Slashdot Mirror
Cell Phone Radiation Detectors Proposed to Protect Against Nukes
crosshatch brings us news out of Purdue University, where researchers are developing a radiation detection system that would rely on sensors within cell phones to locate and track potentially hazardous material. From the Purdue news service:
"Such a system could blanket the nation with millions of cell phones equipped with radiation sensors able to detect even light residues of radioactive material. Because cell phones already contain global positioning locators, the network of phones would serve as a tracking system, said physics professor Ephraim Fischbach. 'The sensors don't really perform the detection task individually,' Fischbach said. 'The collective action of the sensors, combined with the software analysis, detects the source. Say a car is transporting radioactive material for a bomb, and that car is driving down Meridian Street in Indianapolis or Fifth Avenue in New York. As the car passes people, their cell phones individually would send signals to a command center, allowing authorities to track the source.'"
The collective action of the sensors, combined with the software analysis, detects the source. Say someone mumbles the word "nuclear", while walking down Meridian Street in Indianapolis or Fifth Avenue in New York. As the individual passes people, their cell phones individually would send signals to a command center, allowing authorities to track the source.
The things giving us cancer will detect things that will give us cancer? All right, I'll take twenty!
Just -1, Troll talking to another.
Is the government going to subsidize the placement of these things in cellphones? It's the tragedy of the commons, that no one is going to want to pay for a more expensive cell phone because it will detect radiation, if it's in everyone's phone. And if the government pays for it, that means it's paid for by taxes. So one way or another, we're going to be paying for this...
Nemilar http://www.techthrob.com - Visit Me!
If anyone is curious and simultaneously lacks the desire to read the article, the test had an effective range of about 15 feet for a weak radioactive signal.
There -are- other, legal, sources of radiation, especially in the scientific community. This is a horrible idea that passes the costs on to the end user for no benefit and oodles of false positives. What could go wrong?
Ah, you're obviously talking about our national-CCTV in action.
...what, you actually think we DON'T have one? Who's crazy now!
o.0
Just -1, Troll talking to another.
this would only set a precedent for even more intrusive sensing. like say chemical sensors. then we might as well jump the gun and add firearm shot detectors. maybe the shot detection could even be integrated into the existing mic to save money. but we promise not to listen to anything more interesting than loud bangs. yeah, this is a great idea, for me to poop on.
The sensors don't really perform the detection task individually
Riiiiiiight - So how long until we hear about a wave of people erroneously "rendered" for "interrogation" in a "friendly", human-rights-respecting country like Jordan, because their own cell phones turned them in following medical tests involving the use of radioisotopes?
Hey congress, grow a pair. We the People do not want this bullshit. Bush won't sign a budget that includes criteria for troop withdrawal - Fine, cut off funding for the war. Bush won't sign a FISA extension that doesn't include immunity for the telecomms - Fine, don't extend the damned thing! Stop with the security theater, please - The actors suck and the popcorn went stale four years ago.
This would be an additional cost of exactly how much? They don't say. Whatever the cost may happen to be, it is surely nonzero. This feature is unlikely to be favored by the market, so the companies making the phones won't want to include it. It might even necessitate reduced functionality. Therefore, this would require a government mandate. What penalty would there be for failure to comply? How intrusive would they have to be to make sure this came to pass? How much would this cost our government? Us? How would all these things affect the market?
Now to the important part. Would it really work? If it did, how easy would it be to hack the system? Mandated communication equals easy virus spread? How many false alarms? Would it promote overconfidence and lax insecurity?
Is this a good idea? I'm not sure. If it prevented a nuclear explosion in a major city that would obviously be a great thing, but what if it made us fail to do so? What if it takes funds that could have been used for more effective measures, and wastes it? There are too many questions about this.
So, is it impractical?
