a warrant) to see what he was up to. They saw the heat coming of the growing lights illuminating what appeared to be a small forest of Home Grown. The police return to the Judge with this evidence. The judge signs the warrant, John's house is searched, the weed is found, and John is arrested.

In a pre-trial hearing, John's lawyer challenged the legality of the search, on the grounds that the police effectively "searched behind closed doors" by using the infrared camera without a search warrant.

Unfortunately, I can't remember for the life of me what the judge ruled on this motion, but it is very similar to what we're dealing with here. Essentially, it deals with what is considered 'plain sight' for an officer. It is accepted that an officer can use what he sees in his depth of vision as evidence. If you allow a policeman into your house, and he sees drugs lying in open on the table, you sure as hell will be arrested. But that same officer has no right to start opening drawers in your house looking for drugs. IR and Sonic technology "blur the line" on what is plain sight, and what is an intrusive search.

Re:Our gratitude

[cheezit]

The parent post's point was that for the *death* penalty the stakes should be almost impossibly high, because a mistake is not correctible in any way. I can't speak for the poster but I think it is only rational that non-death penalty cases would be held to a lower standard.

Re:Our gratitude

[Eskarel]

The issue is not whether they can use this to convict you in court(in most cases as you say a good defense attorney could plant massive seeds of doubt if this was their primary evidence).

The problem is that this sort of evidence would be more than enough to get a search warrant and assuming they can get within range of your house without stepping on your property, it's use probably doesn't require one.

This means that the cops can scan your house whenever they like and use these scans to get a warrant. True if you're not doing anything wrong you shouldn't(shouldn't I say not don't) have anything to worry about, but it's still a bit of an invasion of privacy.

Re:Our gratitude

[Armando_Mcgillicutty]

What if you have glass doors? The cop can see the drugs, but they're behind closed doors. Are you protected? Infared cameras can see through things like wood doors, and you're the source of infared energy and sending it outside. Sonic would (should?) be different, in that case, they're sending a signal *into* your home, in the form of a sound wave, I think they should have a warrant to do that for sure.

Re:Our gratitude

[bartle]

Unfortunately, I can't remember for the life of me what the judge ruled on this motion, but it is very similar to what we're dealing with here.

Your post would've been that much more worth reading if you could have remembered. The supreme court ruled that infared cameras and similiar uses of technology required the use of a warrant.

Re:Our gratitude

[Carnildo]

The problem is that this sort of evidence would be more than enough to get a search warrant and assuming they can get within range of your house without stepping on your property, it's use probably doesn't require one.

This should already be covered under the ruling that using infrared to look into a house requires a search warrent.

Re:Our gratitude

[Descartes]

Damn, I squandered my mod points. +1 Informative

Re:Our gratitude

[sallen]

Unfortunately, I can't remember for the life of me what the judge ruled on this motion, but it is very similar to what we're dealing with here

IANAL but going on recollection, if it's the same case, I believe it got through at least the appeals court. In trying to keep evidence in case I believe an attempt was made to say it was similar to listining in on a wireless phone, which I think has been premitted. I believe it was determined a search warrant was required as the ultrasound device, in essence, had the police crossing the threshold and 'entering' the premises without a warrant. (Different than a phone where the radio waves escaped the presmises and were available without crossing such a boundry.)

Re:Our gratitude

[skeller]

Of course, the sort of "strict constructionists" who believe that the government should never, ever, even think of overstepping the authority granted to it in the Constitution are, ironically, the exact same people who think it's a "technicality" when an alleged criminal is set free because the Constitution includes specific provisions to protect the People from abuse by the government.

Actually, I think you're more likely to find that strict constructivists hate the fact that the majority of said technicalities exist only due to activist intreprations of the Constitution. Consider the Miranda ruling or the various rulings creating the Exclusionary Rule (which says that evidence obtained without probable cause or a warrant is inadmissable in court). These are pretty broad interpretations of the Bill of Rights, and are even more broadly applied to the states when you consider that the restrictions in the Bill of Rights seem to apply primarily to the federal government.

The people who would prefer that the Exclusionary Rule, which is one of those "technicalities" that "get tough on crime!" people tend to bemoan, be left up to individual states are off their rockers, but their claims are not without constitutional merit. At least not from a literal interpretation of the Constitution.

Re:Our gratitude

[EvanED]

Ah, okay, that makes more sense.

Re:Our gratitude

[bckrispi]

What if you have glass doors? The cop can see the drugs, but they're behind closed doors. Are you protected?

Again, this is "plain sight". IANAL, so I don't know if this is enough for a cop to knock down your door to arrest you (he *is* in fact witnessing a crime in progress), but it is at least enough probable cause to get a search warrant that will stick. However, as soon as you pull your blinds shut, it becomes a totally different matter.

Think of this analogy. Let's say you're having sex (yes, this is /., so use your imagination) inside your house in front of an unobstructed window that can be clearly viewed from the street. If a neighbor witnesses this, in most states, you're risking an indecency charge. However, as soon as you pull the blinds shut, you are in essence putting up an expectation of privacy. That same neighbor will have to violate your privacy (again, in many states, a crime) in order to see the juicy events that are going on inside.

Re:Our gratitude

[bradleyjg]

"Of course, the sort of "strict constructionists" who believe that the government should never, ever, even think of overstepping the authority granted to it in the Constitution are, ironically, the exact same people who think it's a "technicality" when an alleged criminal is set free because the Constitution includes specific provisions to protect the People from abuse by the government."

Bullshit. See for example Kyllo v. United States, which was authored by Justice Scalia and forbids cops from using thermal scanning without a warrent.

Re:Our gratitude

[jackshck]

this was made for sco. linux gives off a unique signature so they can now collect license fees.

Re:Our gratitude

[pegr]

That's why we have that whole "beyond a reasonable doubt" burden of proof thing.
If they have a low-res recording of you building a bomb, your defense attorney can reasonably argue that the blob the jury sees could be doing anything. I doubt such images would ever even be considered admissible by the courts if they were of such low quality.

It would never make it to court. The low-res version could consitute "reasonable suspicion" and result in a warrant. Being caught building the bomb would be "beyond a reasonable doubt."

Re:Our gratitude

[Pharmboy]

I doubt such images would ever even be considered admissible by the courts if they were of such low quality.

This technology isn't even remotely designed for use in court. Its designed so you know that you need to pitch a grenade through a window before entering. Flashbang or frag, your choice.

The only police application is helping in apprehending someone, not proving they did anything. If you look outside and see the cops with one of these on your outside wall, you can bet they are already done gathering evidence.

Re:Our gratitude

[tuckerteeth]

Now the Israeli military can see the women and children behind the walls of the house they are about to bulldoze - woohoo another great advance.

Re:Our gratitude

[pcmanjon]

"The only police application is helping in apprehending someone, not proving they did anything. "

Yeah, first its apprehending someone... then once the general population accepts that as part of life... they see if they can get away as using these as evidence...

public doesn't seem to make much of a fit (cept for slashdot)

It becomes a part or life.. then it's normal everyday was of catching criminals...

Don't you know this by now? ;-)

Re:Our gratitude

[Anonymous Coward]

You'll quickly realise that installing a window while your victims are standing in the same room doesn't pass unperceived.

Re:Our gratitude

[NecoX]

Uhm, how can it "blur the line" plain means just that, plain. The cops just broke the law because they wanted proof, hooray.

Re:Our gratitude

[geoffspear]

That was my point. The person I was replying to was specifically discussing his belief that "low-res" images of this sort could be interpreted, in court, to mean absolutely anything, in the absence of other evidence showing what you were actually doing, which is clearly something our court system is supposed to be set up to prevent. The prosecution's burden of proof is specifically set at a higher level so they can't show a jury a video of a blob moving around doing something indeterminate and then say "see, he could be looking at child porn right here".

Re:Our gratitude

[Keebler71]

I still think that was a bad call by a justice system that didn't understand the physics of the problem. The defendant argued that by observing his house with IR detectors, the police were, in-effect, looking throught the walls. This could not be farther from the truth. Infrared looks at the house, just at a different wavelength than visible. Because it is IR, one is effectively looking at not the color of the surfaces, but the temperature of the surfaces. Now, from this, additional inforation can be inferred about what is going on in the house, namely, that there are very hot bulbs in the house, making it a possible pot farm. Similiarly if a passing officer smelled something incrimimnating coming from the house, they could make a similiar inference, but no one would accuse them of 'smelling through the walls'. IMHO, looking at the external temperature of a house is no different than looking at its color...

Contrast IR with this radar technology, in which active RF energy no-kidding is directed at the house, passing through walls, and returning to the receiver to register an image. Clearly -this- is looking inside a house, further drawing the distiction that IR (passive) is not looking inside.

Re:Our gratitude

[Keebler71]

Cool! Did anyone else watch the video and think of the motion detectors from Aliens?

Re:Our gratitude

[bckrispi]

Uhm, how can it "blur the line" plain means just that, plain.

Uhm, simple. Take the use of drug-sniffing dogs. The supreme court has ruled that use of these dogs w/out a warrant is legal to "smell beyond" what an officer can plainly see.

That's something to remember...

[teutonic_leech]

... next time I read the newest Playboy mag at home - LOL

Re:That's something to remember...

[Saeed al-Sahaf]

Do I have to worry about this thing reducing my sperm count?

Re:That's something to remember...

[Dr Caleb]

Do I have to worry about this thing reducing my sperm count?

No, but I'd keep all your microwave popcorn in tinfoil to avoid sudden 'pantry malfunctions'.

Re:That's something to remember...

[Anonymous Coward]

Read??? Does Playboy have words? I never noticed!

Oh good

[Aggrazel]

Now if we can just condense this technology into a pair of glasses ...

Re:Oh good

[Anonymous Coward]

I still have my "X-Ray" glasses that I ordered from an add in the comic book "The Flash". This was in about 1963. It's about time everyone else has caught up!

Re:Oh good

[Procrastin8er]

I think I ordered a pair of those when I was 10 years old from a magazine. Didn't work very well though.

No fears...

[swordboy]

This stuff will never penetrate my Tin Foil Apartment!

Re:No fears...

[SEWilco]

What is the best brand of tinfoil for radar?

Re:No fears...

[swordboy]

What is the best brand of tinfoil for [anti-]radar?

It is called, "Foiled Again" and it is made by Hannah-Barbera.

Re:No fears...

[SEWilco]

It is called, "Foiled Again" and it is made by Hannah-Barbera.

Is ACME the supplier?

I already tried this

[Anonymous Coward]

When I was a kid, I ordered the X-Ray vision glasses advertised in the back of my comic book. I was not pleased with the results.

Hmm

[rfinnvik]

...See through... ...Israeli... ...Walls...

Hmm.... Sounds like useful technology.

Re:Hmm

[nappingcracker]

haha, get it?
a good chuckle. heh.
come on, thats great poli-humor.
ahh, hmm.
nm, ive had too many donuts today, giddy hypoglycemia or something.
yup.

the sword has two edges

[Anonymous Coward]

with technology comes benefits and drawbacks. We are desparate for the benefits and become dependent on them, while drowning in the drawbacks.

terrahertz imaging

[bobthemuse]

Isn't this similar to the terahertz imaging previously discussed? Also seen here and here?

Re:terrahertz imaging

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but now the Israelis have done it, which makes it so much more important.

Re:terrahertz imaging

[mattjb0010]

The idea is basically the same, using EM radiation and then in the mathematical techniques for reconstructing a 3D image, except the depth of penetration is much greater for radar, the methods for production of EM radiation in that band easier, and THz radiation generally sucks for going through anything with water (including water vapour in air).

Re:terrahertz imaging

[CXI]

It's actually nothing like it if you watched the sample video. It's actually an Aliens motion tracker. And I mean exactly like it.

Re:terrahertz imaging

[CXI]

Or maybe not, apparently someone linked to the wrong company. Radarvision is an Aliens motion tracker, not sure about the device the article was actually mentioning.

Re:terrahertz imaging

[Anonymous Coward]

"It's readin' Right, Man!" "Well, you ain't reading it tight." ...
"I got readings! I got signals in front and behind!!" ...
ANd my favorite (off topic): "Get away from her, you BITCH!!"

Re:terrahertz imaging

[Anonymous Coward]

Wtf are you talking about? The Terrahertz imaging mentioned is totally passive, relying on the natural vibration of materials to show themselves.

(-1 sycophant)

hmmm......

[Osgyth]

IDK, without the pretty pictures, it just seems less interesting

didn't read the article, but what about timeDomain

[Anonymous Coward]

a few years back, didn't the company TimeDomain do something like this already with ultrawide spectrum radar?

Very cool

[AKAImBatman]

I could see this being especially useful for counter-sniper sweeps. If you can see through buildings, you can do a helicopter sweep of the area and verify that no snipers are waiting to kill a VIP on the move.

Re:Very cool

[dave420]

All from 20 feet away? All you need is a building with a point 20 feet from the nearest walls, and the technology is rendered useless.

Re:Very cool

[DrEldarion]

Of course, on the flipside, if you manage to integrate it into a scope, it could be a very useful tool for snipers as well.

Re:Very cool

[Mr. Spontaneous]

"All from 20 feet away?"

the article says 20 meters.

Re:Very cool

[AKAImBatman]

All from 20 feet away? All you need is a building with a point 20 feet from the nearest walls, and the technology is rendered useless.

The handheld unit does 20 feet away. A heli powered unit might be more powerful. Besides, the advantage to a helicopter is that you CAN get within 20 feet to check. It slows down the sweep, but at least you can make sure that your President or foreign national is safe.

Re:Very cool

[HexRei]

given the point of sniping (avoiding the necessity of getting close to someone before shooting them), that 20 meter limitation is going to be a problem.

Re:Very cool

[AKAImBatman]

That's a bit more doubtful. One of the sniper's biggest advantages is his extreme distance (sometimes as far as miles away). Even a high powered military scope would have difficulty in finding the target at that range. However, that doesn't mean that you couldn't use it to target someone in the building next door. You'll have to be satisfied with increased risk, however.

Re:Very cool

[genner]

Every counter-strike wall hacker would agree with you.

Re:Very cool

[AKAImBatman]

Correction, the range of the handheld unit is 20 meters. That's 65 feet.

