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Homeland Security's Tech Wonders
Lucas123 writes "The multi-billion dollar budget of the Department of Homeland Security has spawned a myriad of new, whiz-bang technology that includes things like keychain-size, remote-controlled aerial vehicles designed to collect and transmit data for military and homeland security uses. It also includes infrared cameras that capture license plate images to match them in milliseconds to police records. "Seventy percent of all criminal activity can be tied to a vehicle," says Mark Windover, president of Remington ELSAG Law Enforcement Systems, which is marketing its product to 250 U.S. police agencies."
Now we will see crime drop just like it did in the UK when they installed their cameras!
"Seventy percent of all criminal activity can be tied to a vehicle,"
The occupant of Air force one ?
It also includes infrared cameras that capture license plate images to match them in milliseconds to police records.
The CAPTCHA's are getting so damned difficult to decipher that I can hardly even sign up for anonymous email accounts or download pr0n anymore.
How is stuff like correlating license plates to crime, or flying small recon drones around, helping catch terrorists? According to the Director of National Intelligence, Michael McConnell, the best thing Washington could have done to prevent the terrorist attacks in new york was to have listened to FBI agents when they repeatedly warned that Zacarias Moussaoui was acting suspiciously, and repeatedly requested search warrants (http://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/Story?id=3621517&page=1 .) Homeland security should be doing research about how to prevent bureaucratic incompetance.
But where does one direct all this "wonderful" technology? There is a myth that seems to infest these new fangled security organisations, that if only they can gather sufficient data they will be able to identify and prevent bad things happening. They cannot, but are willing to spend huge amounts of money in the attempt.
Are you sure about that:
http://www.answers.com/myriad?cat=technology&gwp=13
According to marriam-webster, the noun is actually the older form of the word. See the usage note at http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/myriad
It looks like the same track is being followed as in the United Kingdom, where we host the world's largest collection of CCTV cameras, not to mention cameras to catch speeding motorists, read registration plates, etc. Whilst it may give a nice warm glow of reassurance to those who believe the propaganda, does all this gadgetry do anything to reduce the amount of crime as opposed to the fear thereof? Not really: CCTV cameras, for example, have blind spots in their coverage. Technology is being used as a fig-leaf to cover the fact that the powers that be cannot or will not use the presence of humans patrolling in uniforms as a means of catching or deterring ne'er do wells. Technological fixes seem to be preferred too since they do not require wages, meal breaks, holidays or other such luxuries which drain the public purse.
"usage: Recent criticism of the use of myriad as a noun, both in the plural form myriads and in the phrase a myriad of, seems to reflect a mistaken belief that the word was originally and is still properly only an adjective. As the entries here show, however, the noun is in fact the older form, dating to the 16th century. The noun myriad has appeared in the works of such writers as Milton (plural myriads) and Thoreau (a myriad of), and it continues to occur frequently in reputable English. There is no reason to avoid it."
http://m-w.com/dictionary/myriad (Definition of myriad from the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary)
A problem with information on 'the Internets' is that there are chances that the quality of the sources are not always properly assessed.
CC.
TaijiQuan (Huang, 5 loosenings)
I say we go with "plethora" or "vast cornucopia" instead.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Seems to me that it isn't the huge budget of the department of homeland security that's pushing these innovations, it's DARPA, the same group that has been pushing everything from AI (with cool desert races) to the internet.....
A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.
Probably that means they should be spying upon themselves more. That way, if an agent figures out something useful maybe someone in another agency will learn about it and be able to make use of it. At least they won't need to worry about lack of inter-agency cooperation and all that.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Homeland security should be doing research about how to prevent bureaucratic incompetance.
I like this sentence. It sends me into a trance every time I read it. I think it is because I imagine the DHS trying to perform this research and ironically getting nowhere. Then they try to research why their previous research got nowhere. When that gets nowhere they decide to research why the research of why their previous research got nowhere got nowhere and so on.
Suddenly, the hairy finger of a familiar monkey tapped me on the shoulder. It was time.--G. T.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammar_Nazi
This comment is fully compliant with RFC 527.
