Slashdot Mirror
Military Testing WMD Sensors at Super Bowl
Lam1969 writes "Members of the Michigan National Guard will be at the Super Bowl on Sunday to deploy 'sensor fusion', a real-time, IP-based wireless technology that combines readings from portable and fixed devices that can potentially detect terrorist threats. While sensors capable of detecting chemical, biological, or radiological threats have been used at previous Super Bowls, the readings had to be communicated by radio between different security personnel. Sensor fusion automatically takes readings from the devices and uploads them to a central, secure Web server, where security staff anywhere can monitor conditions at the event. From the article: 'The software uses open standards and is open-source, based on the OSGi Service Platform, which is a standardized, component-oriented computing environment for networked services. OSGi allows networked devices to be managed from anywhere in the world, while allowing software to be installed, updated or removed on the fly while the device is operating.'"
Let's hope it isn't anything like those voting machines.
perpetually dwelling in the -1 pits
They mentioned that the central web server was secure, but is there any information about the security of each node?
Whenever I hear anything about Wireless networking, I instantly have a security lightbulb that goes off in my head. Since it's based on IP technology, is there anything in place to prevent traditional wireless security issues? Can you spoof nodes?
Granted, no system is perfect, but I'm wondering if this system could be used to draw security away from a particular area, only to allow a potential threat to get in the back door.
Welcome our new terrorist-smeller pursuivant overlords
This may seem like a silly question, but how can you test for something that won't be there?
Are they just trying to restrict false positives? Or just show off that they have something? This is just going to be another ineffective technology that too much money was spent on.
Runnin' On Empty
those green glowing footballs.
This might stop a suicide bomber, so I'm not saying it's a useless exercise. On the other hand, if you put it in the context of everthing else that's going on, it seems likely that they are spending a vast amount of money to wave the flag. They even have the Canadian army and airforce deployed presumably to keep an enemy airforce or army from flooding over the northern border. Sounds like overkill to me.
I'm not saying the terrorists won't strike again or that we shouldn't protect ourselves. Spending this much money on a big show just doesn't seem like the best way to deploy our resources.
Why does everyone keep assuming terrorists are stupid? Attacks don't succeed through stupidity, they succeed through ingenuity. Look at the source, find a hole, "fix" the software, detonate a WMD...
I swear we should be allowed to give mod points to sigs... "-1, Offtopic"
Don't mean to sound paranoid or anti FOSS, but this is what first came to my head / heart: OMG!! Isn't that freaking scary?!... I mean, when I had some metal detectors isolated from everything else, at least I knew that everyone was watching for any sign of danger. But with this, I think the security team will rely on the network. But the access is made through standard network protocols, and with software which code is open and freely available (for someone to look for for an unpatched exploit). Isn't it scary??? Or am I just darned paranoid?
Because the best place to beta test a top-secret military project is in a forum with six billion people watching.
I'm not saying that this shouldn't be used here, but why weren't they tested at, say, a regular Lions game beforehand? It's the same number of people in the same location, just not as many of them are VIPs with the associated security concerns in case of evacuation.
OSGi allows networked devices to be managed from anywhere in the world, while allowing software to be installed, updated or removed on the fly while the device is operating.
Ehh... SSH can do that too.
By the time this sensor figures out that someone has a WMD strapped to their chest, the WMD is obviously already there at the stadium (or relatively close, depending on where they set it up) and everyone there is already in danger. I mean, how likely is it that the terrorist bought a ticket and is going to the game? Remember in the movie "Sum of All Fears" they just dropped off a vending machine a few days before the game. So I am guessing they are just checking to see that this kind of thing works "In the real world" more than anything. I could see it being more useful at airports watching for WMDs making their way into the country or something.
This was making news in the Wall Street Journal and other papers back in the early part of 2002. Maybe that's why the military wants to test at the SB? A huge sample and plenty of possibilities for picking up cancer patients that could lead to positives.