This could also be useful for identifying misplaced radioactive sources. I don't know if such incidents are common nowadays, but I recall reading about incidents in which a source gets misplaced/stolen and unfortunate innocent people are exposed to unhealthy doses because of it. I wonder how well such a system could cope with false positives from natural sources, the dentist's X-ray in the office next to yours, etc.
[b.belong('us') for b in bases if b.owner() == 'you']
It's basically a Wiki nuke detector (but without human intervention). Can you trust the data? No. Could terrorists get 100 cell phones and fake a nuke being transported? Yes. Could they then generate enough fake data so that the gubmint ignores the real nuke heading towards the White House? Yes. (Have TPTB not seen 'How To Steal A Million' - or like me were they too busy gawping at Audrey Hepburn?)
If the detectors are that cheap and small that they can squeeze them into cellphones, just stick them into street lights and then (assuming the terrorists dont have access to cranes and ladders) you have a bit more trust in your data.
Sensor networks are a great idea for some things, but maybe not this one...
Would anyone be interested in my new range of custom shop lead-lined cars?
When I was in high school (in the Netherlands, mind you) in physics class our lab has a small glass container with a little rod of uranium (or plutonium or something else radioactive). It must have been small and relatively riskless, but still radioactive.
Very handy to show the classic experiments, such as showing a condensation-trail, or letting a geiger counter go wild.
Nowadays, highschool classes are filled with mobile phones, probably more phones than persons. It'd be interresting to see something like a NORAD-style "USDHS nuclear materials movement alerts screen" light up like a christmass tree once they activate this system.
This unique sig is intended to make this user more recognisable.
So if normal phones are used for this, what's stopping terrorists from decoding the signal they send and putting timed devices in bins all the way down a street? Set them off, watch the response teams flock to that location, and then attack on the other side of the city.
Isn't there a security law that states something along the lines of "always consider how a security measure can be abused"?
Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
How long before it detects "hazardous materials" such as drugs ?
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
For various tasks that groups of people may need to do. You could even donate time for different causes. Boinc mobile?
Deltron 3030 - Virus (music video)
if we can pull this off.. then we just need to get everyone in every other country... particularly mexico... to implant themselves with a small radioactive chip... and then we can track illegal aliens!!!!
terrorists and illegals in one brilliant, ridiculously expensive swoop... not even congress can argue with that!
now for health care.....
I think they mean that some phones can find their position relative to a network they are connected to. I doubt the same devices can tell your location in the middle of the pacific.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
so, as well as risking cancer, I'd be watched by homeland security for that. I gave that watch to my high school to show off the giger counter as soon as I realized how radioactive it was.
I had a tritium dial watch too. I wish I still had that one - that's safe as long as you don't eat it. But you can't get naughty glowing radioactive things anymore.
I haven't read the article yet, because I'm going to try a test. Does the article say anything about false alarms? Because that's probably the most important thing we need to know about this scheme.
Will it go off when one of those unmarked white trucks that's used for discreet transport of nuclear waste goes by? How about when the big research hospital gets a shipment of isotopes for cancer treatment? How about shipments of nuclear weapons by the military?
It's quite possible that such a system might reveal quite a bit of classified information and have all sorts of unintended consequences. A few years back there was a flap because the U. S. had sent a ship into a Japanese port which the Japanese suspected contained nuclear weapons. As always, the U. S. refused to confirm or deny the fact. But if cell phones were organized into radiation detection networks, then not only would it unmask military secrets, but it might trigger mass panic in the interval between the nuclear material's being detected and the military reluctantly confirming that that's what it was.
OK, let's see if the article talks about false alarms at all:
Nope, just as I thought. It is devoted entirely to how sensitive the system is and how it can detect weak radioactive sources. Not a single sentence about how common innocent weak radioactive sources are, or what the distribution of weak radioactive sources is like when there are no terrorists around.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
I take that back. The article does say that the system can be trained to ignore "hospitals" and "bananas." It doesn't, however, say how, or say that the researchers have actually done this, or what the error rate is.