You're wrong: http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/myriad
From the Mirriam-Webster dictionary: Recent criticism of the use of myriad as a noun, both in the plural form myriads and in the phrase a myriad of, seems to reflect a mistaken belief that the word was originally and is still properly only an adjective. As the entries here show, however, the noun is in fact the older form, dating to the 16th century. The noun myriad has appeared in the works of such writers as Milton (plural myriads) and Thoreau (a myriad of), and it continues to occur frequently in reputable English. There is no reason to avoid it.
Revolution.
Pop quiz, in the USofA are there:
#1. More terrorists?
#2. More crooked cops?
Now, which of these is this new surveillance technology supposed to protect you from and which ones will have it?
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/conductunbecoming/
Instant 70% crime drop!
The companies making the products often hire politicians who voted to purchase those products to fight [crime|terrorism|kiddie_porn].
It's all an incestuous cycle.
Invading your privacy since 2001!
i know not what weapons the next world war will be fought with, but world war IV will be fought with sticks and stones.
It IS a noun. It is also an adjective. Please check your facts before trying to correct others.
/mrid/ [mir-ee-uhd]
myriad
-noun
1. a very great or indefinitely great number of persons or things.
2. ten thousand.
-adjective
3. of an indefinitely great number; innumerable: the myriad stars of a summer night.
4. having innumerable phases, aspects, variations, etc.: the myriad mind of Shakespeare.
5. ten thousand.
Origin: 1545-55; Gk myriad- (s. of myriás) ten thousand; see -ad1
Also interesting:
Usage Note: Throughout most of its history in English myriad was used as a noun, as in a myriad of men. In the 19th century it began to be used in poetry as an adjective, as in myriad men. Both usages in English are acceptable, as in Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "Myriad myriads of lives." This poetic, adjectival use became so well entrenched generally that many people came to consider it as the only correct use. In fact, both uses in English are parallel with those of the original ancient Greek. The Greek word mrias, from which myriad derives, could be used as either a noun or an adjective, but the noun mrias was used in general prose and in mathematics while the adjective mrias was used only in poetry.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
And yet, in spite of all of this "whiz-bang" 007 technology, I feel no safer. I wish that they had taken that multi-billion dollar budget and done something useful, productive, and boring with it.
It makes me wonder whose interests they're serving.
--
$tar -xvf
How many of us have told a friend to vote for Ron Paul today? This shit doesn't fix itself.
Do you want to know what it is being used for? I'll tell you, revenue generation. The city of Providnce, RI recently changes the rules regarding parking tickets. It used to be that if you had five or more you might find your car booted. Now it's two tickets and it's not the police doing the booting, but a private company.
I've seen the vehicle, it's a mini-van with cameras mounted at the top of both A pillars and pointing outward and a little above curb level. When they spot a vehicle the put on a boot with a keypad. To get the boot off you have to call the 800 number, pay on average $350 then remove the boot and return it to the police department.
The other little thing that went into effect were tons of new parking meters. The one thing right about that is the kiosk system, no individual meters. It prints a ticket that you place in your car. And it takes credit cards. The kiosk is also run via solar power and uses a MESH network connection.
So not all those technologies are used to spy per se, but as revenue generation tools.
"A myriad" can refer to a very small myriad. As in,
"All this expensive crap has a myriad of uses compared to good old fashioned police work."
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
Hello everyone,
On September 19th I sent an angry letter to the Department head, Mr. Peter King, telling him how bad a job I thought he was doing.
Five hours later, two very skilled hackers attempted to circumvent my firewall and gain access to my computer here at home. In the, oh I dunno, 12 years I've been doing this, nobody attempted a hack of this skill against me. I'm convinced, not just because of the timing, but the unique methods employed, that the Department of Homeland Security is responsible.
They are now investigating civilians in the name of patriotism for expressing a dissenting view.
I call upon everyone in this community to attempt to capture and make public the small bit of code that they tried to place on my machine. We know it as Talon. Release of this code may prove that their investigations have nothing to do with terrorism, and I beg everyone to help me in this.