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/02/0 4/0630206&threshold=0
DC has sensors that sound similar. They've also proven to be almost useless: http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/10/18/tular emia/
Apparently, the British soccer hooligans have nothing on American football fans. Over there, they're happy if they can keep glass bottles out of the stands.
Very good, at least until those intelligent systems detect a false positive.
I'm not saying that this shouldn't be used here, but why weren't they tested at, say, a regular Lions game beforehand? It's the same number of people in the same location, just not as many of them are VIPs with the associated security concerns in case of evacuation.
This has little to do with the technology, or any actual threat. It is a fairly high-profile event, and so it is widely perceived as a target for an attack. If you stage public, high-profile events creating the perception of security you calm people down, and the event can proceed as planned.
It's just like scanners at airports - you counter the perception of a threat with the perception of security and everybody walks away happy. It means that a technology to, for example, scan passengers at airports without any visible organization or inconvenience is actually a lot less useful than a largely inneffective - but public - display of zeal. If you had an effective, unobtrusive way to scan people, you'd probably still need to keep sham security stations active, hassling people and delaying proceedings, just for the needed visibility.
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
I sure the heck hope they're not using generic 802.11 on 2.4 or 5.6 Ghz, but rather a dedicated goverment band. It would be _stupid_ to put something so critical on a shared band.
...This kind of remote data gathering is in production use in tens of thousands of factories, farms, forests, and wildlife preserves all over the world. So they're sending different data. So what?
The problem with quotes on the internet, is that nobody bothers to check their veracity. -- Abraham Lincoln
So if this detects WMDs how does it detect say bombs as well as dangerous substances before they have already spread? I mean "theres a virus in the air!" does little to stop people already infected and spreading it (who you can't singleout asthey swarmaway), let alonegoing "theres a bomb!", because the second these people are approached (lets say extreme Islamic people for sake of argument), they're going to blow themselvs up and any near them.. So isn't it a bit silly to go "oh we KNEW he had a bomb.. we just couldn't do anything".
It's like hiring a guy in a wheelchair to be a security guard. He might see everything but he can't exactly do much untill it's too late.
I like muppets.
Live it! All day long, all the time, at every event and every gathering. Let it control your life. Vote only for those who make you feel safe. Attack those who would limit government power.
FEAR
It becomes you.
Should be a laugh when the fire works go off at the half time show.
Sorry, as someone who's worked with robots before, I just had to clear this up.
Sensor fusion is whenever you take data from multiple incoming sensors, and automatically combine them to form a picture of the world. This system FEATURES sensor fusion, however it is not called that.
I think testing the system during the superbowl is a great idea. I think telling people that you're testing it during the superbowl is a stupendously foolish idea. You're going to have all sorts of people screwing with it, from people bringing in irradiated crap, to just plain 802.11 devices setup to jam it.
Wait, unless that's what they're testing about the system.....
--Michael
Want to see every step I took to start my company? http://www.rowdylabs.com/blogs/pitchtothegods
Ooo man the floppy drive is broken. No wait. The computer is just upside down.
Rednecks in Michigan? I thought rednecks were limited to SOUTH of the Mason-Dixon line....
Well I'm Canadian and if they ever attack our Superbowl, we know what to do.
"When the atomic bomb goes off there's devastation...but when the atomic bong goes off there's celebraaaaation!"
And everything to do with building a track and trace society. Consider the following conjecture: if we are planning on rolling out a new monetary system that is totally cashless -- and we've been moving that way for about a century -- it would have to be identity based in some way. And that implies knowing identity absolutely. And that implies surveillance and identity verification. Therefore, this project has nothing to do with WMD's. That's just the pretext. They are training people to be searched, scanned, tracked and traced in preparation for a new way of buying goods.
It's not like they are really expecting someone to show up with a briefcase nuke or a big bad vial of botulism to pour into the stadium ventilation system are they?
I once got into a U.S. Open golf tournament by volunteering for "Emergency Services." After spending about 5 minutes setting up some tables, I wandered away and got a beer and watched the tournament like everyone else. And the badge looked cool.