Re:Very cool

[saderax]

Why would you need a sniper rifle if you are 15-30 ft away from the target?

Re:Very cool

[Alkaiser]

What are you talking about? Everyone HATES snipers with the wallhack.

Re:Very cool

[geoffspear]

Presumably, the security force's helicopters would not, in fact, be hovering right over the target, as the slight chance a sniper would be around would be insignificant compared to the chance the helicopter itself would kill the guy. The suggestion was a helicopter-mounted unit to check buildings with a line of sight to where the VIP would be travelling.

Re:Very cool

[linzeal]

Robotic sniper with wind measuring instruments on path to target and multiple forward observation points with a whole suite of different bandwidth cameras. Point and click, indeed.

Re:Very cool

[AKAImBatman]

I'll happily disagree with you just as soon as I figure out what you just said.

Re:Very cool

[Anonymous Coward]

and if hitler had it he would have found all the jews who were hiding.... nice going!

Re:Very cool

[AKAImBatman]

Dag nabbit! You HAD to invoke Godwin's Law, didn't you? Now this thread is going to die because of some stupid comment that doesn't even make any sense.

Hitler: "Are there people in that building?!"
Soldier: "Ya, heir Hitler!"
Hitler: "Are they Jews?"
Soldier: "How da hell should I know, heir Hitler?"

Re:Very cool

[tool462]

I imagine a system similar to AWACS, but for snipers. Imagine you're in an urban war-zone, enemy combatants hiding in bombed out buildings all over the place. You have a network of these radar devices (airborne or land units) connected to the scopes of sniper rifles. The scope feeds information about location and where the gun is pointing to the radar system and the system gives it a real-time image of what the gun is pointing at. As an added bonus, this location information can be used to identify friendly units in the scope, reducing unwanted casualties. A smart enough system could even provide automatic target acquisitioning--prioritizing targets based on either location, or direction of travel (i.e., hit the guy trying to blow up the embassy before he even rounds the corner).

On second thought, more than just snipers would benefit from this. If every soldier had this built in to their equipment, they reduce the risk of being ambushed.

These are just my non-sensical ramblings, but in all seriousness this could do for urban warfare what radar did for air combat and sonar for naval combat.

Re:Very cool

[JohnsonWax]

You don't play enough games.

Worthless for snipers - but perfect for urban combat - clearing rooms, etc. One of the biggest problems is not knowing what's on the other side of a door or at the top/bottom of the stairs.

Re:Very cool

[sharkey]

However, I'm pretty sure Konane wouldn't.

Re:Very cool

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would you need a sniper rifle if you are 15-30 ft away from the target?

In Israel, where this was developed, they use Sidewinder missles to kill terrorists walking on the beach. In that case the missiles decapitated one of the terrorists before hitting the sand behind the body, while other missiles missed.

Re:Very cool

[Phurd Phlegm]

That's a bit more doubtful. One of the sniper's biggest advantages is his extreme distance (sometimes as far as miles away). Even a high powered military scope would have difficulty in finding the target at that range. However, that doesn't mean that you couldn't use it to target someone in the building next door. You'll have to be satisfied with increased risk, however.

Not to mention that shooting someone through a wall is kind of inaccurate. I guess it depends on a) what the wall is made of and b) what you're shooting. That 155mm "sniper rifle" would probably work pretty well. Another problem might be telling who you're looking at. You could probably distinguish a large from a small person, but what if there are three 180 pound guys?

I guess with the 155mm solution, again it just doesn't matter.

Re:Very cool

[harlows_monkeys]

I could see this being especially useful for counter-sniper sweeps. If you can see through buildings, you can do a helicopter sweep of the area and verify that no snipers are waiting to kill a VIP on the move

Even without range issues, I don't think that would really work that well. For example, suppose they had done that in 1963 along the Kennedy motorcade route. They would have found out someone was in the book depository. The problem is that someone being in the book depository is not suspicious. Without a lot more resolution than it sounds like this technology provides, you wouldn't be able to tell a sniper from anyone else.

Sure, there might be some cases where it would work, such as when the sniper is someplace that no one should be, but thinking about most assasinations by sniper, the sniper is usually someplace where you'd expect to find people.

Re:Very cool

[AKAImBatman]

True. The technology would definitely be of much more use if it were combined with many other sensor technologies, and perhaps even multiple radar types and frequencies, so that a somewhat clearer picture can be resolved.

For example, noticing someone in a book depository wouldn't be suspicious, but noticing someone carrying around a large piece of metal inside in a book depository might be a cause for alarm.

Re:Very cool

[Thud457]

Goddamn, that makes a lot of sense!

1) A robot can be a lot more precise and securely stabilized.
2) The shooter gets away because the anti-snipers target where the shot came from, not the spotter.

This would be (relatively) cheap and easy to build with off the shelf components. You could even timeshare among multiple spotters until the opposition took out your gun. Didn't you see that remake of Day of the Jackal?!!

Re:Very cool

[scupper]

This would be useful for a hovering UAV, say like the cypher (now Cypher II aka Dragon Warrior) which could relay the image of the remote target to, conceivably, a sniper/sniper's spotter, or provide GPS coordinates to incoming aircraft for precision bombing using an Ethernet TCP/IP radio network with autorelaying capability. .

There are some pics, operator software screen shots, mpegs and info available to see how this particular vehicle is deployed at the US Navy's Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center, San Diego's Advanced Systems Division Robotics program.

Re:Very cool

[loraksus]

There are "pistol" sniper "rifles" effective to a pretty good range. But yeah, combined with other sources, it could be very useful.

http://www.snipercountry.com/Articles/FHG09_Snip er Pistol.asp

saving lives?

[EpokhusMinimalist]

Well I dont think it would save the lives of the soliders on the other side of the wall, thats for sure

Re:saving lives?

[heby]

...or even civilians for that matter because the person using the radar will not be able to tell the difference.

Nobody cares about civil rights or liberty anymore

[Skyshadow]

C'mon, invasion of privacy? What is this, 1999 all over again? Didn't you get the memo? You can *trust* the government these days -- it's not like our leaders are so untrustworthy anymore that they might get a blowjob or two. That's why you won't be needing those pesky rights to free speech or due process anymore.

Seriously, this sort of thing might be great for our soldiers in the field, and in my little optimistic heart I'd really like to think that something like this could exist in our country without being abused by the "Total Law Enforcement" crowd. I mean, the US *should* be able to operate that way, what with having Constitutional protections and all that.

Given what's been going on recently, however, it seems like only a matter of time before somebody justifies using it on Americans on the grounds of terrorism prevention (after which, of course, everything will become terrorism of one kind or another). I mean, the USA is suddenly in the business of above-the-law prison camps, war without end and other awful little things like abusing the prisoner (in a non-masterbatory context), and all it took to get us to this point was the deaths of 3000 Americans.

Does anyone really doubt that looking through the walls of people's homes will be next?

saw it

[reluctantengineer]

I saw a demo of this at FPED '03, I was marginally impressed. The resolution is no where near what they lead you to believe.

BIG-assed Brother

[flaflashr]

Between that and cops using Blackberries to tap into commercial databases about you (see CNN today), Big Brother isn't coming, he's already here, and he's a bad-a** m-f Jim

Re:BIG-assed Brother

[Jhon]

Statements like this annoy me. Not every type of information gathering technology translates in to an Orwellian plot.

Interesting BUT

[Man in Spandex]

does it run li.... no I don't feel like saying it.

Seriously though, you can imagine such technology to be used, like the great CowboyNeal said, to check out houses on fire and search for victims that need to be rescued without going thru the process of searching.

Or is the reality that CowboyNeal is impressed by this technology and will use this to rule the world!!

Radarvision Camero

[CommanderData]

Note that the small Israeli company mentioned above is not Radarvison/Time Domain. Radarvision is based out of Huntsville Alabama.

The Israeli company is called Camero and the product they are developing is superior to the Radarvision product as you don't need to hold it up to a wall. It can be used up to 20 meters away from a wall, and will give more detail on the items/activity behind the wall...

Camero does not appear to have a web site, as far as I could find in my brief googling.

Dreams!!!

[Spackler]

Dreams do come true. I'll take four of them. One for the condo, one for the store, one for work, one for the truck.

Although, if a P4 is a weapon, this thing is the bomb!

Behind walls eh?

[EvilTwinSkippy]

Well what kind of walls? Drywall? Brick? Craypaper?

The material the wall is made out of has a marked impact on the permeability of EM waves. And the frequency you select to get through the wall may pass straight through your intended target of viewing as well.

Re:Behind walls eh?

[GeoGreg]

Note that the RadarVision website (a different company than the one mentioned in the article, but a similar product) explicitly says that their radar cannot penetrate metal or metal-coated objects. This is no surprise; I'm sure the Camero system has the same limitation. EM waves don't like electrically conductive materials. So that tinfoil hat can be applied to the wall if you don't want them snooping on you (whoever "they" are).

Re:Behind walls eh?

[chris_mahan]

You could actually look for the houses with the tinfoil.

Weakling:
Captain, of the 65 houses we scanned yesterday with the nondescript van, these two had some sort of shielding.

Gruffo:
"Obviously they have somehting to hide. Send your best team and put cameras in every room."

Weakling:
"What about a warrant, Sir?"

Gruffo:
"We'll get it. There's reason to believe these people are terrorists trying to build a dirty bomb..."

Weakling:
"Yes Sir!"
(snaps his heels sharply and salutes)

Re:Behind walls eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

10 years ago I saw a thing on TV about an Israeli company using similar technology to peer through 3' of solid concrete. I'm assuming this is just a new version of that old device.

Re:Behind walls eh?

[gekkotron]

Craypaper?

Are we recycling old high-end machines into paper now? If that's the case, will we end up with origami beowulf clusters?

Re:Behind walls eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Craypaper? Is that made from Crayfish, or Cray Supercomputers? Oh, you meant *Crepe* Paper!

Re:Behind walls eh?

[Lispy]

Probably glass walls.

Re:Behind walls eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

And the frequency you select to get through the wall may pass straight through your intended target of viewing as well.

Now those damn terrorists will start making walls out of people! Oh, the humanity!

Re:Behind walls eh?

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

>And the frequency you select to get through the wall may pass straight through your intended target

They're using ultrawideband.

Re:Behind walls eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

"The material the wall is made out of has a marked impact on the permeability of EM waves."

Not to nitpick, but I believe you mean permittivity.

Re:Behind walls eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

They can just run a bulldozer through the wall.. much more effective.

Re:Behind walls eh?

[uncommonlygood]

"The material the wall is made out of has a marked impact on the permeability of EM waves." Not to nitpick, but I believe you mean permittivity.

Not to be a smartass, but EM waves don't have permeability or permittivity, those two things are properties of materials, not waves. They do affect the waves though, as changes in wave impedance (which is dependant on wave frequency and material permeability, permittivity and conductance), may cause reflections - this is precisely the phenomenon that radar works off.

Normally a wave that reflects off people you would also expect to reflect off walls, unless I'm very much mistaken, so using radar to see people through brick walls involves being pretty damn clever.

I would expect the guys who designed this thing know a lot more than I, and a lot lot more than the grandparent, about EM waves, so they probably got a solution.

Re:Behind walls eh?

[AJWM]

I predict a big comeback in tacky-looking foil wallpaper.

Or aluminum siding.

Re:Behind walls eh?

[ka9dgx]

My parent's house has tin foil backing on the insulation. It also has an layer of foam insulation with foil backing on both sides, on the exterior, under the siding. This thing would NEVER see through the faraday cage this inadvertantly creates.

Also, most older buildings have steel mesh with plaster on them as a wall surface. It's frustrated quite a few hospital WiFi projects.

Re:Behind walls eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

For all practical purposes, they already do.

Re:Behind walls eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

> Well what kind of walls? Drywall? Brick? Craypaper?

Craypaper, of course, being the paper that your supercomputer is wrapped with before shipping.

(Or did you mean crepe paper?)

Re:Behind walls eh?

[Descartes]

Why would they bother with a warrant if they think you're a terrorist? If the Gov't will hold you without charge and incommunicado they probably won't bother with a warrant. For some reason none of the prisoners at Guantanamo could be reached for comment on if they were legally arrested.

Re:Behind walls eh?

[shadowbearer]

Don't know for sure, but I'd bet that stucco or plaster which is supported by expanded metal mesh would play merry hell with this system :)

(There are still an awful lot of homes, particularly older and cheaper ones, with that style of construction)

SB

Hmmm...

[angst7]

Prepare for a whole new style of Vouyer Dorm.

Woooo

What's next, aimbots?

[Anonymous Coward]

I seem to remember somebody posted a comment in the railgun story asking when the army would deploy wallhacks.

Well....

So...

[Punboy]

Does this mean that I could sit in my living room and get 3d pics of my neighbor showering? and what else will this penetrate? clothing? suitcases? While I see the uses in law enforcement and security, its use should be semi-regulated. Also, could this mean better systems than x-rays @ places like airports? Tinfoil won't work anymore :-p

New product opportunities.

[the_rajah]

Now there will be a great market for a new sort of radar detector. Not to mention that stealth wallpaper mentioned here a few days ago. Tinfoil company stocks sound like a great buy, too.

"Do the Right Thing. It will gratify some people and astound the rest." - Mark Twain

w00t

[Mr. Spontaneous]

Wow, I'll finally be able to see my "blobs" in high resolution... and color!

*pulls out wallet*

Wow

[nial-in-a-box]

This is so much better than X-Ray vision!

Aluminium Foil

[mbone]

Can't see through aluminium foil, if it is truly Al.

My guess is that within 10 years we will see new homes / apartments boasting of how they form Faraday cages, to prevent all kinds of remote monitoring.

Re:Aluminium Foil

[flying_monkies]

On the plus side, this damn pager and cell phone work forces on me won't be going off at 3 a.m. anymore...

Re:Aluminium Foil

[jasno]

How about using this?

In related news...

[stoneymonster]

the Department of Homeland Security advises citizens to stop using walls.

Re:In related news...

[TopShelf]

That's silly - you only have to stop using walls that have Windows in them...

Happy Days for Football Team

[Juvenall]

Ahh, I can see it now..an entire Junior Varsity team saving their lunch money to see into the chearleaders locker room... Now now, it's for a noble cause. You never know when evil mutant garden gnomes may attack these days...