It doesn't, however, say how it can tell the difference between a terrorist's "suitcase nuclear weapon" and a legitimate nuclear weapon being shipped by the military.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
so my cellphone will have a direct line of contact with a... government agency that will... collect my information.. time of day... places I've been... all in the name of... *drums rolling, what could possibly go wrong, I've got nothing to hide*... seCuRitY...
yes, you see this will happen ONLY if the radiation detector fires up an event, NEVER EVER before... the government agency in charge will make sure of that...
what a jolly happy world we are living in, turn every single one of us into a government agent (stooge). Later on the grid will be expanded to keep track of criminals that might be passing us by (for example child molesters in case your morality standards haven't crumbled to the floor yet and are still putting up a fight, you surely wouldn't like little children getting hurt because of some ACLU ridiculous claims on privacy, would you?)... carry on citizens, carry on, nothing to see here...the future is going to be bright and spectacular...
Yam, yam, uga booga, yam, yam, yade, yade, uga booga, yam, yam, yade, yade
I think one of the most amazing things about Slashdot is how people can always find a way to somehow start ranting about Bush and Iraq, no matter what the subject is.
Often it is treated with radioactive seeds implanted into the prostate. A substantial number of men receive this treatment (implantation of tiny seed sized radioactive bits into the prostate that kills the cancer), which will raise the specificity of said detectors to near useless. I guess we'll see a lot of "nukes" on their way to the early bird special diners, and 4 pm movies.
Some young women are treated with Iodine 125 to treat overactive thyroids. "Ok now the bomb is headed to The Gap, no - now it's going to Forever 21."
..........FULL STOP.
Thats great... although in the 80's this technology was already created to be used via satellite -- to track spies by dusting them with radioactive material. I hope this doesn't mean they are going to give hundreds of thousands of people cancer again just to track illegal immigration. There was an agreement of a worldwide ban of this along with the cessation of above ground nuclear testing...
Great idea, everyone who likes to use cell phones please open you wallets and throw some more cash into the war of terror fund, um... I mean the war on terror. I can't wait to feel safe again and I always wanted to be conscripted as a gov't agent.
As nuclear material arranged into any kind of bomb is amazingly rare outside the military, this scheme would fail because false positives will vastly out number actual bombs detected. Testing for very rare events is always problematic when the reaction to the event has to be immediate and probably very expensive.
Oh yah? I enjoy the taste of fresh grilled burgers. Also, Coke is a tasty beverage.
They claim the detectors are very sensitive. Sensitive enough to go off, say, near a smoke alarm? You'd get millions of false positives.
This is an interesting idea, but, first I don't see why consumers should pay a bit extra for this protection in their phones, and secondly, why these sensors can't be installed on street lamps, inside postboxes, etc.. If they are stationary surely there will be less of a problem triangulating their location, and less of a privacy issue?
This is obviously an excuse to track people's movements, before the RDIF chips get planted in everyone's ass. The "counter-terrorism" bit is the same excuse they've always used.
And who will pay for this equipment in the phone? Will the government subsidize the phones? Where will the sensors fit in ever-smaller cellphones?
It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
Wow. I love how you manage to infer from TFA that Congress is behind this when they aren't mentioned at all. Oh those wacky senators and representatives with their nefarious plots.
"Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." --Benjamin Franklin (1759)
I do think cell phones can provide valuable data about traffic conditions and such, but much beyond that... i think would be pushing a line that has already been pushed much too far.
I mean i personally would rather live with a some risk and full freedom, then limited freedom and some risk.
Any problem caused by a tank can be solved by a tank.
TFA doesn't say how these detectors are going to work, but it could be a sort of scintilloscope meets betavoltaic generator setup, taking the electricity generated by each 'count', graphing the counts per minute and sending an alert over $MOBILE_NETWORK to the command centre if it rises above the nominal background count (20CPM IIRC).