The real test is if the it can tell if the radiation detected is the leftover remenants of the radioactive dye injected into a patient when they take a stress test.
I've heard numerous stories where customs agents have taken people asside because they tested for levels of radioactivity on them, after having taken a stress test at their doctor's office.
I hate all sigs, even this one.
a shockwave detector... but on the other hand... wouldn't that be a little bit too late?
I don't understand your comment. 50,000 rednecks? So what does it make the millions watching the superbowl on TV? Also rednecks?
Intelligent Design
The OSGi framework mentioned is very cool indeed. It's best known usage is the Eclipse IDE. It can also be used in web applications, where especially the Wicket component web framework delivers a very good integration. There are several users working with OSGi compliant frameworks (most notably Oscar, which is in the Apache incubator under the name Felix), and Wicket. I have used Oscar and Wicket in a commercial product and we were very satisfied with the runtime re-deployment of new components.
You missed another important pointless buzzword:
Synergy
The secret of success is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake those, you've got it made. (Marx)
Terrorists have their target audiences. The Al Qaeda wants to impress people in the muslim countries, who think of "football" as the sport that's played by kicking a round ball with the feet. If 90% of the TV news anchors around the world have to explain what this "super bowl" thing is, and its true importance in the collective American mind, the intended message of the attack would be wasted. It's not as if there was an attack in the World Cup, whose audience does reach in the billions mark.
does this mean neither team can throw the long bomb?
(ducks)
Future capabilities could include small wireless cameras linked to facial-recognition software databases that would help identify suspects in crowds, he said. "It can be kind of scary," Ricker said, "but it's not as scary as the alternative."
Not as scary as a (possible) terrorist attack with many casualties? I happen to disagree. I find it very annoying that law enforcement/government seems to want to have any type of 'disturbance' of our society under control. Be it terrorism, crime, violent protests, hooligans, whatever.
Just imagine an 'ideal' world where this would actually work: camera's everywhere, all your actions registered, all terrorists locked away, 100% of crimes solved, citizens obeying all rules, drop a chewing gum on the street and a fine is automatically subtracted from your paycheck, leave your doors unlocked and nobody would even think of walking in to steal your belongings. Bomb attacks only happening in movies or history books.
Now THAT is a scary thought. Would you want to live that way? I sure as hell don't. Sure, streets would be clean, life would be safe and easier, but it would also be very boring.
No need to make life 'perfect'. Just do what is needed to bring negative things down to acceptable levels. Find a balance between that and how much effort is spent to archieve it.
It seems to me this balance is often lost. Are measures really cost-effective? Just imagine that all the money going to counter-terrorism and the war in Iraq had been spent on health care and development aid for poor countries instead. That could have lifted millions out of poverty. Anyone in the Bush administration even have a rough estimate about how many (potential) terrorism that would save, or what boost that would give the US economy (and image)?
'Suspect packages' are found every other day now, and train stations cleared or appartment blocks evacuated. Terrorist strike prevented? Nope. Somebody forget their cellphone or shopping bag, and countless men-hours were wasted.
Common sense, people. Traffic, starvation (if you're really poor) or disease might kill you. If you're 'lucky', a lightning strike, plane crash or falling coconut (yes, they kill more people than sharks!) might do it. Looking at how likely it is, mr. Bin Laden & friends are near the bottom of the list. So why is so much effort wasted on that? I'll take some crime and the occasional bombing instead, thank you.Shouldn't they test them BEFORE the Superbowl? I mean, an actual lab test to make sure they work? Because I read that Tom Clancy book. the Superbowl is toast.
Which terrorist would be so stupid to bring a bomb to such an event.
Just go to a stand, point to a brown man and yell on the top of your
lungs: "This man has a bomb!" The ensuing panic will kill more
people than any bomb could.
Look guys...I know it's "fun" to take your Blackberries, Cell phones, Farady Cages, etc. with you to make the Superbowl a true "geek" event, but the radioactives that you've been collecting out of your smoke detectors and the various bacilli that you've been breeding from your garden soil should be left at home this year.