Thank you.
All for the low, low price of your personal freedoms!
Hey, it took millions of Egyptians to built the Great Myriads, and if they want to noun them thats there write.
The question is who is policing the police?
Remember, George Washington and our founding fathers were considered terrorists.
Its all his fault. The spooks look at all the cool toys CTU has and their like 'WTF OMG' ...
Years and billions of dollars later they start getting their toys, the US turns into a police state and Chloe O'Brien is pregnant with Satans child.
Problem is, toys can't replace common sense or good old walking the beat crime fighting. Besides, many more people get killed in a month from car accidents then all that got killed on 9/11. I'll also bet that property damage in a year from those accidents far exceeds the property damage done on 9/11. Yet we spend BILLIONS on terrorism, and practicallly nothing on making cars safer (in fact, the cars of today are less safe-look at how well the bumpers don't work on new cars). Or, look at health insurance. If they put those billions into making sure the 30 million uninsured people in this country had health care, many more people would live then died on 9/11. Look, I'm not trying to devalue what happened on 9/11. It was terrible! BUT our priorities are really f**ked up! The military can't fix the big problems in this country. We need to use our money on basics, not toys! I don't know about you, but my money pays for food and lodging for my family before I buy a wide screen TV with it. Of course, Halliburton isn't in the health care business either.
I'd like to how these companies and agencies react when hardware blueprints and software source code for their (very likely) proprietary products get subpoenaed by tech savvy defense lawyers. A reasonable court* would hold that a defendant has a right to examine the devices for his defense. Neither state secrets nor trade secrets will (given a reasonable court*) be a justification to hide the proprietary bits.
Since I expect neither the companies nor the government will be too keen on letting such material be examined in court, the combination of reasonable courts* and a tech savvy defense will greatly limit the applicability of this technology to law enforcement. Or, perhaps, people will realize that any hardware and software used by the government, particularly for law enforcement purposes, must be open public examination.
--sabre86
*Reasonable courts do exist, right? Please.
Or blunders?
I think that was implied by what I said.
Implied, or implode?
Perhaps now, someone in the US will actually catch an actual terrorist (not).
Why, yes! I AM new here.
Wow, I bet you feel like a fuckin' idiot now. That ought to shut you up for the rest of the year. Thanks for the chuckle, asshat.
The amount of money spent making cars safer is a lot more than "practically nothing." For the past few decades, the government has regularly piled on more and more regulations, the costs of which are payed by car buyers and the auto industry. Perhaps you have noticed a trend during this time toward larger, heavier vehicles? Then there are all the electronic safety features available on modern cars like ABS, airbags, traction/stability control, tire pressure monitoring, lane departure warning, active roll bars, etc.
then we will all be free.
Ow! I have found it best not to nitpick grammar and spelling on Slashdot. There are plenty of folks here who are very intelligent and be's not the bestest fo speelers or grammaticistists. I think it's best to judge the content not the occasional misuse of a word or spelling. Also, some of the world's best educated in English seem to peruse Slashdot and they WILL hold you to your own standards and put you in your place if you try to be a grammar Nazi and you are actually...WRONG! That is part of the evolution of my sig. :)
I reserve the right to think for myself. Others' opinions are optional. Puppy on lap = typos...not illiteracy.
I can feel safer now that we have so many new surveilance devices keeping an eye on the general population.
Oh, where's Osama bin Laden right now, you see him with that stuff? No? Hmm, I think this is turning out to be like the Hubbel telescope -- it's great stuff and cost bundles, but the lens is pointed in the WRONG F@#%(&*# DIRECTION!!
Laughter is the Spackle of the Soul.
...that I turned into a grammaticist. Some of them hot older babes looking mighty fine to me!
(Score:4, Informative), my ass! Should be (Score:-2, Pompous and erroneous).
So you, oh-measure-of-all-men, are the true arbiter of whether the source has been "properly assessed"? Why is your source preferable to anyone else's? Because you're "special"?