Now all we need is...

[Powercntrl]

...a ship made of unobtainium and a laser that can vaporize rock, and the sci-fi behind "The Core" won't be such a laughing stock!

Re:Now all we need is...

[SunSaw]

Didn't Vin Diesel use these goggles in "XxX"?

Alright

[Quattro Vezina]

Now someone just needs to invent Minovsky Particles, and we'll be set.

Re:Alright

[Anonymous Coward]

For the uninformed anonymous cowards out there, can someone explain the reference so we can laugh and/or say "cool" too? Thanks.

Sincerely,
Anonymous Coward who gets it. No really... I do.... Really....

Re:Alright

[Quattro Vezina]

can someone explain the reference so we can laugh and/or say "cool" too?

Sure. It's from Mobile Suit Gundam (the older Universal Century stuff--not the newfangled alternate universes).

In the series', Minovsky Particles, when scattered in large amounts over an area (also called an I-Field), block radar, sonar, and pretty much every detection system except for visuals (cameras, naked eye, etc.). Well, infrared isn't entirely blocked, but it's scrambled enough so that it's not really useful.

That's a good part of the reason I love Gundam...there's so much really cool psuedoscience there. Mmmm..anime and hard sci-fi in one...geek heaven.

Re:Alright

[theLastPossibleName]

Seems like a gundam reference. google is your friend

Re:Radarvision Camero

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm waiting for the version with T-tops, myself.

WorldNetDaily?!?!

[sakusha]

Take this story with a huge grain of salt. WND is not a very reliable news source. It's right up there with NewsMax and Washington Times as lunatic fringe pseudojournalism.

Re:WorldNetDaily?!?!

[blincoln]

No kidding. I love some of the headlines on their main page:

Filth, fraud, fascism: Exposing 'The Party of Treason' - How Democrats corrupt morals, steal elections, aid enemies

Moore's film gets rave - from Communists -Stalinist Reds love 'Fahrenheit 9/11,' Maoists love it, too

Divine intervention sought in presidential race - Get FREE copy of 'We Will Pray for Election Day' blockbuster

The role of Iraq, Israel, USA in Bible prophecy - Limited time, get Michael Evans' stunning bestseller 'Beyond Iraq' FREE!

Somehow I think I'll wait for independent confirmation of this "breakthrough." Especially since I routinely see articles proclaiming that Israeli scientists have invented everything from cold fusion to FTL drives and yet they somehow always fail to materialize in commercial form.

Re:WorldNetDaily?!?!

[Jaeph]

I'm not sure how you can categorize the washington times in the same way as newsmax. The latter is pretty rabid, I agree. The former runs the same ap stories that everyone else does, often in a different order, and with a very different editorial page. With newsmax, otoh, the editorial page and the news are all rolled together. Basically what Michel Moore does (though to his credit he's pretty up-front about that).

-Jeff

Re:WorldNetDaily?!?!

[Anonymous Coward]

Washington Times (hereafter WT), as the parent referred to, is not the same publication as The Washington Times (hereafter tWT), which you are referring to. tWT is the target of many flamewars between conses and libs which we won't get into (cough Novak cough). It seems to be a fine paper by American journalistic standards.

WT, on the other hand, is a lunatic fringe publication strongly connected to, among other things, the Unification Church (Moonies).

It's an annoying confusion and it seems likely to me that the Moonies did it intentionally.

Re:WorldNetDaily?!?!

[Anonymous Coward]

WND is lunatic fringe pseudojournalism... IN SOVIET RUSSIA!

- Disgruntled Communist

Re:WorldNetDaily?!?!

[Anonymous Coward]

The Washington Times is owned (in part) by Rev. Moon. But it's pretty hands off. He's trying to make money there not influence people. He's actually quite the businessman and owns a number of successful main stream businesses. TWT is just one of the most famous. And no I'm not a Moonie, I'm an athiest, I just studied religions because they are interesting. As far as religions go it's not even all that far out.

Re:WorldNetDaily?!?!

[Loopy]

There are no trolls on Slashdot!

Here's your cluepon. Trust, but verify.

Re:WorldNetDaily?!?!

[Anonymous Coward]

The Washing Times is owned by The Reverend Sung Young Moon. Who proclaims he is the reincarnated Christ. He uses this paper to give himself an air of respectability, aid political allies or attack foes. He uses AP stories and a few respected writers to cover the real purpose of this newspaper.

Eraser

[Apocalypse111]

Railguns + Wallhacks = those spiffy guns from Eraser...

Re:Eraser

[KingReuben]

Make it powerful enough and you could have it mounted like a steadycam on a helecopter. Surgical assasinations!

Walls...

[eli173]

Just as long as it lets me see where this pipe/conduit/wire goes in my wall. (And where the studs are...)

Or looky here, we've got termites in this wall.

So when does the hand-held consumer version of this come out?

Interesting

[arieswind]

New technology is quite amazing..

I can see it being used when the military is doing raids on houses, bunkers, etc. They can see how many people are in the room and where they are, so they can come in gunning and not take so many casualties.

Another use might be that when they are searching houses for weapons and stuff, they can see into the rooms before hand.

But, like other technology of this nature, it opens limitless possiblities for abuse, so the government will have to keep a cloe eye on how it is used

Re:Interesting

[Lewis Daggart]

Or rather, we'll need to keep a close eye on how the government uses it.

Re:Interesting

[arieswind]

The sad truth, is that we really wont know how they are using it, unless they mess up and have a scandal like in Abu-Ghirab

Re:Interesting

[Brandybuck]

so the government will have to keep a cloe eye on how it is used

Correction: WE will have to keep a close eye on it! Putting the government in charge of this is like putting a four year old in charge of guarding the cookie jar.

While I certainly don't have to remind Slashdotters not to trust Bush, it's a sad situation that I do have to remind them NOT to trust Kerry either.

Re:Nobody cares about civil rights or liberty anym

[dave420]

The US army is only good at blowing the crap out of something, not sneaking around and looking without being seen. Look at Iraq - if ever a theatre demanded tact and subtlety, this was it. How did they act? Terribly. Tens of thousands of innocent lives lost, and all that was gained was tunrning a country on its head, endangering everyone in the process.

Obligatory

[Have Blue]

Two meters!

That's impossible, that's inside the damn room!

Re:Obligatory

[arieswind]

For one, it says 20 meters, which is about 65 feet, Two, 65 feet is like across the street from the house

Re:Obligatory

[Anonymous Coward]

Somebody needs to catch up on his xenophobic scifi films...

If you see one of these...

[darin3200]

...cars hanging around your house a lot its time to led line the walls.

I wonder...

[Patris_Magnus]

What the radiation exposure to people on the other side of the wall would be. Operators of this type of equipment rarely understand the implications of its use. Just ask your xray tech what your equivalent whole body dose will be next time you get a chest xray.

Re:I wonder...

[Apocalypse111]

Its exposing you to radiation, to be sure, but its a form of radar, so its just radio signals. Probably no more harmful than a few minutes on a cell phone. Start worrying when you feel yourself heating up from exposure (microwaves are in this frequency range!).

Re:I wonder...

[baudilus]

First off, these are EM (electromagnetic) waves, which are all around us all day every day anyway.

Secondly, the lead sheet that they give you for an x-ray is just for your peace of mind, because the x-ray machine doesn't actually give off that much radiation. From this site:

Everyday each of us receives a small amount of radiation emanating from outer space and the rocks beneath us, which is referred to as the background count. So for example, one chest X-ray, which is the lowest amount of radiation we use, is the same as an extra week of natural background radiation. To put it into perspective, every time you travel on a plane you receive more radiation from cosmic radiation than you would if you were standing on the ground. One chest X-ray is roughly equivalent to the amount of extra radiation you would receive if you travelled from London to New York by plane.

good'on'ya

Re:I wonder...

[Patris_Magnus]

I am aware that they are EM waves. So is gamma radiation. The question how much power per unit area (flux) are they using to see you behind a wall and how does that flux interact with your body. If it is being used in an imaging process to see your body, you are either absorbing it or scattering it in such a manner that it can be read by the instrument on the other side of the wall. I should think that this non-line of site imaging would require slightly more power than your average x-ray machine. As far as the x-ray stuff goes, I actually found a tech that knew the answer to the question. It happened to be approx. twice as much dose as I recieved in a year of operating a submarine nuke plant. So, there you go.

Re:I wonder...

[Patris_Magnus]

I know guys that would cook chickens in front of the antenna arrays of shipborne radar systems. A bit more power, to be sure, but it just shows that radar is not something to be taken too lightly.

Re:didn't read the article, but what about timeDom

[tprox]

I know TimeDomain was pushing pretty heavliy into the Ultra Wide Band technology before it was fairly well known.

Last I heard they were in litigation with one of the national labs over IP. I'm not sure what the outcome is, but from the look of their website it looks like they've been pushing ahead in their research for more than just radar, but also for comms systems.

.88 Magnum

[RatBastard]

This is an .88 Magnum. It shoots through schools.

Re:.88 Magnum

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't hang me on a hook, Johnny. My mother hung me on a hook once... Once...

Worst. Movie. Ever. :-)

I hate these pseudo-tech articles.

[a7244270]

Its been a while since I've done any RF, but theres some things in that article that are a little bit, odd, to say the least.

Camero developed a certain kind of ultra radio wave that can be emitted to generate a high-definition image and also invented the technology that allows the enhanced wave to pass through virtually any wall.

How exactly does one develop a "certain kind of ultra wadio wave", and how does one "allow it to pass through any wall". Perhaps they have a valid technology, but the person who translated this to layman's terms should be shot for creating a document that makes it sound like the company is selling smoke and mirrors.

Actually, the part of the article that I found most interesting was

...an Israeli security source told WND that Israel recently developed proprietary technology that can discreetly put an electronic field around a building or area that gives users the ability to monitor and control every electronic emission within that field, from electronic can openers to fax machines, computers and cell phones.

Seeing inside a room is one thing, but realistically, the potential for invasion of privacy is much larger with the wiretap field.

Re:I hate these pseudo-tech articles.

[Anonymous Coward]

i guess you didn`t try to hide jews from the germans before....

Re:I hate these pseudo-tech articles.

[tgrigsby]

In addition, an Israeli security source told WND that Israel recently developed proprietary technology that can discreetly put an electronic field around a building or area that gives users the ability to monitor and control every electronic emission within that field, from electronic can openers to fax machines, computers and cell phones.

I, too, thought this was rather freaky. Something along the lines of, "We control the vertical... we control the horizontal..."

Exactly how would one control the electronic emission of my cell phone? Or -- good God! -- my can opener?! I can see monitoring it. Seems to me that that doesn't require an "electronic field" so much as an antenna. Perhaps the field is used to disrupt these signals? On the other hand, if what they've developed is used to actually control an electronic device on any level, what's it doing to the people using the devices? Youch...

"Say, Carl, that's a helluva sunburn you're getting in this dimly lit room..."

Too bad the article doesn't mention anything more about it...

Like the video card driver cheats?

[earthforce_1]

Wasn't there a video card driver hack that somebody was going to release some time back, that would allow you to see through walls?

But seriously, I can see this as being useful for hostage situations, terrorist takedowns, etc. Scan the room through the wall, ID the bad guys, and use depleted uranium rounds to penetrate the walls, and them out without hitting any hostages.

Re:Like the video card driver cheats?

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh, those cheats DO in fact exist, but that's because in certain games the client already has access to the information behind a wall. A layer inbetween the video card and opengl tells the videocard to make the wall translucent. Check out Counterstrike for a proof of concept.

But..

[Bull999999]

Can it see through clothing, and will they have a version that will look like normal pair glasses? I'll only be using it for educational purposes, of course.

Seinfeld :)

[phyruxus]

Jerry: (to Kramer) Yeah, I got it on Ebay. Isreali surplus. You can see through walls!

Kramer: Ya-hey! Let me borrow it.

Jerry: You? What do you need to look through walls for?

Kramer: Elaine's neighbor invited me to dinner tonight.

Jerry: No way. I'm not going to let you spy on Elaine. Besides, why should you get to try it before I do?

George: Isn't the whole idea a little unethical? I mean, most people can't look through walls. Its almost like you're cheating somehow.

Jerry: Lighten up, George. It creates a simulated picture based on ultra-wide band radiofrequency scans. It's not really looking through a wall. If I see nudity, is it really any worse than if I just close my eyes and imagine it?

(I'm sure Elaine would have her own view on this. :)

Re:Seinfeld :)

[p4ul13]

Not bad, but you missed Jerry's obligatory Super Man reference. =)

Re:didn't read the article, but what about timeDom

[Phreakiture]

didn't read the article

Obviously. If you had, you would have known this.

Who modded this informative?!?

Wall-hacks

[nharmon]

Next thing you know, the gamers will want devices to let them see through walls.

Re:Wall-hacks

[Anonymous Coward]

Done. Just type IDDQD

Re:Nobody cares about civil rights or liberty anym

[Anonymous Coward]

watch the video.

you can't even classify the image as a blob.

it's worse then a blob.

shields down cowboy.

fscking counterstrike newbs...

[enigmathegreat]

wallhackers!

police busting parties

[TubeSteak]

You modded this funny, but just wait till the police get their hands on this and start busting highschool and college parties. Think of the next generation. Think of the children. No more underage drinking, no more makeout sessions at the movies... what about when your mom gets one of these and catches you jerking off in the basement from outside the house. Yea, that's when the /. crowd will start saying "ummm... maybe this wasn't so cool"

Re:police busting parties

[RubberChainsaw]

Yea, that's when the /. crowd will start saying "ummm... maybe this wasn't so cool"

With all the posts about privacy invasion flying about, I think the ./ crowd is already saying maybe this isn't so cool..


:)

Re:police busting parties

[JPriest]

They already use night vision in some areas. The police were staking out a nearby night club, a few people climbed into the back of a truck to smoke a joint and the police watced on night vision. They busted in pulled them all out of the vehicle and threw them all in jail, for smoking a joint.

Re:police busting parties

[red floyd]

IIRC, SCOTUS ruled that police couldn't use thermal sensors (without a warrant) to bust pot growers.

I believe they used the "Reasonable Expectation of Privacy" argument.