Yes, yes, you can explain the innocent mixup to the guys at Gitmo, but really...is it worth it just to get a free flight to Cuba?
You may not know this, but when they let you leave...you have to walk back
Ummm... Im assuming your thinking of the statistic that falling cocunuts kill 150 people each year. Guess what. It's fake. No one actually keeps track of how many people are killed by falling cocunuts.
Ooo man the floppy drive is broken. No wait. The computer is just upside down.
Republicans?
/., but considering the incredible amount of time and $$ wasted on pointless pseudoantiterrorism efforts since 11/9/01, I just got pissed off this time).
(This is pretty much the first troll I've ever posted to
https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw
...will it protect the American public from the wardrobe malfunction threat?!?
Another overexposed nipple could spell doom for us all...
The Machine stops.
Will this detect clothing malfunctions before they happen?
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
Bullshit!
There is absolutely no way, no way in hell that one sixth of the world's population both cares enough about, and has access to a broadcast of the Superbowl. From YFL:
What the hell is that supposed to mean? 90 million viewers I'll buy, but what the hell do you mean by "tune in". I doubt that on billion people are even watching television over the course of the Super Bowl. 95% of people outside the United States probably don't even know what the Super Bowl is.
May the Maths Be with you!
... testing it in Iraq? They'll be able to work out false positives there just as well, since there's no WMDs there to find, either.
Web 2.0 == Giant Blogspam Circle Jerk
As I see it - OSGi is just an operating system on top of an operating system, and much of the functionality can actually be achieved easier by other means.
Otherwise - a wireless sensor network as it actually is about is fairly simple, but isn't each node in the net rather expensive? A node actually talking IP will require an IP stack and that in turn will require a fair amount of CPU power together with OSGi. But on the other hand - if the nodes are able to run IP and OSGi they are certainly able to use encryption and certificates to validate the data. Cheaper wireless sensors doesn't have enough punch to be able to do much encryption - but on the other hand you may afford to lose a couple of them before anything becomes a problem.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
By the time this sensor figures out that someone has a WMD strapped to their chest, the WMD is obviously already there at the stadium (or relatively close, depending on where they set it up) and everyone there is already in danger.
Or, more likely, the sensor never figures out that someone has a WMD strapped to their chest, because
1. Nobody has any and
2. The people who actually might want to do harm to America could just as easily pull this off with totally ordianary weapons of non-mass destruction-- and are much more likely to
and so while you're spending all this time staring at the WMD detector, whatever actual threats may or may not actually exist just walk right past you undetected.
In the last 20 years the only successful major terrorist attacks against the United States were pulled off with boxcutters, fertilizer, and pickup trucks, and yet we're focusing on expensive, high-tech gadgetry that you practically need the support of the U.S. government to get hold of anyway.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
No, just idiots. I'm going to a 'Puppy Bowl' party. Animal Planet, you da man!
I mean, deploying such technology at super bowl to detect Wardrobes with Mammal Dysfunctions ?
You can't really get more f*cked up than that.
Why don't we all become permanent members of the U.S. Army Reserves, subject everyone to military law, and cancel all public gatherings? Safety First! Who needs freedom when you can have ultimate safety.
I hear Halliburton is getting to build more mass detention camps on U.S. soil. Watch what you say, watch what you do...
Terrorists have their target audiences. [snip] It's not as if there was an attack in the World Cup, whose audience does reach in the billions mark.
You'd be absolutely right about the World Cup, if the terrorists really hated Kenya or Paraguay or the Ivory Coast. Maybe they do. I'm not sure. But I figure they'd really like to attack the biggest game in America.
Someone already commented how wrong your figure is.
Hyperbole. Just sayin'.
Members of the Michigan National Guard will be at the Super Bowl on Sunday to deploy 'sensor fusion', a real-time, IP-based wireless technology that combines readings from portable and fixed devices that can potentially detect terrorist threats.
Those bastards! Burning my tax money left and right to turn my country into a police state with the military watching my every move in the name of "protecting me"...