Whilst I'm not entirely sure how the above system would work in the finer details, I assume it's possible to differentiate between different types of radiation, develop a database of 'fingerprints' and squelch out the ones that are fairly ubiquitous.
That's how I'd do it, and that's after only a few minutes of thinking about it.
What about all those legal radiation sources. I wouldn't want FBI to start eavesdrop on my conversations only because I work as a dentist and my cell phone is being exposed to stray emissions from x-ray photos.
Break the sound barrier - bring the noise.
I think one of the most amazing things about Slashdot is how people can always find a way to somehow start ranting about Bush and Iraq, no matter what the subject is.
Follow the money. DHS research funds come from the executive budget, which means...
Anyone?
Right! Bush.
We can blame Bush for so much because he oversees so much. The War on Drugs? Bush -> FDA -> DEA -> multi-year sentences for simple posession. Air travel dying due to the nuissance factor? Bush -> DHS -> TSA -> grandma gets tazed for her knitting needles. Media consolidation? Murdoch -> Bush -> FCC -> ignoring overwhelmingly negative public response in favor of three comments by the CEOs of the biggest media companies on the planet.
When you complain that it all goes back to Bush, well, it does all go back to Bush. Or congress. Or the USSC. But usually Bush.
As someone has pointed out, the cellphones idea can be abused.
But, I think that if this idea is improved upon, it could go somewhere.
Even if we don't get chernobyl phones, somthing useful may come out of this.
Although I am sick of this "In the post 9/11 world" attitude to everything that every single person on this earth must spend every single second of their lives worrying about being blown up.
for god sake, ok 9/11 was terrible, it had unimaginable human cost, but if that had happened in algeria, who anyone care? short answer, no.
the only reason it rules our lives now, and is the one size fits all excuse for everything is because it happened in america, the untouchable super-nation.
"Neo, follow the white rabbit"
"Can i eat the white rabbit?"
"No, there is no spoon to eat it with"
"able to detect even light residues of radioactive material" - Oh look, another fire alarm.
"cell phones already contain global positioning locators" - No they don't.
"serve as a tracking system" - I don't want to be tracked, thanks.
"Say a car is transporting radioactive material for a"... camping lantern, road surface density gauge or various cancer cures.
"As the car passes people, their cell phones individually would send signals to a command center, allowing authorities to track the"m.
... you live in Cornwall on the south west English coast; it's on top of a giant, Argon-releasing granite boss (solidified magma chamber for those non-geologists). Living down there is supposed to be akin to being aboard a nuke-powered sub for your entire life.
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
This is terrible news for Radioactive Man, who can no longer keep his identity secret.
Full Tilt
Let's make some fiestaware carrying cases just to mess with the man :)
Quid festinatio swallonis est aetherfuga inonusti?
Africus aut Europaeus?
Bush doesn't live in Andromeda galaxy. He not a figurehead either, and his decisions affect every man on Earth. people like you hide their head in the sand and mutter mindlessly about how Bush is incapable of affecting them in any way possible.
This cellphone spying program is the direct result of fear-mongering brought by the same Administration which hunts for weapons of Mass Destruction everywhere.
"We have to start thinking like we're a society under attack, because we are."
Society is always under attack, both from within and from without. The first thing you have to decide before doing something to protect 'society', is establish whether the method will in itself change (therefore 'attack') the very society you are trying to protect. Constantly adding a means to 'look over your shoulder' will change a society from a free and relaxed society to a paranoid and controlled society.
"Just because the bastards haven't been able to mount a serious threat within the US borders since 9/11 doesn't mean they wouldn't like to"
Gifted with our imagination, we can come up with an infinite amount of ways we can be harmed, but simply saying it is possible is not justification for any level of measure against it. Careful consideration has to be given to the risk of the threat against the negative aspects of the protective measures.
"Its probably just a matter of time until these yahoos do get their hands on a nuke. This would be just the thing to stop them in their tracks."