Re:police busting parties

[base3]

Making out in the movies is probably already a bad idea (unless you and your partner are exhibitionists) given that the projectionists are looking for people with camcorders using night vision gear.

Re:police busting parties

[afidel]

Actually in Kyllo v. U.S. SCOTUS made a VERY broad generalization not at all a specific ruling on thermal imaging.

Held: Where, as here, the Government uses a device that is not in general public use, to explore details of a private home that would previously have been unknowable without physical intrusion, the surveillance is a Fourth Amendment "search," and is presumptively unreasonable without a warrant.
linky

Re:police busting parties

[buttahead]

what is this SCROTUS you mention? and to whom does it belong?

Re:police busting parties

[TubeSteak]

"not in general public use"

When your mother has one, I think the technology will be considered in "general public use"
And when mothers do get them, I dare anyone to quote the Supreme Court when they are caught dick-in-hand.

but yea, you're right, for the near future this will not be available to police (excluding your Homeland Security types) as a general surveillance tool. But what will happen is that private detectives, 'bounty' hunters or various other extra-legal individuals will buy these up like hotcakes as soon as it becomes affordable. Funny how we limit the gov't more than other citizens.

All that crap aside, I watched the demo video and untill the tech makes some leaps & bounds, all they've got is a crummy range-finder. Slashdot shoulda linked to this picture so even the people who normally don't RTFA can have a basic idea of what's being dealt with.

Re:police busting parties

[afidel]

Of COURSE we limit the goverment more than private citizens. They are the ones with the (nearly) unlimited funds, the big guns, and the ability to ruin your life by throwing you in a cell. I'm not really worried about PI's or bounty hunters but the idea of an uncontrolled secret police scares the bejesus out of me.

Re:police busting parties

[TubeSteak]

unlimited funds, ability to ruin your life, big guns... sounds like the RIAA. In their case the big guns aren't quite lethal, but still intimidating. Yea, so i wasn't trying to suggest that we shouldn't limit the gov't (double negative, i know) instead i'm trying to get at the fact that there should be more oversight on non-gov't actors. Not your avg individual, but those (semi)professionals who operate in sortof a gray area.

Anyways *puts on his tinfoil hat* how do you know there isn't an uncontrolled secret police?

Re:Nobody cares about civil rights or liberty anym

[Anonymous Coward]

What does the article have to do with the US?

Nothing.

Invasion of privacy needn't involved your likeness

[PhysicsGenius]

This device can tell someone how many people are in your house and give them some big hints about what they are doing (on blob on top of another, etc). If the blobs are correlated with information on who enters and exits and when then they can start to get a good picture, so to speak, of what you are up to. I'm sure an ACLU lawyer could think of a dozen other privacy violations here.

Don't forget

[Ira Sponsible]

You can use this to shoot people hiding indoors with your snazzy new Rail Gun! Just don't let the Governator get his hands on this one...

Larry Niven sues

[Anonymous Coward]

"Deep Radar"
Joining the ranks of all the other formerly great sci-fi writers who feel the need to call a lawyer and spout off how wonderful they are.

You forgot a link

[SimplexO]

I think you forgot a link:

Given what's been going on recently, however, it seems like only a matter of time before somebody justifies using it on Americans on the grounds of terrorism prevention.

I'm born, raised, and currently live in Missouri. I loathe that man.

Re:You forgot a link

[Ashyukun]

Given the results of the last time he ran for office in Missouri, I'd say you're far from alone in that sentiment. :P

Re:You forgot a link

[NaDrew]

Only in America can someone go from "lost an election to a dead man" to Attorney General within a few short weeks!

Ahhhh,

[dirvish]

no pictures... :(

Modern, urban warfare

[El Bromo]

These are exactly the types of technologies that will be needed to fight the multifaceted wars the US armed forces will find itself fighting in the next two decades. Urban warfare is a mode of fighting that has haunted armies for a couple hundred years now, and not very many improvments on the weaponry front have come along to *seriously* enhance an army's capability to fight in an urban setting. Modern communications, guns that can shoot around corners, and radar that can see through walls all help, but it still behooves a small, vastly-outnumbered army to hole up in a city they don't mind seeing destroyed and make the big army root them out one building at a time.

If that big army is the US Army, it's going to put a premium on avoiding civilian casualites, and the bad guys can, will, and do exploit that doctrine. We can't just carpet-bomb the whole city, and it's very casualty-intensive to thoroughly search through urban centers looking for a handful of people.

This is a problem that will occupy the best minds in the Pentagon, in other armies, and in defense companies for the next two decades. If we can find some good answers, we can prevent unnecessary casualties all around. If we can't, we'll continue to see bloodletting every time an urban warfare situation is encountered. For now, the best doctrine is simply to avoid urban warfare at all costs, and make do when it is forced upon you.

Re:Modern, urban warfare

[CHaN_316]

Urban warfare is a mode of fighting that has haunted armies for a couple hundred years now

Actually, urban warfare has haunted armies since the days Sun Tzu. Hence his famous quote:

"The worst policy is to attack cities. Attack cities only when there is no alternative." --Sun Tzu, The Art of War

It's also interesting to see how military doctrine has fundamentally changed since world war 2. During WW2, civilians were legitimate military targets. The best way to take an enemy city was to bomb it to heck, and move your troops in to mop up. On another tangent, it's also interesting to see how the media has changed the way war is fought. The media can massively influence the public's opinion of a war. I'm reminded by a quote that went like, "If CNN was around during WW2, the allies would have lost." Nations just don't have the stomach for casulties when the media reports on the losses.

Re:Modern, urban warfare

[El Bromo]

Actually, urban warfare has haunted armies since the days [of] Sun Tzu.

Agreed-- the 'couple hundred years' comment I made was tongue-in-cheek. But, the greatest miltary minds ever have struggled with this problem-- Sun Tzu and Napoleon among them.

During WW2, civilians were legitimate military targets. The best way to take an enemy city was to bomb it to heck, and move your troops in to mop up

Ask anyone who lived in Dresden, Germany in 1944-45 and I'm sure you'll find they agree. However, it's clear that US policy has evolved on this point for the better-- but this point is exactly what makes us vulnerable to terrorist insurgency. It is at the heart of the fundamental struggle of freedom-- where do you draw the line between protecting individuals' freedoms and protecting your nation's sovereignty and security? Privacy issues, freedom of speech, and freedom to simply live your own way of life all revolve around this same axis.

Re:Modern, urban warfare

[AJWM]

During WW2, civilians were legitimate military targets.

Not really. The factories churning out military equipment (including the components thereof, like ball-bearings) were the targets, as were transportation hubs (rail yards, docks), they just happened to be in areas surrounded by lots of civilians, and "precision bombing" was an oxymoron. (Unguided gravity bombs dropped from aircraft, with lousy navigation systems, that were being shot at.)

Re:Modern, urban warfare

[Anonymous Coward]

Uhhh....try reading this before you tell me that civilians were not specifically targetted by the military...

And who modded the parent up as funny!? That's awful!

Fortunately....

[Vancouverite]

...there have been court decisions that would affect using this without either an 'active situation' (hostages, &c) or a court order. There was a case in Oregon where police were using passive IR monitoring to generate enough information on a potential pot growing operation inside a house. Their subsequent raid / arrest was thrown out as a violation of privacy. Somehow, I can't see *active* methods of surveillance being any less monitored.

What?

Did I hear someone in the audience mutter "Patriot Act"?

Re:Fortunately....

[freelunch]

there have been court decisions that would affect using this without either an 'active situation' (hostages, &c) or a court order.

Just because they cannot use it as evidence in court does not mean that they will no longer use it.

Invasion of Privacy

[phishtrader]

Something tells me the Palestinians have more to fear than the invasion of their privacy.

Re:Invasion of Privacy

[superyooser]

Terrorists and illegal squatters should not expect privacy from the authorities. One invasion invites the other.

Re:Used for "saving lives"?

[dj_virto]

Yeah, the Tomahawk missiles seem to have the political murders covered pretty well.

Brick walls

[artemis67]

Go to the site and download the video, the demonstration is using a brick wall.

right (was WorldNetDaily?!?! )

[cascadingstylesheet]

Take this story with a huge grain of salt. WND is not a very reliable news source. It's right up there with NewsMax and Washington Times as lunatic fringe pseudojournalism.

Right; be sure to check with FrontLine, The Nation and Xinhua first ...

Re:right (was WorldNetDaily?!?! )

[Anonymous Coward]

The Nation, Xinhua, those I'd agree with. Frontline? As in the award-winning PBS documentary series? You're calling that fringe?

Re:right (was WorldNetDaily?!?! )

[Anonymous Coward]

Frontline constantly takes the piss out of neocon organizations & agendas. That's why he included it.

Re:Used for "saving lives"?

[delaine1975]

Yes, it would be nice if Isreali soldiers didn't "need" to destroy the homes of civilians to catch alleged terrorists.

Re:Nobody cares about civil rights or liberty anym

[Tackhead]

> Does anyone really doubt that looking through the walls of people's homes will be next?

"GODDAMNIT! Wallh4x0r1ng c4mp1ng p1gz!"
- Last words of your neighborhood crack/meth dealer after stakeout and resulting pwn4ge.

(Liberals: Feel free to substitute "militia/gun nut" for "crack/meth dealer".)

Re:Nobody cares about civil rights or liberty anym

[JanusFury]

Yeah, let's forbid this technology because it might compromise our privacy.

Also, let's forbid P2P file sharing because it might allow people to download music and movies and games without paying for them.

*rolls eyes*

Re:Nobody cares about civil rights or liberty anym

[maximilln]

Typically I like to run against the government grain simply because I don't believe Big Brother is a good concept. Overhead always causes problems: greed, graft, bribes, special interests, unaccountability. Ask the Soviet Union about it. Ask Afghanistan about it. Ask Cuba about it. Heck, ask Saddam Hussein about it. I'm sure he'll gladly point out that any overhead power is a ripe field for exploitation.

So we have this ping-pong match of people who hold the government in dreamy-eyed awe and people who see only the ill uses of governmental power. Somewhere in between lies the truth. Sometimes Big Brother gets it right, sometimes Big Brother gets it for himself. The only real way to eliminate the problem is to turn Big Brother into little Brother or even microscopic Brother. That's a fine and dandy solution but Big Brother writes too many paychecks, makes too many people feel warm fuzzy and comfortable, and keeps too many bankers and politicians living a very easy luxurious life.

As for prisoner abuse that's a touchy subject. I've heard that some of the fellows who were stacked up on each other were being disciplined for attempting to start an exercise yard riot. Some of the people who were blindfolded and threatened with dogs were guilty of assaulting prison guards or officials. Certainly there are some legitimate cases of abuse but, all in all, every society has it. The Taliban had it, it happens in Paris and Amsterdam, the British _definitely_ have some neat B&D equipment, and American civilian police are caught abusing and bullying citizens all the time.

There is the hypocrisy to address. Well, crap, that's just part of life. I don't like it anymore than anyone else. The US likes to strut around the world and point fingers and meddle in affairs and tell everyone else how to run their nations when, in all reality, the US gov't isn't doing such a hot, fair, honest, or kind job within its own borders. Once again it's the Big Brother syndrome. The only way to fix it is to turn Big Brother into little Brother or even microscopic Brother. And, again, there are too many paychecks, too many leeches, too many bleeding hearts (who don't have what it takes to do something on their own but like to bleed with someone else's money), and too many comfortable and wealthy politicians, bankers, brokers, and attorneys.

So what of this "see through walls" technology? What if it is used by the local police someday to scan each and every house as they drive slowly down the block? Unless we can fix the Big Brother problem there's absolutely no sense in working yourself into a froth over the obligatory abuses that come from Big Brother.

Personally I'd like to get rid of Big Brother. I'm an advocate of small efficient government just like I'm an advocate of small efficient software. But just like Microsoft, Big Brother has a monopoly on the field and plenty of loyal (or at least contractually trapped) followers.

Two words:

[Etyenne]

Faraday Cage

Now, what is the wavelength of these ultra-wideband thingy ?

Re:Used for "saving lives"?

[klasikahl]

Or used for pre-emptively assassinating political opposition leaders? The only people that Israel assassinates are terrorist leaders. If you think Yassin was a "political" leader, you speak for your own stupidity. Political leaders do not use exploding children as their means of communications; politics is the art of not having to resort to violence. In Israel, lives are saved by killing terrorist leaders. Killing is, however, never the preferred method. Israel still arrests hundereds of more terrorists than it kills. The ratio of arrested to killed is unbelievably high.

-1, Troll

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, go to the product website and see for yourself. There's even a demonstration video.

Re:-1, Troll

[sakusha]

You are confused. But that is not surprising since the story is confusing, and flat out incorrect. The website with the demo video is from a company named Time Domain, it is not the product from Camero Inc. that is mentioned in the main story. It is not the Israeli invention, in fact, the WND story mentions Time Domain as Camero's competitor, with an inferior product. Camero doesn't seem to have ANY internet presence, I searched and couldn't find anything.

Can this be used for medicine?

[Anonymous Writer]

Can this technology be used like a CT scans and MRIs? If it can provide images "which reportedly resemble those produced by ultrasound" that "are relatively high-resolution", then perhaps it could be used this way.

Re:Used for "saving lives"?

[Anonymous Coward]

If the soldiers had better way to find snipers firing from behind kids throwing rocks, eg using radar vision, then their nervous-trigger-fingers would be less likely to fire at kids while trying to get the sniper. eh?

Don't blame the tools

[Alan Cox]

It seems odd to me that the same people who can follow that the DMCA is problematic because it bans the tools not the abuses of the tools can't make the connection when its non-computing related.

Peering through neighbours walls (with this technology or drilling peepholes) is the offence. Would you argue that drills should be regulated because they could be used this way ?

If anything the main reason to regulate it is likely to be because long exposures to low levels of radio frequency radiation seems to do bad things to human beings so operating one might require training, care and exposure limits.

I'd also disagree its just a military tool. It has clear civilian usages including earthquake searches (because it can visualise spaces not just people so gives more info) and even boring stuff like inspecting buildings. Having had a large hole hacked in my house to see if a crack was structural I can certainly appreciate the civilian value of having tools to inspect it effectively without the mess, and the dust, and the redecorating.