The software uses open standards and is open-source,
Hurray! At last our government shows good judgement in throwing it's resources behind FOSS... [Snap!] Ow!!! Whiplash!
Finally modding someone offtopic when they rant about what "Begging the Question" means: priceless.
I want to thank the NFL for making the SuperBowl increasingly unwatchable.
Every year the game becomes more and more packaged, with less and less time actually spent in the game and more and more time in commercials. Add to that that the game has been a blow out for the last 10 years (well maybe not the last 10. I stopped caring ~4 years ago.) Past the first half, the game is effectively over and no one cares anymore. They have moved on to talking with other people at the party.
The party which is never as good as people build it up to being (partially because of the boring game). Unfortunately, everyone and their mother feel that they need to host a SuperBowl party because it is now an "event." Half the people aren't fans of the sport, let alone the game. We just show up because it is the SuperBowl and we are supposed to care (once upon a time I used to care). 2-5 people spend the entire game in the kitchen making fancy party foods (super-pizza, super-nachos, super-subs, etc.) that no one needs. I just need a bag of chip/crisps in a bowl, please. Of course it is a party where no one gets drunk because it is the middle of the day before we go to work on Monday and we also all know the neo-Prohibitionists in MADD are going to have the cops out with the breath-testers. So, if you have 2 beers and decide to drive you're in for a hefty fine and a lecture. Enjoy your sober mid-day party.
What type of cameras are they using to film football? The game on TV is ultra-shiny in a way that real life isn't. I have been to many NFL games in real life, sat 10 rows off the field. The real life games aren't that glossy and shiny. And that is part of why the games now look so fake on TV. They have the SuperBowl in some city that has no chance of actually playing in the game. The entire field is enclosed and climate controlled. It is (was) the middle of winter and it looks like a bright sunny summer day in Florida on the field. We are never going to have another Ice Bowl. We are never going to have another SuperBowl where the weather matters. No more mud on the field. No more snow, forcing a running game. Just a highly packaged, processed, blah. It is like once we got to eat hand-packed hamburgers and now we get McDonald's Quarter Pounders. It is artificial crap.
Also every 3-5 years they push the SuperBowl back another week. The game used to be in the beginning of January. Now it is in February. It doesn't really matter since it is played in the perpetual astro-turfed summer of the domed field, but it just isn't what it should be.
I guess that gives them more time to set up the half-time show. A show everyone traditionally turns the channel on. And in an effort to get as corporately packaged as possible the half time show is always some weird mixture designed to appeal to every demographic simultaneously. It is always some 45 minute extravaganza that combines Country & Hip-Hop music to the gayest, most Tony award winning choreography imaginable. And if that isn't enough let us throw a huge fireworks show in the middle of the field! Let us also not run the lip-synched sound directly to the TV feed. That way the TV feed can make due with mics on the field, which sounds like they are filming in a cave. Of course, the singers can't lip-synch worth a damn because it very hard to do when you are jumping around the cast of Rent with M80s going off 2 feet away from your head.
You can tell the game isn't what it should be. Instead of following the action on the field, we are treated to a never ending montage of reaction shots from the players looking bored on the sidelines. I guess they can't get into the game either with the 6 million TV timeouts, real timeouts, instant replay time outs, referee timeouts, Coca-Cola timeouts, etc.
Here is how bad the game has become a sizable portion of the US watches the game just to see the commercials. Name one other time that you do this?
This time they dont need to worry about the blimp. The Steelers played in that one too.
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
Jesus, please tell me Rumsfeld isn't going to pop a nipple out during the half-time show.
The thing is:
Chemcial, (Most) Biological, and Radiological Weapons Are Not WMDs.
Chemical weapons are notoriously inefficient. In World War I, several tonnes of chemical weapons were produced for every fatality that they caused. Aum Shinrikyo tried almost (20?) attacks before they finally got fatalities, and most of their attacks did absolutely nothing. Chemical weapons are very ineffective killers, and aren't even that great at maiming, compared to normal weapons. They're just scary.