My source, the Liddel & Scott Greek Lexicon (yes, I did take three years of ancient Greek), defines it as follows: murios, -a, on (feminine and neuter endings shown for declension purposes) -- ten thousand, countless. How's that as a noun? How's that for old? Thus I blow farts in the general direction of your sixteenth century novelties.
The definition continues with references to both singular and plural usages, but never is it shown as a noun. The closest you could get to a noun would be to describe it as a substantive adjective, as is done in that upstart, English.
Note also that your own source says "As the entries here show, ....", without providing said entries other than its own self-supplied definitions listed as nouns. Helluva source, Brownie.
By the way, your pedantship -- the quality of the sources is not always properly assessed. While no extra points are granted for it in your final grade, subject-predicate agreement remains important in this classroom.
....once you realize they wanted that attack to go down. Then it makes a lot more sense. Trillions in profits for the connected elite, unlimited political power, far and away from any legitimate Constitutional authority, for those who give the orders.
How soon people forget. The FBI had an informant inside the cell that did the *first* WTC attack in 93. And "others" had informants involved with the OKC attack.
You have the finest stealth tyrannical government that long term planning and "need to know" rogue government officials can devise. Enjoy living in a dictatorship and keep believing in their fairy tales of what happened and when.
And people are still wondering why there is more "security" infrastructure going in place? It has nothing to do with stopping crime or catching terrorists, it has everything to do with locking down the police state, step by step by step. Right in front of your faces. Too much all at once, they get a revolt, a nasty one. One step at a time, and their serfs will demand the police state be implemented, just like what is happening right now.
*Some* government is stupid, other parts of government (now corporate government or fascism, might as well call it what it is, transnational globalist fascism) are quite smart, that is why they give the orders and are billionaires, and "most any one else you" don't and aren't. The smart ruthless guys call the shots, the weaker and stupider people follow orders. And don't forget the ruthless part and remember, they coined the term "acceptable collateral damage" to justify their actions. That is how it has always been throughout history, so it isn't any different now, just people refuse to accept the reality confronting them, like they always do until it is too late to do much about it. The term is cognizant dissonance, and it is why is was so easy for ruthless "leaders" in the last century to get people to willingly climb into trucks headed to the camps without much fighting against it while it was going on. People just will never accept that very powerful people are by and large quite insane megalomaniacs and sociopaths, and really don't function on the same levels as just normal sane people. So they choose to "not believe that!" when confronted with what is in essence, quite simple and clear cut evidence that would lead most any normal person to come up with 2+2=4, if they were looking at someone else's circumstances. When it comes to themselves, most everyone thinks they are smarter than the ruthless sociopaths who are already extremely powerful humans. Here's a hint, you aren't. You may be technically more intelligent in some other fields besides extreme global power politics, and you aren't cunning enough or even honest enough with yourself to admit when you've been tricked, so you insist it "never happened, couldn't happen!"
The "war on terror" is the largest phishing scam ever devised, and is quite successful... It's so good now that a feedback loop has been established, and now we are making hundreds of millions of people into "terrorists", which will then "justify" all the heinous big brother action.
Sounds almost like a get-smart episode.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I would purchase all the gizmos and tech wonders I could get my hands on while the funding lasts, I mean wouldn't you? They pretty much THROW money at H.S. right now, makes work alot more fun with remote control flying whatsits and whole companies scrambling to built gadgets for ya... not that I REALLY think any of it is necessary mind you, but that doesn't stop me from buying the latest Nvidia cards for my PC when I REALLY don't need two 8800's in there... how do you get a job in Homeland Security BTW?
My source, the Liddel & Scott Greek Lexicon ...
Not knowing the relative authority of either source, the one about modern English trumps the one about ancient Greek in my book.
"Because Science" is one step from "Because old book". Try "Because of my experiment testing my falsifiable assertion".
Don't worry. With the increased number of political appointments instead of by merit we've got the bureaucratic incompetance situation at an entirely new level. Soon we'll have world's best practice in bureaucratic incompetance instead of being left behind in this area by the top performers in the third world. Forget study and hard work - join the party comrade!