Re:Don't blame the tools

[Anonymous Coward]

That's cool if the tech actually becomes available and legal for civilians. Everything I've seen about tech like this has said "military/police use only."

It's not the power I worry about, it's the imbalance of power between citizens and their governments.

Re:Don't blame the tools

[tgrigsby]

Peering through neighbours walls (with this technology or drilling peepholes) is the offence. Would you argue that drills should be regulated because they could be used this way ?

Not quite the same. If you drill a hole through my wall, I can see the wall. How many people have radar detectors sitting in their living room?

(cue jokes about overclocked computers, motorized couches, and motorhomes)

Re:Don't blame the tools

[JohnGalt00]

If anything the main reason to regulate it is likely to be because long exposures to low levels of radio frequency radiation seems to do bad things to human beings so operating one might require training, care and exposure limits.

No. What happens when the upgrade of this technology comes out, which doesn't involve sending radiation into your house?

It is illegal for the government to use this to spy on people it (without a warrant) because of the 4th amendment, and for people use it to spy on their neighbors because of invasion of privacy.

There was a case in either the Supreme Court or California's Supreme Court, involving a guy growing marijuna in his house, and some government agents were using thermal imaging stuff without a warrant to discover the plants and heat lamps. Then they went in and busted him. The court ruled that it was illegal to use new technologies to circumvent search warrants.

New technologies don't give the police new powers.
Once your argument changes scope from the moral to the practical, it is impossible to go back.

Of course, all of this only applies to law enforcement and privacy. There are of course many ligitimate uses that would not require warrants or licenses for private citizens to use, as long as they're not violating somone's privacy

Re:Don't blame the tools

[egomaniac]

Peering through neighbours walls (with this technology or drilling peepholes) is the offence. Would you argue that drills should be regulated because they could be used this way ?

This is a nonsense argument. Nuclear bombs don't hurt anybody until they are detonated, thus the detonation of the nuclear bomb is the problem, not the building or owning of one.

Yet it is still illegal to possess a nuclear bomb, and nobody seems to be whining about their right to own nuclear weapons being restricted.

Every technology, from drills to nuclear bombs, can be abused. Nobody is disputing that. The question isn't whether this new technology can be abused -- because we already know that every technology can -- the question is whether the resultant harm to society (from abuse) outweighs the potential benefit (from legitimate use).

For some technologies, like drills or nuclear bombs, the answer to this question is obvious. What about in this case, though? Does the benefit of having a peering-through-walls device available to everyone who wants one outweigh the harm?

Earthquake survivers

[Anonymous Coward]

This could help locate people burried after an Earthquake, forget your conspiracy theroies. This is a good thing.

This sounds like one guy, and it doesn't work yet

[Animats]

Here's the company web site. No useful info, just a press release and a note about financing. This company may just be the one guy named Aaron Aaron, who's mentioned in the press report.

Also, the company's web site says "is developing", not "has developed". So it doesn't work yet.

There's no fundamental reason this can't work, but it might take a big active antenna array to do it. Beam steering takes space, and fine beam steering takes lots of active antenna elements. Phased arrays won't work for ultrawideband (think about it), so you probably have to emit a nondirectional signal and do all the processing on the receive side. Or you can move the sensor around and build up a picture, an approach used for prototypes of land mine detection systems. There's considerable interest in ground-penetrating radar of this type.

RF Choke

[bsd4me]

The article didn't mention the frequency being used, but wouldn't a simple RF choke (or wall of chokes) prevent this from being used (kinda like the shielding used in a microwave oven)?

Obligatory FPS player response.

[BeneathTheVeil]

OMG, WTF, Wallhack!

Re:Israel's ethnic cleansing

[Anonymous Coward]

you mean responding to others trying to push them off first? why don't you look into the riots of Hebron in 1929, long before there was Israel, or any occupation for that matter.

Also from the article...

[Anonymous Coward]

"In addition, an Israeli security source told WND that Israel recently developed proprietary technology that can discreetly put an electronic field around a building or area that gives users the ability to monitor and control every electronic emission within that field, from electronic can openers to fax machines, computers and cell phones."

If that's true, the real information in the article was in the very last paragraph, for in our society in particular the implications of such technology (even in a crude form) DWARF the mere ability to see through walls (and I'm not just talking about the ability of geek allycats to know when you're opening a can of tuna and flash-mob your abode!)

I can think of a few dictatorships....

[Eneff]

that would love this one.

The Diary of Anne Frank would have been a lot shorter, though.

Re:I can think of a few dictatorships....

[Hektor_Troy]

I can think of a democratic republic, that would pay anything, including civil liberties, to get their hands on this device.

Re:I can think of a few dictatorships....

[Saeger]

The 21st century Anne Frank would simply need to be a little smarter and more prepared: she'd need to EM- and THERMAL-shield her little cubby hole, and also hope that the Brave New StormTroopers don't have the home blueprints on file to question the inaccessible void.

--

Seems pretty easy to screw with

[Anonymous Coward]

Just have a bunch of oscillating fans blowing thing to and fro. It will look like a huge group of people.

Re:Seems pretty easy to screw with

[geomon]

Or have dogs moving around the house.

All I have to say is "outside" to my pointer and he will not stand still until he gets to go outside.

That provides a good 45 minute defense.

Black Horn-rims?

[Saeed al-Sahaf]

You should see the viewing apparatus for this device: It's a pair of black horn-rims with swirls on the lenses...

Courts didn't allow thermal imaging

[HangingChad]

The courts didn't allow police to use thermal imaging without a warrant, I doubt they'll get to use this one without a warrant, either.

The article mentioned steel reinforced concrete and metal walls, and I assume that would include metal shipping containers or truck bodies. This would be very handy for screening containers coming into the country and on the whole beneficial if used properly.

Pretty soon we'll have wild weasel missions to block radar viewers and "stealth" houses.

OK. Mr. Villa...

[vudufixit]

Your fancy new studfinder is ready!

Re:Invasion of privacy needn't involved your liken

[paganizer]

Have they illegalized Jammers for this yet?
If not, someone send me the frequency specs, i'll be able to whip one up pretty quick.

As would any serious criminal equipment supplier, after they are illegalized...yet one more way to make sure everyone is a criminal, or can easily be proven to be one.

Mad Hax

[Lehk228]

OMFG those fagzors are using wallhacks!!!!!!!!!!!

Huh, wasn't this invented 3 years ago?

[jsimon12]

I could have sworn I remember seeing this or at least something damn near the same, and I did, 3 years ago. It was invented in Georgia.

Neat, but

[RealErmine]

there would be no use for this in the average Slashdotter's glass house.

Whoops! Did I just accidently hit reply, fill out the comment form with a biting observation, preview it a couple times and hit submit? Damn!

Blobs

[niom]

This device can tell someone how many people are in your house and give them some big hints about what they are doing (on blob on top of another, etc).

This could mean the beginning of a whole new type of porn. I can see the popups: "Blobs doing things you never thought blobs could do!!! Subscribe to the BEST blob porn in the Internet!!!"

Ok, I'll go take a cold shower now.

Another item in new house upgrades

[nomad63]

... aluminum foil covered draywalls :)

Obvious profit quote

[Lispy]

1. Develop a radar that sees through walls.
2. Sell it to single geeks across the planet.
3. ???
4. PROFIT!

Re:terahertz imaging

[marcello_dl]

The article and the Slashdot summary talk about ultra-wide band while teraherz imaging should be about high frequency, so its difficult to say if those two methods are similar.

AFAIK, if the israeli method uses wide-band (that is a wide interval of frequencies), it should be easier to detect if you are being scanned. Even without resorting to special purpose detectors, such radar scans may interfere with cellphone, sat tv, or wireless transmissions, so the target may know a scan is underway and react.

The Supreme Court has Ruled on this subject

[cutecub]

I doubt that thermal imaging of a home's interior will be seen as any different from radar scanning of a home's interior, as far as the law is concerned.

The practical upshot: Police need a Warrant

One word...

[Anonymous Coward]

Tricorders

Radar Units

[geomon]

I use one quite a bit. The ground-penetrating radar is probably not much different than this device in physical principles. That means it is subject to the same problems as my GPR:

1) high clay content can wash out any signal,
2) metallic objects (aluminum foil has been mentioned) can render the device useless, and
3) too many objects can interfere.

There have been numerous examples posted here where you just spring a few moving decoys around the building and now the operator on the outside has just as much valuable information as they had without the $20KUSD device attached to their arm.

This thing is a boat anchor.

Re:Radar Units

[Anonymous Coward]

Ultrasound wouldn't be affected by any of those problems, although the resolution and penetration might not be as good under each technology's respective ideal circumstances. This is just an argument for multispectral imaging in any such device, at least for military purposes. Civilians probably won't go around actively tacking up aluminum foil to their walls just to keep the Feds from spying on them, especially if such technology becomes routine for doing things like wall inspections or search and rescue.

The benefits

[quadra23]

...[radar system that] uses ultra-wideband technology to produce three-dimensional pictures of the space behind a wall from a distance of up to 20 meters.

Things I learned from this:

• Forget about trying to use boss-mode Messenger Plus! at work at all!
• No need to use a proxy server at work because your boss can use the information in the pictures taken of you playing games instead -- with blocked access you really don't know if the person is attempting the games just for kicks or because that's honestly what they want to do at work (in which case they wouldn't be as productive anyways).
• This would help out with the Olympics and races since pictures can be taken around the corner.

The pictures, which reportedly resemble those produced by ultrasound, are relatively high-resolution and are produced in real time.

At least if a picture can be taken of it you know you will be able to see occurs in it for sure. The technology would be very self-defeating if they weren't clear and sharp. What good are pictures that can't be verified? They would be very similar to invisible ink on paper.

Wow, it sounds like the potential benefits of this device are huge...the potential for privacy invasion, however, is similarly large.

Yeah, but that pretty much goes without saying within technology. Most things in technology are double-edged swords (look at gov't reading your personal emails) -- while this technology can make improvements for all but it can also be readily abused when in the wrong hands (unless properly managed).

In conclusion the only thing that is needed for this excellent technology is enforcable (without bias) measures that protect the rights of everyone fairly -- a comfortable medium that wouldn't be easy to obtain but would help out immensely to prevent lawsuits, etc (saves from possible damages) but still achieve the original goals (i.e. save lives).

Conversations from a future archealogical dig...

[cmdrwhitewolf]

PFY Tech walking along reading the ground facing radar:"Gopher skeleton, pottery, pottery, building wall... Hey, I think we've got some neolithic skeletal human remains over here!"

Professor in charge of the dig:"Finally some proof of actual neolithic habitation."

The supervisory tech was is now looking over the PFY techs shoulder:"False alarm, Everybody. It's just another buried mafia hit man. Remember jr, neolithic's didn't get buried with their guns and 1980 chevy malibu..."

rejected

[roman_mir]

It looks like everything that is interesting today is about small Israelly companies. (story was rejected on submission.) I wonder why these guys did not participate in the DARPA Grand Challenge?

Re:rejected

[British]

wonder why these guys did not participate in the DARPA Grand Challenge?

Disqualified for running over Palestenians.

Re:rejected

[Anonymous Coward]

> It looks like everything that is interesting today is about small Israelly companies. I wonder why these guys did not participate in the DARPA Grand Challenge?

Easy -- because only US firms could participate.

But then, you may note the curiously Hebrew name of the Avidor-2004 entry, submitted by US-based SciAutonics LLC and the Israeli firm Elbit Ltd. Since SciAutonics is has no paid employees, you can guess who was running the show. The platform vehicle was a dune buggy produced by another Israeli firm (Tomcar Ltd).

How well did it do? Well, none of the vehicles finished the 2004 Grand Challange, but in term of distance traversed the Avidor-2004 came in either second or first (depending on which unofficial account you believe).

The gotcha that at over 5000 employees, Elbit doesn't quite quality a as a "small Israeli company".

Re:rejected

[Anonymous Coward]

In an interview on March 31, 1977, Zahir Muhsein, member of the PLO's executive committee, said:

The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct "Palestinian people" to oppose Zionism.

Now let me find a stopwatch with millisecond resolution, so I can time how long it takes for this post to be moderated (-1, Doubleplusungood)

Re:rejected

[identity0]

Part of the company is based in Japan - the second and third videos are in Japan(driving on left lane, Japanese shop and street signs). Japan has laws against exporting military equipment which are rather strict, so that might have something to do with it.

Punkbuster

[Lord_Dweomer]

Well....I just hope Iraq is able to develop Punkbuster or something otherwise they're fucked.

clueless

[Anonymous Coward]

"...the potential for privacy invasion, however, is similarly large."

No shit.

Does this have to be said in EVERY submission?

1984

[chris_eineke]

I got a package today with a note by the gov saying that I have to attach this new device to my telescreen. :(

That's not very impressive

[broKenfoLd]

I mean, I couldn't make it or anything, but I pictured some type of 3d image. All that was was a fuzzy blip, you don't know what it is. All out of control law enforcement would be able to see is that there is really someone in your home, not where they are, what they're doing, who it is, etc...

Old News

[mr_gerbik]

disjointed.org had this hours ago! hours!!! get on the ball slashdot!

OMG

[Solar Limb]

Wallhack ch347er!

Re:Nobody cares about civil rights or liberty anym

[nizo]

Everything will become terrorism of one kind or another
What I keep wondering is where are we going to house all these new-found terrorists? First we will add floors to existing prisons, next we will wall in Nevada, and then what? Put a huge wall around the whole US to keep people from fleeing our new country/prisonstate? Or we could just vote some people into office to fix this patriot-act-nightmare (riiiiiight).

The point of this post? Things will have to get worse before the average American even notices, but by then will it be to late? Excuse me while I go running down the street, hooting and hollerin' whilst throwing off my clothes.

UWB has been around for a while.

[pdmoderator]

Shortly after 9/11, we were looking at it for firefighter communications within buildings. Radar applications for locating victims were mentioned. I also learned that the spooks had had the technology for at least fifteen years before that.

As often happens, it's just now making its slow way onto the civilian market.

Could they be using Terahertz Imaging?

[Junior Samples]

This article certainly lacks any technical details, but it sounds like the device may use a form of Terahertz imaging. This is the region of electromagnetic spectrum between microwave and infrared (0.1 GHz to >2 THz).