Most biological weapons developed thusfar are designed not to spread contagions from person to person very readily, as you don't want a region you're taking over to infect your own troops. Anthrax is a good example of this. It's biological, but it's used in the same way chemical weapons are. Not a WMD -- just scary.
Radiological weapons are the least damaging. "Dirty bombs" weren't developed by modern nations for a good reason: they don't do much (the Japanese investigated use of them in World War II and had a program to investigate their use, but nobody has done much with the concept since). The problem is that to kill people with radiation, you typically need long-term exposure. However, people flee when they suspect that something is wrong. All you do is scare people and make them not want to go back to a given area. Sure, if you had several tonnes of high-level waste and a discrete dispersal mechanism you might be able to cause some casualties, but you could cause a lot more with (much easier to acquire and use) several tonnes of high explosives.
To sum up: Nuclear weapons are true WMDs. A few biological weapons (such as smallpox) are WMDs, but they're closer to "doomsday devices"; most biological weapons aren't because militaries don't want their own weapons to attack them back. Chemical weapons aren't WMDs. Dirty bombs aren't WMDs.
Son, a woman is a lot like a refrigerator. They're six feet tall, 300 pounds... they make ice... umm...
So they have all these sensors and stuff in place - but has anyone put a guard on the Goodyear Blimp hangers yet?
Has nobody else noticed the obvious reason the National Guard are doing this?
Like the stated one?
Not only do they get their weekend hours out of the way, but they get free admission to the SuperBowl. Since last-minute tickets are costing over $1000, I am sure that they are bragging to their buddies what a boondoggle they have accomplished.
I'll bet they brag a lot more if they apprehend a jihadi with a bomb vest trying to get in the door to kill a couple of hundred people, or detect poison gas before it reaches lethal concentration (as Al Qaeda experimented with in Afghanistan, and had a bounty for in Iraq), or stop a truck bomb before it drives into the building.
I once got into a U.S. Open golf tournament by volunteering for "Emergency Services." After spending about 5 minutes setting up some tables, I wandered away and got a beer and watched the tournament like everyone else. And the badge looked cool.
And would you have helped, or even been useful, if there had been an emergency? I know the Guardsmen will help, be useful, organized, disciplined, and not drinking beer.
I suspect that most of them have a somewhat better idea of what would happen to about 60,000 people sitting defenseless, shoulder to shoulder, in an enclosed space if, say, a plane crashed inside, truck bomb blew up, or poison gas was released inside. Beer farts on a golf course isn't exactly the limit of the threat here.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Have fun at your "Puppy Bowl" party, fag.
I'm not sure what definition you're using of "WMD," but to the US Government, a chemical, biological, or nuclear weapon IS a weapon of mass destruction, period. Or rather, a 'weapon of mass destruction' is defined as a nuclear, chemical, or biological weapon.
This definition comes from the 1987 Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), which you can read here. However the way it's described -- not as an explicit definition, but almost as an implicit assumption, suggests to me that the term was used in this way for a significant time prior to this. In the US Code, it also includes radiological, as well as Chem/Bio/Nuclear weapons. (USG uses of WMD.)
However, your point -- namely that there are some weapons which meet the USG criteria for being a "WMD," but probably are not capable of doing that much damage (depending on the type and method of use), is very true. However saying that they are "not a WMD" is a bit of a large statement, because the US Government disagrees with you, and at the end of the day, that's who people are going to listen to and that's the definition that's going to be widely used.
I think that if you want to discuss 'true' WMDs -- that is, weapons which have the capability of inflicting a large amount of damage or number of casualties -- you are better off using the term "mass casualty weapon" or something else, rather than the term "WMD."
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
"Sir! We've detected an unknown biological payload on this short-range man-portable projectile".
"Put down the football Private and get back to shooting upskirts."
What happens if they fail? A bunch of vaporized citizens?
Will any of these sensors be running Linux?
What, no link? This is improper structure for a Slashdot story.
Sorry to disagree with your theory, but none of us working this project got into the game. Heck, most of us didn't even get to watch it on TV.