I'm never going to bother to spellcheck a slashdot post and neither are a lot of people. It really doesn't matter unless it changes the meaning of things.
Problem - Solution:
Overbearing satellites - sombrero
Nanohelicopters - fly swatter
Towers, sensors and radar - pantomime horse outfit
Ranged finger and iris scans - sunglasses and gloves
One step solution: Pantomime horse wearing sunglasses, gloves and a sombrero carrying a fly swatter.
This is tyranny.
so the police can stay at their office in good and relax while watching the crime would happen and eating popcorn. i think the police will get more fatter and lazy :D
That's called culpable ignorance -- ignorance through intent not to find the truth -- and not invincible ignorance -- where you really cannot find the correct answer.
A simple search gives: http://www.logos.com/products/details/1772:
Liddell and Scott Greek-English Lexicon
The world's most authoritative dictionary of ancient Greek
Indispensable for biblical and classical studies alike, the world's most comprehensive and authoritative dictionary of ancient Greek is now available with the Revised Supplement integrated into the body of the text for the first time ever. The publication of the Revised Supplement in 1996 marked a major event in classical scholarship and was the culmination of 13 years' painstaking work overseen by a committee appointed by the British Academy, involving the cooperation of many experts from around the world.
The Main Dictionary: Liddell and Scott's Greek-English Lexicon (9th edition 1940), is the central reference work for all scholars of ancient Greek authors and texts discovered up to 1940, from the 11th century BC to the Byzantine Period. The early Greek of authors such as Homer and Hesiod, Classical Greek, and the Greek Old and New Testaments are included. Each entry lists not only the definition of a word, but also its irregular inflections, and quotations from a full range of authors and sources to demonstrate usage.
.
OK, where were we? Oh yeah -- now that you know the authority of my source, where's your authority. Hmmm, the generic Webster's. At least have the ambition to use a reference of some stature. I'd suggest the OED for openers.
Insofar as you simply took as stipulated that your book trumps mine (in formal logic, that's known as The Proof from Blatant Assertion), I now assert that mine, going back to the original language, trumps the living shit out of yours.
I have now sufficiently proven you so thoroughly ignorant (culpably) that I can safely assume that you not only think the word "kudos" is plural, but that the word "Celtic" begins with a soft "C". Wrong on both counts, sweetheart. Go to the language where the words originated, then observe and learn.
P.S. As for your "... in my book.", well, your book sucks. It's obviously as lightweight as yourself.
They'd receive a mangled wheel lock back that they have photo evidence of being attached to your car, with a matching serial number on the lock. They'll have your licence plate and so they'll know who/where you are. They'd bill you for a new one, and maybe prosecute for damage.
Hail Orwell !!
Why bother, just buy it all off the Israelis instead, that way, you get the whole lot neatly organised, collated, and critiqued for reliability. OTOH, they should probably skip the last part, since that might make the reading a little unpalatable.
Hold on a second; what percent of criminal activity is related to Homeland Security? I'll bet it's very low. Now cut that to 70%.
The Department of Homeland Security Mission Statement says:
The DHS constantly oversteps its bounds and infringes on our personal freedom. We must not fall victim to Big Brother tactics.
Use my userscript to add story images to Slashdot. There's no going back.
having small gadgets to help in keeping crimes at bay..that's technology being used to the fullest. is it really, now? more like being phobic and hiding behind all the reasons they can come out with just to get the approval of the public. typical.
"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe."
When human solved the problems. Another human will break the rules of the problems. So, no problems and solutions for the problems will be subroutine in our life freely.
I did take three years of ancient Greek
... perhaps this was enough to learn that the connotation of 'idiot' shifted a little since ancient Greek was the language of choice in Greece, whilst it obviously was of not so much help with regard to the noun in question.
CC.
TaijiQuan (Huang, 5 loosenings)
The footage was from CNN, not Fox
Remember folks, slashdot doesn't have a -1 "disagree" moderation!
Any chance to repeat what you want to say in a comprehensible English sentence?