There has been a lot of recent activity involving Terahertz Imaging for medical and surveillance applications. TeraHertz Imaging

Copyright 2003??

[Terragen]

Is it just me or does the video have a copyright tag dated 2003?

?2003 Time Domain

It would seem this isn't exactly breaking news. :)

Sounds like Tom Clancy

[shokk]

Tom Clancy had a tech in Rainbox Six that tracked heartbeats, but was blown off at the time as being unrealistic.

Much like that interstellar travel stuff.

So finally . . .

[Phurd Phlegm]

. . . that X-ray glasses technology can be made workable.

Now, will they be able to sell it for $3.98 through the back of comic books?

Many applications!

[ScottGant]

Just think about putting this thing on like a helicopter...then also put some ultra-sensative microphones on it so you could also listen through the walls...

Then have like a "whisper" mode on the helicopter so you could hover in relative silence while surveilling the structure that you happen to be..um...surveilling.

Have a JAFO onboard to be in charge of the taping (to half inch videotape) and working the cameras.

We could call this Helicopter something catchy...like "Red Lightening" or "Thunder Blue" or something like that...we'll think of something...

Re:Many applications!

[freqres]

Or maybe 'Airwolf'. We'll fight for freedom, wherever there's trouble...

Re:Many applications!

[sharkey]

Then have like a "whisper" mode on the helicopter so you could hover in relative silence

Hell yeah! The Whizbang Whisper mode helps keep Captain Johnny "Jimbo-Baby" McGibbits undetected and alive when he has to land the Gizmo DHX-3 in hostile territory.

Re:Many applications!

[Anonymous Coward]

I know you are joking but the military has already been doing this in cities across the US, using building penetrating radar and mapping buidlings, the layouts, etc.street by street. At least three years now, maybe longer. This is in the databases already. It's not a joke.

Whenever you see a public admission of a technology, it's been in widespread use for several years at least, and they have two generations ahead in testing phase.

Re:Many applications!

[ScottGant]

Whenever you see a public admission of a technology, it's been in widespread use for several years at least, and they have two generations ahead in testing phase.

So they've had self-tuning guitars for years now? And "the clapper" was around in the military for years before the "public admission" of the technology?!?! WHOA!

Re:Many applications!

[Pharmboy]

So they've had self-tuning guitars for years now? And "the clapper" was around in the military for years before the "public admission" of the technology?!?! WHOA!

self tuning guitars have been around (mainly as individual prototypes) for many years.

And the military has had problems with the Clapper since WWII, even going as far as handing out condoms....

Re:terahertz imaging

[Gyorg_Lavode]

Hell, I'd start flooding the area in question with radiation the second the hostage negotiation team arrived. That gets rid of any chance they see SWAT coming.

As for quick things such as military searches and assaults, I've got a feeling that unless we're raiding the secret russian lab it's going to be a bunch of marines raiding some 3rd world building and john doe inside isn't going to go, "Gee, I can't seem to get the latest cricket game, the interference is probably coming from a wall-penetrating radar". (And in the case we are raiding a secret russian lab, we should be sending snake or the guy from splinter cell or something.)

The CORE!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Did anyone watch that horribly stupid movie, The Core? They had an item that did just that.

Can this can be defeated with radar jamming?

[Anonymous Coward]

Or alert perps with radar detectors.
Just how does it stop suicide bombers who have booby trapped an apartment?
How long till this tech falls into the hands of the average criminal?

Ariel Sharron, Tear Down that Wall.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Here, put on these googles, now what wall were you talking about?"

Yes, it may be an invasion of privacy

[MalikChen]

Sure, the polics can use this technology to see through your walls and see if you are doing something illegal, but it probably won't be admissable in an American court.

There was a case in which police used infrared scanners to see how hot/bright it was inside a house that they suspected having marijuana plants growing inside. When it came to trial, the attorney argued that because the police had no warrant to search the house, it was an illegal search. IIRC, the judge ruled that it was a violation of search and seizure laws. It's a good precedent, and because it sends out waves to spy (as opposed to passive scanning like the infrared did), it's even more invasive.

So, just get a good lawyer, and you should be set. That is, in theory.

Re:Yes, it may be an invasion of privacy

[hyperstation]

Only people with something to hide have walls, sir!

Risk and Slealth and U.S. Taxpayer Dollars

[ericlp]

Be waiting for even more detailed results of the health risk. You have an emitter, what are the risks to humans inside?

What would a counter measure be? A secondary wall with right angle shaping?

Finally:

"Israeli firms are well known for developing revolutionary technology, particularly in the defense fields."

Yup. A big part of that is proped up by U.S. tax dollar military aid and leaked tech from U.S. Firms. How nice.

--- quote from U.S. Military And Economic Aid Report

In recent years, Israel remains the top recipient of U.S. military and economic assistance. The most commonly cited figure is $3 billion a year, with about $1.8 billion a year in Foreign Military Financing (FMF) grants from the Department of Defense and an additional $1.2 billion a year in Economic Support Funds (ESF) from the Department of State. In the last decade FMF grants to Israel have totaled $18.2 billion. In fact, 17% of all U.S. foreign aid is earmarked for Israel.

Israel is one of the United State's largest arms importers. In the last decade, the United States has sold Israel $7.2 billion in weaponry and military equipment, $762 million through Direct Commercial Sales (DCS), more than $6.5 billion through the Foreign Military Financing (FMF) program.

source:

U.S. Military And Economic Aid Report

Of course we really don't "sell" much to Israel. It is mostly U.S. tax payers that pick up the tab. I don't have a problem with Israel defending themselves. I just don't see why I should pay for it.

Re:Nobody cares about civil rights or liberty anym

[syates21]

Yeah, but surely *you* with all your years of special ops training and military-oriented strategic genius could have done it much better. Why you've probably even beat Rainbox Six *and* Ghost Recon.

We took over a freakin country with it's own (substantial) army in like 2 months. Whether you think it was a good idea or not, but Army/Marines/Navy/Air Force were pretty dang impressive in doing their job.

If you want a some sense of perspective, look at how long the USSR was mired in Afghanistan before finally bailing out with their collective tail between their legs.

No.

[Ninja Programmer]

Its a motion sensor. (The idea is even if you are "standing still" you move very subtly, and the radar can pick it up.) It aint going to help you find studs.

Re:No.

[Anonymous Coward]

Its the geeks that sit still, the "studs" are the ones that move around and exersize and stuff.

Re:No.

[gfordham]

Beat me to the post, just wanted to add that this would probably be really good at finding rats in the walls of my crumbling apartment. --Greg

Re:No.

[Seraphim_72]

...meh, wait till the next eathquake then use it.

Re:No.

[Anonymous Coward]

Um... wouldn't it work if you were moving the device instead?

Re:No.

[xSauronx]

what?!

Why, if only they had such a tool that could help find studs!

Re:No.

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, well then, can't you move the sensor instead?

Re:No.

[Mal-2]

Its a motion sensor. (The idea is even if you are "standing still" you move very subtly, and the radar can pick it up.) It aint going to help you find studs.

Sure it can. You move IT across the walls. Motion is relative, it doesn't matter whether you move or the scanner does, as long is there is a change of relative position. Plain old drywall is flat and thin enough that it shouldn't show up if you slide the scanner across the wall, since it seems to be pretty much the same everywhere except the seams.

That said, it's a whole lot simpler to use ordinary ultrasound-based density finders, which are quite adequate for differentiating insulation from wood.

Mal-2

OMG WALLHAX!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

st0p h4x0ring!!!111!!!!!11!

Another project

[bigberk]

There's a group in my graduating electrical engineering class that did their undergrad design project on something similar, Design, Construction, and Testing of a Microwave Radar System for Through-Wall Surveillance. It uses 1 - 3 GHz microwave frequencies and some pretty straightforward electronics to provide signals to a computer, which does the image resolution. I was able to see a first-hand demonstration of it, and it's impressive for an undergrad project! Just in case you thought this "New radar" in the article is revolutionary or something.

Re:terahertz imaging

[XMyth]

Well, a well prepared, equiped and financed person would be capable of that. That does not describe most hostage takers however.

Re:Used for "saving lives"?

[nyekulturniy]

Oh, Yassin was a politician. A murderous one, like Stalin, but a politician nonetheless.

Re:Used for "saving lives"?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's not "interesting" at all, nor is it accurate. If you have a better way of fighting terrorists, please feel free to share it, but the Israel bashing I see on Slashdot sickens me. I don't agree with many of Sharon's policies, I don't want to see any Palestinian territories occupied, I would love it if the Palestinians could live and let live and have their own state, their own government, and get plenty of aid funding and help rebuilding their economy.

The sad part is that's where things were back in the late 90s when things were rapidly improving for the Palestinian people, many Palestinian expatriots were considering returning and reinvesting in the economy and a lasting peace seemed around the corner. Can you tell me, for 10 points please, who ended that possibility? Was it Sharon? Was it Bush? Was it Clinton? No. It was the Palestinians who brought this on themselves when they started the Al Aqsa Intifada, and used as justification Sharon's daring to visit a site in Jerusalem on the Temple Mount.

I hate to see the terminology of liberalism and peace hijacked by Palestinian warmongers and bought into whole hog by so many American liberals because they hear words like "genocide" and "war crimes" being bandied about.

I have met several former Israeli soldiers, by the way, and none of them were people who wanted to our would ever take part in killing innocent civilians knowingly. They shot because they were fired upon or because they caught somebody planting a bomb. I won't say that nobody innocent gets killed, surely it happens, but you need to look at who is choosing to keep making the area a war zone and who started the Al Aqsa Intifada in the first place and who perpetuates it - it's surely not the Israeli government, with a populace that overwhelmingly wants a peaceful solution with the Palestinians. Look at the people whose financial interests and power are tied up with keeping the fighting going - like Hamas, which would lose its political power and fundraising abilities in the rest of the Arab world with a peace settlement. Look at Arafat who clings to his autocracy and apparently fears the creation of a stable, economically solvent democracy for the Palestinian people.

The most shameful part is that I have to post this anonymously because experience has taught me that the liberal forces on Slashdot have bought into this twisting of liberal terminology so much that to post reasonable, moderate discourse on this issue invariably gets you moderated into oblivion. And that is a particularly sad statement.

Re:Used for "saving lives"?

[Behrooz]

In a typical Israeli missile attack against "Terrorist leaders", the collateral damage includes an average of three to seven innocent bystanders. How many lives are saved by killing terrorist leaders again?

Let's go with some statistics regarding the current intifada:

...meaningful figures show that Israel is responsible for some 733 Palestinian noncombatant deaths, while Palestinians have killed 546 Israeli noncombatants.

That count is based on the IDF's own estimates, completely disregarding the even more shocking statistics recorded by international human rights organizations.

Or perhaps a listing of the non-combatant deaths among children might impress you with the military force being used against the Palestinians.

If you take into account the ridiculously imbalanced effects of the property damage and impoverishment of this ongoing conflict, the Palestinians are getting screwed on every level. There is no sufficient justification for the actions of Israel's military, and I'm sick and tired of hearing 'terrorism' as the rallying cry of those who defend collective punishment and making war on entire populations.

The religious right does!!

[Anonymous Coward]

And they are more than happy to explain to you that you really arent losing your rights, but gaining happiness in God's name. Since you disagree, you are clearly a Satan worshipping communist who should leave God's great land of Amerika...

A Night In Paris (The Sequel)

[supmylO]

Coming soon! I think one good turn deserves another. This technology is perfect for something like that.

SCOTUS ruled about the use of this sort of tech

[Anonymous Coward]

Shortly before 9/11 the Supreme Court of the U.S. ruled that police could not use devices which look inside buildings such as this without a warrant because it was in violation of the 4th Amendment.

Take a look here to see what the judges ruled on the use of such devices in the heady pre-9/11 days. It's from the Google cache to reduce /. effect on Erowid.org ...

Re:SCOTUS ruled about the use of this sort of tech

[pyth]

Huh. So they're not allowed to use their EYES to look through GLASS?

This is just plain technophobia. The only reason the police are allowed to use video cameras and eyeballs is that they are everyday technology.

LUDDITES RULE THE U.S.A.

Re:SCOTUS ruled about the use of this sort of tech

[Anonymous Coward]

Huh. So they're not allowed to use their EYES to look through GLASS?

This is just plain technophobia. The only reason the police are allowed to use video cameras and eyeballs is that they are everyday technology.

You're on crack. That's not what I meant at all.

They shouldn't be allowed to search without proper procedure, period. The 4th Amendment gets trampled on enough as it is.

Cameras should be allowed to be posted in bedroom windows if one were to follow your POV.

Seriously, have you ever read 1984 by George Orwell? It's damn close to prophetic, enough to give us the adjective 'Orwellian'. His other books and essays are well worth the read, particularly Animal Farm.

Cheaters. =P

[EnsilZah]

If US soldiers use this they could be called any FPS derogative available.

Camping with rail-guns.
Aim-botting with guidance systems.
And now wallhacking.

Now they need to take this one step further and work on no-clipping, god-mode and infinite ammo...

The Wall

[flibuste]

Excuse my politically oriented remark, but now that Israelis have invented something that can peek through walls, I suggest Tsahal use it before destroying houses with bulldozers and bury alive everybody around

Re:Don't blame the Uzis

[Grrr]

The likelihood (or eventuality) some of us are more concerned about is offenses committed by the regulators. HtH.

Powerful tools are a mixed blessing. When we have "protectors" that are further "above reproach" in their adherence to sweeping laws, and quit behaving as if all of their "employers" are potential mass killers until proven otherwise, I'd feel better about tools such as these existing and being made available... at each level of government.

<grrr>

Re:Radarvision Camero

[Soul-Burn666]

Not only that, but they state in the hebrew article that they system uses advanced software to lower the effects of metal in the way of the beam, so that it can be used through steel-hardened cement walls and still give a decent picture.

Old news!

[Anonymous Coward]

Heck, they had this in the movie "Aliens!" Sigorney Weaver didn't even need to put it against no stinkin' wall, either!

uh? no sample screenshots??!!

[AngelfMercy]

am I the only person that reads this and wants more than anything to see a sample of what it looks like

It's an emitter

[Anonymous Coward]

Think about this: it's an emitter - and a pretty strong one - basically a big bright light that says: "I'm Over Here" - all you'd need would be a couple of folks with radar detectors tuned to the right freq for weapons aiming. Sure, they'd see YOU, but it'd be the last thing they'd see. Shattered clay bricks moving at the speed of sound are pretty darned unpleasant, specially when you're right up against them when they start moving.

Just taking a peek

[vandoravp]

"Oh man, yeah, yeah, that one blob is really getting it on with that other one."

Correction-Could they be using Terahertz Imaging?

[Junior Samples]

The Terahertz Imaging spectrum actually starts at 100GHz or 0.1 THz, not 0.1 GHz as stated. Sorry for the typo.

Is there a way to correct mistakes once they've been posted?

JR

Total Recall Anyone? Airport applications

[quantax]

I recall a scene from total recall in which Arnold and his buddy are walking through an airport I think, and they come upon a real-time xray device that xrays people as they pass through this corridor to see what theyre carrying. This device the Israelis have developed sounds much similar in terms of its end-output & purpose; could this be used to speed up airport lines & ensure greater security. Since we've essentially handed off our privacy as soon as we enter an airport, I dont see how this would be any worst than what we already have.

Dual use...

[QwkHyenA]

Camero engineers also noticed that they can now cook a whole chicken from 150 feet away....

Details to follow...

Re:Used for "saving lives"?

[r00zky]

Exactly, you don't see old guys in wheelchairs rolling down the streets firing their Kalashnikov murdering people.

The Yassin's kind of people must end like Milosevic, facing a tribunal as an example for new dictator/jihad_leader-wannabes, not serving as martyrs for a new breed of terrorists.

Re:Nobody cares about civil rights or liberty anym

[mi]

Directional microphones are a lot more intrusive into privacy. They can let users eavesdrop on conversations from thousand feet or more.

And they have long existed. Remember "Something about Mary"?

Tinfoil hat brigade

[Baldrson]

Just remember: If you start lining things with tinfoil to keep out the rays you are commitable.

I like the new gadjet...

[Anonymous Coward]

...but saving lives of occupation soldiers is not a worthty cause.

Wall hacks

[Jorkapp]

Great. Now everyone can get wallhacks IRL. It would at least have uses for SWAT Teams / CT's...

[CT]: (Looking through wall) Hmm... I think he's got a weapon.
* CT killed 1337_K|23W with m4a1 headshot through wall
* DEAD * [1337_K|23W]: OMG J00 H4X! F4G5!

Oh lord.

[pyth]

When it comes to privacy issues, nerds become the hugest fucking luddites in the world. WTF, are you all criminals or something?

I suppose their idea of privacy rights is to ban video cameras because they can be used to SEE THROUGH GLASS.

If you want privacy, it is YOUR job to keep up with the times. If you're not a criminal, you don't need privacy anyway!

Finally...real "x-ray" glasses

[oneiron]

I can't wait to get a pair so I can stare at boobs all day long.

And now something really real.

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, Sci Fi to Sci Reality...

Didn't they use something like this in the Movie "Eraser" and the cartoon "Star Wars: Clone Wars"

We are in the Future!!!!!! Beware!!!!!

Bad link in /. story

[photon317]

The link to the "small israeli company" is actually a link to TimeDomain, which is not the right guys. The second link (the news article) mentions that the company with the cool new toy we're discussing is Camero, and that there's another company TimeDomain which already had a product based on similar technology that was much more limited. The link is to TimeDomain, not to Camero.

Re:Used for "saving lives"?

[Cmdr TECO]

For "innocent bystanders", read "human shields". Terrorists position themselves among children in order to (i) discourage return fire, because unlike the terrorists, the Israelis don't actually target non-combatants, and (ii) misrepresent any return fire as being against "innocent bystanders".

Re:Nobody cares about civil rights or liberty anym

[autocracy]

Isn't the theory that the government should have the greatest restriction, personal privacy should be the foremost concern? People are supposed to be innocent until proven guilty; government's should never be left without scrutiny and control.

Hold on, wrong company.

[sakusha]

This story is screwed up. The two links don't have anything to do with each other. The WorldNetDaily story talks about an invention by an Israeli company Camero Inc, but the /. story link is to an American company called Time Domain. The WND story even mentions Time Domain as a competitor to Camero Inc and supposedly Camero's radar is superior. WTF? Someone messed up when putting this /. story together. I couldn't even find any online presence for Camero Inc.

Time Domain

[Anonymous Coward]

This has already been in use... www.timedomain.com ... Comeon.. Gimme some new technology or some form of innovation... What are the improvements from what's being used now?

Re:Nobody cares about civil rights or liberty anym

[replicant108]

What I keep wondering is where are we going to house all these new-found terrorists?

Diego Garcia.

maybe so.

[zoloto]

Okay, I'll bite.

You're right in saying that, "Not every type of information gathering tecnology translates into an Orwellian plot."

Technology is not the method, just a means to an end. Generally things start out for good reasons and people are okay with these. However, there are ALWAYS someone who wants to step over the privacy line, cross the civil rights boundries and may even try to persuade the public over years or decades (VERY "Orwellian" to me if you ask) to get what they want.

Believe it or not, in this day when people want instant gratification, instant this, instant news, instant results, it's hard to believe people would spend years dedicated to something like taking rights away from people for power gains (no matter how small, they always want more) and financial gains.

Hard to fathom in many cases, even to what end could they want to do it, isn't it? Well my friend it's not a conspiracy it's just a fact of life. People want power, people want money and they always want more. I really believe there are some people that are actively persuing this.

Just to make an illistration, how quickly was the PATRIOT ACT introduced to congress and passes? Do you really believe that a handful of people came up with that entire bible sized document in around a couple of months, in such detail and refined (not rushed like many people believe) order. Take a look at it and see for yourself. Click here to read it and The Analysis

It's just hard to believe that a group of people came up with that in such a short amount of time. I swear it was planned sometimes.

Re:Used for "saving lives"?

[Anonymous Coward]

...but the Israel bashing I see on Slashdot sickens me.

Aw bless them. poor little fellas driving round in their little 400 tonne tanks demolishing houses and terrorising civilians. launching rockets from apache helicopters into crowded shopping streets. stealing farming land and building apartheid walls and turning the whole of palestine into an ethnicly cleansed prison. why cant people just leave them poor israelis alone?

Re:Used for "saving lives"?

[Anonymous Coward]

terminology of liberalism and peace hijacked by Palestinian warmongers

The Palestinians dont spend 3 Billion American dollars a year on weapons of mass destruction, missiles, satellites, nuclear weapons, helicopters and submarines

Some warmongers.

Shooting through walls

[Analogy Man]

Considering that in some neighborhoods near checkpoints etc Palistinians are shot through the windows of their own homes without legal recourse, how long before they are targetted right through the walls?

Hardware

[Atario]

Finally, the future arrives!

Now excuse me while Shades and I go robot-hunting.

Re:Used for "saving lives"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Are these the israeli soldiers you mean?

The ones that killed ten palestinian children with tank shells and machine guns?

Them ones?

No. I dont blame you for posting anonymously.

Meanwhile, in the Gaza Strip

[Anonymous Coward]

Sales of radar detectors skyrocketed today.

You got it wrong...

[thatguywhoiam]

what about when your mom gets one of these and catches you jerking off in the basement from outside the house. Yea, that's when the /. crowd will start saying "ummm... maybe this wasn't so cool"

No... that's when we figure out a fantastically clever way to break it.

Re:terahertz imaging

[Gyorg_Lavode]

I didn't mean the hostage taker. I meant the SWAT team.

Need more tin foil

[Barlo_Mung_42]

That's just great!
Now I need to cover my whole house!
*sigh*

Nice!

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe you could kill palestinian kids with that. Say "hello" to the Rothschilds, Sharon, Kerry/Kohn and their friends. Maybe Israel should know better than using a masonic symbol in their flag...

Excellent

[Grey Tomorrow]

Now all we need is an aimbot for out troops. ArmyofOne killed BinLaden with a headshot. ArmyofOne killed OsamaMama with a headshot. BinLaden(dead): hax! hax!!! jihad on you!

To further the whole "open curtains" debacle...

[Anonymous Coward]

people can now get arrested for indecent exposure or sodomy without even opening their blinds or curtains.

Aliens

[spoonyfork]

Hudson joins Ripley and Hicks, who are laying out their armament. Flamethrowers. Grenades. M-41A magazines. Hudson's tracker beeps. Then again. The tone continues through the SCENE, its rhythm increasing.

HUDSON
Movement! Signal's clean.

He pans the scanner. Stops. The range display reads out, counting down.

HUDSON
Range twenty meters.

RIPLEY
(to Vasquez)
Seal the door.

Vasquez picks up a hand-welder and moves to comply.

HUDSON
Seventeen meters.

HICKS
Let's get these things lit.

He hands one flamethrower to RIpley and begins priming the other himself. It lights with a muffled POP. Ripley's lights a moment later. Sparks shower around Vasquez as she begins welding the door. Hudson's tracker is beeping like mad now, as fast as their hearts.

RIPLEY
They learned. They cut the power and avoided the guns. They must have found another way in, something we missed.

HICKS
We didn't miss anything.

HUDSON
Fifteen meters.

RIPLEY
I don't know, an acid hole in a duct. Something under the floors, not on the plans. I don't know!

She picks up Vasquez' scanner and aims it the same direction as Hudson's.

HUDSON
Twelve meters. Man, this is a big fucking signal. Ten meters.

RIPLEY
They're right on us. Vasquez, how you doing?

Vasquez is heedlessly showering herself with molten metal as she welds the door shut. Working like a demon.

HUDSON
Nine meters. Eight.

RIPLEY
Can't be. That's inside the room!

HUDSON
It's readin' right. Look!

Ripley fiddles with her tracker, adjusting the tuning.

HICKS
Well you're not reading it right!

HUDSON
Six meters. Five. What the fu --

He looks at Ripley. It dawns on both of them at the same time. She feels a cold premonitory dread as she angles her tracker upward to the ceiling, almost overhead. The tone gets louder.

Fuzzbuster Wideband

[Nom du Keyboard]

the potential for privacy invasion, however, is similarly large

I'd think that next to the smoke alarm and CO detector you put your Fuzzbuster[tm], and all is well.

Be sure to change your batteries regularly.

Re:Used for "saving lives"?

[Anonymous Coward]

The only people that Israel assassinates are terrorist leaders

youre almost correct. Except for the 10 children killed 6 weeks ago. And the 3000 other Palestinians killed in the last 4 years which never reach American TV.

does this mean that...

[evangellydonut]

see-through-wall will no longer be a cheat in games like half-life, but will be an equipment that you can buy if you have enough $$? :-P

oblig superman ref

[phyruxus]

>>Not bad, but you missed Jerry's obligatory Super Man reference. =)

Good one; but, can't Superman see through walls? 8-]

(..)
||
||
======
||

Re:oblig superman ref

[p4ul13]

I thought I had a retort to this, but then I noticed that you actually drew an ascii schematic of somebody looking through a wall. It was at this moment that I realized I had been defeated. You win.

....this time!

Re:Nobody cares about civil rights or liberty anym

[Anonymous Coward]

in fairness to the Russians, at the time we were feeding intel and arms in the back door. the only Russian support the Iraqis got was verbal in the U.N. :P

Impostor

[jafiwam]

I was just watching a crappy Sci-Fi movie called "Impostor" that used a device very much like they described.

It got stopped be lead paint tho.

Now all we need is robot alien duplicate impostors with bombs planted in their chests to assasinate world leaders and we have something....

Palestinians Rejoice!

[meehawl]

Oh goody. This might mean that the Israeli Defence Forces mightn't need to bulldoze quite so many Palestinian homes, offices, and schools looking for "tunnels" and "caches" and "terrorists".

Re:Used for "saving lives"?

[jafiwam]

Killing people by attacking civilians trying to get to work or enjoying a cup of coffee just because of their ethnicity or religion.

Killing known-combatants using their own families as shields for their bomb making operations, while happening to miss a few times, causing unfortunate deaths.

Real moral equivalency there.

From elsewhere in the article you linked, coming to the exact opposite conclusion you did:

The statistics show that Israeli noncombatants over the last 23 months have been killed essentially at random, as Palestinian terrorists have chosen to attack whichever civilian targets were accessible. Palestinian fatalities, however, have been strongly concentrated within a particular population segment - teenaged boys and young men.

and....

In contrast, Palestinian noncombatant fatalities have been overwhelmingly young (but over the age of 11) and male. This pattern of Palestinian deaths completely contradicts accusations that Israel has "indiscriminately targeted women and children." It is clear that the vast majority of the Palestinians killed did not die as the result of random Israeli attacks on inhabited areas, or on mixed-sex crowds at roadblocks and the like. There appears to be only one reasonable explanation of this pattern: that Palestinian men and boys engaged in behavior that brought them into conflict with Israeli armed forces.

Why don't you just add:

"YALLA YALLA YALLA JIHAD!ALLAH IS GREAT! DIE INFIDELS!!!" to your sig. That way you can be an extremist asshole with EVERY post instead of just this one.

5th Element?

[Wizzard]

Is it just me, or does this thing look like something straight out of The fifth Element?

Just curious.

Re:Nobody cares about civil rights or liberty anym

[Anonymous Coward]

Except that the point being made by the grandparent is not that the Army/Marines/Navy/Airforce can't fight a war, but that they are crap at peace keeping.

Compare and contrast the methods of the British and American forces. The British employed a softly softly approach, wearing berets and patroling on foot, perfected in Northern Ireland. American forces employed warfighting tactics, patroling in armoured vehicles and adopting an agressive posture, in a peacekeeping situation and were generally heavy handed.

I have spoken to people who have served in Iraq and who can't believe their eyes when they see American forces employing helicopter gunships and ariel bombardment in densely populated urban areas.

It just seems to demonstrate a severe lack of cultural and tactical sensitivity.

Watch out Mormans and JW's

[kumachan]

I hope the Mormans and Jahovah Witnesses don't get hold of this... no more hiding and hoping they will go away.

"Come out with your faith up!"

Be afraid...

[Anonymous Coward]

Be very, very afraid.

-Kentucky Fried Chicken-

Are you sure this is good?

[KingReuben]

Soldiers and police are increasingly becoming the same thing. Their job, basically at the end of the day, is to kill poor people and protect the wealth of the worldwide elite. You guys may think this is a nifty idea because it will "save soldiers and police lives" but in the long run it is just another tool at their disposal to keep us oppressed and in check.

No sir, I don't like it.

Re:Are you sure this is good?

[Anonymous Coward]

Could you perhaps use some type of reason to support your argument?

Re:Are you sure this is good?

[KingReuben]

If by now, this late in the game, you cannot see for yourself the evidence behind my statement -- then I cannot help you. :-/

Troll?

[meehawl]

I thought it was rather droll!

Rest of the quote

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's the rest of the quote:

"It has also been a conceptual war for the ownership of the term 'Palestinian' which has been transferred over to the Arabs, whereas before 1967, 'Palestine' has always been synonymous with the land of Israel."

This was published in Trouw, a Dutch newspaper.

Forget saving lives...

[Trogre]

... I want one of these so I can trace thepaths of cables and pipes inside my friggin walls!

Re:Nobody cares about civil rights or liberty anym

[Anonymous Coward]

Hence the piss take in Viz from 25 years ago, Special Weapons and No Tactics SWANT

So this is where...

[TheLoneDanger]

Solid Snake's radar came from! I was always curious to know how I/Snake knew which way guys behind walls were moving and looking. Snake's must've had a smaller version and be really good at interpreting blobs...

Nothing new here...

[fitten]

This is not a new thing in the least. Such a thing has existed for a number of years. Perhaps this one is "new" because it is higher resolution or something than the previous ones.

Technology and courts is not a new thing

[dbIII]

Photo and video evidence has been allowed for years, plus forensic evidence that may not be completely accurate. Some countries even allow such voodoo as lie detector tests. Why should data such as produced by a radar system be left out? Defence and prosecution will both have access to those who can interpret the data - assuming the defendants aren't locked up in Cuba and don't face a trial at all that is.

Re:Nobody cares about civil rights or liberty anym

[dbIII]

Ask Cuba about it

Why not? Cuba is the eternal enemy that the USA had to have - the well behaved and dirt poor evil empire on the doorstep that lets the USA keep a naval base there which is in convenient international limbo to keep people imprisoned without charge or trial. Cuban cigars, supposedly a prohibited import, have even been found in places in the oval office where you would not expect to see a cigar.

Cuba is a really good example of what happens when a colonial power with ADD goes around conquering things then just lets criminals run the place until the population revolts. Iraq in a couple of decades may well resemble Cuba, if we are all lucky (the Iraqis and Cubans are of course not destined to be lucky).

The difference in between Cuba and the rest of central america is the secret police and torturers are not US trained. I recall hearing a radio broadcast about the use of torture by US agents in 1985 (BBC - it was rebroadcast on another network a few weeks ago), and thought it was a bit far fetched and had to be rouge parts of the sprawling incompetant US intelligence community - but events in Iraq and the paper trail up has show that it is the orthodox approach now. Why is this evil idiocy going on in a democratic state? Even in the USSR under Stalin in the 1930s it was confirmed that torture was not a way to get information (you just get back what you want to here, not what is - there was a guy who confessed to blowing up more trains than the USSR had) - it is quite literally just a weapon of terror.

saving lives of soldiers?

[matdodgson]

This thing comes from Israel - meaning it was designed to make killing Palestinians easier.

Re:saving lives of soldiers?

[sentientbeing]

Thats the first comment defending Palestinian casualties ive seen modded all today.

Radar detector?

[rice_burners_suck]

A small Israeli company has developed a radar system that uses ultra-wideband technology to produce three-dimensional pictures of the space behind a wall from a distance of up to 20 meters.

You might have to use a radar detector before having sex.

Unless this kind of thing turns you on.

Moral equivalency? Give me a break.

[Behrooz]

Trying to attain "moral equivalency" with terrorists is not an aim that our government, or any government, should be trying to attain.

I'm not arguing for the terrorists, I'm arguing for the innocent civilians who have their lives ruined or lost as a result of Israel's unlawful and immoral strategy of collective punishment. Terrorists are by definition beyond accountability... but governments should not be.

If you do not agree, perhaps you'd like to add "SIEG HEIL" to your sig. Think about it.

If this could be installed in cars...

[OceanWave]

Especially with two modes of operation: Doppler (like the WSR-88D the National Weather Service has), and standard reflectivity.

Since I moved back from Manatee County (FL) to Pinellas (FL)--regretting it every moment--the traffic in our "residential street" has been insane.

Posted speed limit: 30 mph. Average: 45 Typical high: 56 Extereme: 80.

Manatee: posted 35. Average 35 (some were slow). Typical high: 38 Extreme: 42

I've been thinking--for years--if a circular scanning radar could be available on a car, you could get "collision imminent" warnings, from a very simple routine, along with seeing other active vehicles on the street. Using simple tuning, using your current speed to adjust the radar measurements, you could see active vehicles highlighted...and know when the guy is not going to stop at the red-light.

You could also see if you can change lanes...checking for a person in a blind spot, or one driving 40 mph faster than the flow of traffic in your lane.

I would find one of these more useful than a GPS...and had I the money, I would probably be developing a prototype.

I would feel alot safer with one of those in the car, especially on foggy mornings or any corner with limited sight distance, which most aggressive drivers actually speed up for. (And we have enough of them around here.)

Re:Used for "saving lives"?

[Anonymous Coward]

"I have met several former Israeli soldiers, by the way, and none of them were people who wanted to our would ever take part in killing innocent civilians knowingly."
Oh, well that changes everything. Forget about the wanton murder, relentless assasinations and bestial cruelty. Yeah, that's all forgotten because you met several soldiers who said they were sorry. For what it is worth I've met many soldiers from many different countries who fought in different theaters and when they thought they were in safe company they confided that they thought killing people was the most exciting thing they had done in their lives. That's what soldiers do after all. Don't give us that naive sorry soldier crap.
The issues isn't whether or not the solidiers are sorry. Soldiers go into the field to kill humans. That's a goddam fact of war that has been true since before you or I were born. The question is why people support the placement of soldiers in the field. Fuck you and your crying soldier story.

Wrong see-through-walls dealie

[Cappy Red]

RadarVision isn't the company developing this particular device, and neither is Time Domain. This company's name is Camero, and their website is http://www.camero-tech.com/. Not much there though. Basically, they have a statement of what the device is supposed to do, what some applications could be, and a link to a press release about five million dollars in funding they've secured(and who pledged it to them).

The Camero device is different from the RadarVision/Time Domain one, in that the latter must be used against the wall, and delivers only information as to location, whereas the former can be used up to around twenty meters away from the wall, and is supposed to deliver a picture somewhat on the level of an ultrasound.


*honk*

Yes but...

[Anonymous Coward]

does it shoot through schools?

Re:Used for "saving lives"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Slashdotters:

Please mod this fascist Israeli supremacist nazi down and discourage ethnic cleansing apologists.

This isn't new.

[Kurayamino-X]

in fact it was one of the big things about ultra wideband radio back when the first whispers about it were being heard. but yeah, technology being years old never stopped it from being posted on slashdot as 'new' before.

Re:Used for "saving lives"?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sorry, but the evidence doesn't support your depiction. In fact, innocent civilian casualties on the Palestinian side aren't anywhere near as high as some people claim. Go read the highly rated posts up-thread that address this. I don't see any evidence of attempts at ethnic cleansing by anybody, though the Palestinian Arabs are the ones who want to rid the land of Israelis. The Israelis would be content to peacefully coexist (or so say the polls, anyway). As for "apartheid walls", that's a purely defensive measure. I'd want a wall up if I was living there too. Stealing farmland - I think I already said above that I don't support the occupation of Gaza or the West Bank, but displacing people in general without compensation is a bad idea, whoever they are. Compromise solutions, where people get compensated for their displacement or get their houses returned to them seem reasonable to me and to most Israelis. Re-settle the settlers or simply force them to live side-by-side peacefully with the Palestinians. But then again, we all know the settlements aren't really the issue here, if that were all it was, the Palestinians would have been at the negotiating table several years back when they had the opportunity to, or they'd be there right now. No, many Palestinians will openly admit what they want is every Jew dead or expelled from Israel. THAT is ethnic cleansing.

Re:Used for "saving lives"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Israel is surrounded by hostile nations. The majority of what you are describing are defensive weapons to prevent Arab invasion of Israel. There were quite a few wars in the area 30-40 years ago, you realize? Polls show the majority of Israelis support a peaceful two-state solution. How about the Palestinians? How many of them would be happy with that? Oh, you mean, they don't want that, they won't be happy until every Jew is dead or gone from Israel? Or like Hamas, they just want to perpetuate conflict because it gives them funding and influence in the Arab world at large? Who's the warmonger again?

Re:Used for "saving lives"?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think that's absolutely disgusting. There are two possibilities: 1) That isn't the whole story and there were actually gunmen shooting at the Israelis from the crowd. 2) The soldiers in question are war criminals and ought to be tried and brought to justice. There's never an excuse for firing on innocent, unarmed civilians intentionally. And like I said, the vast majority of Israeli soldiers would never do such a thing, just like the vast majority of American soldiers would never do such a thing. That doesn't mean there haven't been isolated incidents in Iraq of soldiers doing morally reprehensible things, and in some cases they will be tried and sent to jail for them. I am not clear where you would get the impression that I don't think soldiers should be accountable for their acts.

I'm also sure the majority of Palestinians wouldn't actually pull the trigger to shoot innocent Israeli children - the problem is the tacit support they give to organizations like Hamas and Al Aksa Martyr's Brigade that intentionally, and organizationally support those kind of acts. The Israeli Armed Forces does not organizationally and intentionally support killing innocent civilians and certainly doesn't train their soldiers to do so.

Re:You are such a fucking idiot--please kill yerse

[Anonymous Coward]

It's pretty hard to take somebody seriously whose post's title is such an obvious troll, telling me to commit suicide for daring to post my personal experiences, observations of fact, and some opinion mixed in. I have seen pictures similar to what you describe from almost every war in modern history - my grandfather told me many stories of the Japanese doing similar things to captured American soldiers in WWII and likewise, the Americans did some nasty things to captured Japanese.

Your tax dollars aren't being used to intentionally murder children. The Israeli Armed Forces don't do that. I'm unaware of any evidence of organized or systematic killings anything like what you suggest. The one thing I agree with some of the other posters here on is that Israel ought to be more zealous in prosecuting soldiers who open fire on unarmed civilians. Lock them up and throw away the key, make an example, make it clear that the Israeli government does not support and will not tolerate such behavior. Certainly the Israeli people as a whole despise that behavior (you can see this from the balance of their media, from polls and so forth).

Basically, until you can form a cogent argument that the Israelis are always in the wrong and the Palestinians are always the victims, I recommend you keep your mouth shut lest you make yourself sound like a rabid idiot. I don't sling terms like "liberal" around as insults, I *AM* a liberal, or rather, a moderate democrat from Massachusetts (which most of the US would consider a liberal). I am simply pointing out how the rhetoric of "ethnic cleansing" and other inappropriate words has been applied to the Israelis in an attempt to make the left wing feel pressured into supporting the Palestinian cause. This is a false rubric to the best of my knowledge, and a true liberal would never support reverse-ethnic cleansing against Jews, or mass deportation of Jews - those are the solutions of a fascist dictatorship. A liberal would support a peaceful two state solution that respects the individual rights of Israeli and Palestinian people. The only point I agree with you on is that ultimately, we ought to give a lot more aid money to the Palestinians than we do, but not to support violence against Israel, to support the rebuilding of their economy. Like I said, sadly, they were on the verge of getting it before the Al Aqsa Intifada started at their own behest.

Come back when you have some reasonable argumentation to offer and not just reactionary rhetoric.

Re:Used for "saving lives"?

[dave420]

So what are the palestinians supposed to do? They're being opressed by a government that gets a billion dollars a year for military hardware to use against them. Saying they're not playing fair is a bit silly, seeing as they only have basic weapons to fight apache attack helicopters and tanks.

Of course people bash Israel - it gets so much money from the US, yet still acts like a bunch of little kids. That "peace" wall bullshit? How can you even defend a country who thinks that's a good idea. "Operation Rainbow" - genius.

The fact you're baning on about how horrible "liberals" are gives me hope, as you're obviously some sort of twisted right-wing nutter, which adds support for my argument.

Re:Used for "saving lives"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ive seen the two state solution offered as a viable Palestine. It was a joke. A distributed collection of Palestinian communities linked by nothing other than name.

The recent offer was offensive and derisory and was rightly dismissed as the obvious insult it was.

Theres as reason that Israel is surrounded by hostile nations
They have an influential greedy, disatisfied, hostile right wing fraction of the population. No amount of land will be enough to satisfy them.

Ive seen Israelis hanging on by their fingernails being dragged away by Israeli soldiers from newly built houses deep in occupied Palestine.

Every further Israeli colonizer remaining in Palestine protected by a tank and apache helicopter is a slap in the face to morality, honest democracies and regional stability.

3,000,000,000 American tax dollars at work.

Re:Used for "saving lives"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Go read the highly rated posts up-thread that address this

I dont need to read 'highly-rated' posts on an American centric technology forum to find out how many Palestinians regularly die at the hands of Israeli soldiers.

I read European newspapers and watch European, Asian and Middle-east television.

Its common knowledge throughout the worlds press and external commentators of Israeli policy that the American public get a sanitised view of Israeli actions. Due to intense lobbying of American politicians by highly funded single-issue organisations like AIPAC.

But.

[Raven42rac]

But can it see through fog like Chopper 4?

UAV opportunities

[scupper]

This would be useful for a hovering UAV, say like the cypher (now Cypher II aka Dragon Warrior) which could relay the image of the remote target to, conceivably, a sniper/sniper's spotter, or provide GPS coordinates to incoming aircraft for precision bombing using an Ethernet TCP/IP radio network with autorelaying capability. .

There are some pics, operator software screen shots, mpegs and info available to see how this particular vehicle is deployed at the US Navy's Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center, San Diego's Advanced Systems Division Robotics program.