Speculation. And if this system was put into place, would it be fool proof. If a group was organised enough to get a nuke, manage to smuggle it to the country of destination, I would suspect they would be organised enough to come up with a way to hide it (lead casing perhaps?)
"Try imagining the alternative, such as maybe your own neighbourhood looking like the aftermath of Hiroshima and Nagasaki all the way out to the horizon. If not your own neighbourhood, how about your friend's neighbourhood, or your relatives neighbourhood? Is that OK? I say it is not."
Again, just because you imagine an awful thing, does not justify any level of preventive measures. I can imagine a mass alien invasion, but I don't think that warrants issuing all citizens with rocket launchers. I do not have enough information to properly evaluate the cost/risks for either of these events, and I see no evidence that you do either.
"I'm sitting in Kuwait on the way out of Iraq after working a science and tech advisor job to the US military in counter-IED work. Take my word, the enemy is smart, capable, and desireous of wiping us off the face of the earth if they can. They take the most innocuous materials and figure out ways to kill you with it. If they get their hands on a nuke, and we don't have proper countermeasures, a whale of a lot of Americans will die, and if not you, at least several people you know and some you care about."
We cannot verify your position, so better to stick to the facts. SO far, the evidence has been that the 'enemy' is generally badly organised and stupid, and most of the 'smart' attack vectors have been thought up by western security 'experts' and generally are argued to be implausible (liquid bombs on planes for example).
By the way - I am neither for or against this idea (it 'feels' wrong to me, but like I say, I don't have enough info to make a sound judgement), but I am against the whole 'this is good because terrorism is bad' line of argument. Yes, it can be argued the other side 'this is bad because freedom is good' is just as bad, but would you rather your default position was one of paranoia or one of freedom?
Because everyone knows even undetonated nuclear bombs are leaking radioactivity like hell...or not...
Another Schneier-esque movie plot threat - spend billions to detect a threat which has an almost zero chance of materialising. How about if terrorists got hold of a new species of killer beers? I'll provide the insect spray, can I have a grant now please?
But with such a guarantee, oh the possibilities. Can we come up with a way to really guarantee anonimity in this case? Promises or laws, especially laws, don't count for obvious reasons, no matter how much our politicians would have us believe otherwise. Math, now, I could possibly believe in.
Yes, the good of the many is important sometimes, even often, pretty often. No self-respecting American should ever contemplate giving up individual freedoms for it, though. So it behooves us to make this work in harmony. Enable the one and preserve the other.
Alright, I'll come off my soapbox and take my happy pills now. Thank you friend computer. I know you know best.
Fill the country with radiation detectors like this and you'll get so many false alarms that the system will become a joke. The man walking down the street who had radiotherapy yesterday, the woman who keeps her grandfather's WW2 glowing radium watch in her handbag, the building made from that particular granite that's rich in radioactives. And let's not forget all the smoke detectors that use radioisotopes, or all the hospitals and labs with sources.
It's a radioactive world out there, and that is the only thing such a system would tell us.
We'd also learn the usual responses of the security forces when they get something wrong is brutality, coverup and smearing.
The answer to finding hypothetical terrorist nukes is proper human intelligence on the ground, not mass surveillance where false positives outnumber the real thing by orders of magnitude. That's just hiding the needle you're looking for in a much much bigger needle stack.
so my cellphone DOES have a direct line of contact with a... government agency that DOES... collect my information.. time of day... places I've been...
There, I fixed your typos.
Seth
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
I better don't 'mystify' the observation-data by having this capability on my phone.
I fart a lot.
If you mod this up, your slashdot background will turn into a beautiful sunset!
Godwin's law (also known as Godwin's Rule of Nazi Analogies)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_lawMaybe in time it will expanded be with Bush... There _are_ similarities with the nazi-regime and the current situation in the USA... Kind of ironic since the US was needed to stop nazi-Germany
yeah yeah flamebait I know...The best weapon of a dictatorship is secrecy, but the best weapon of a democracy should be the weapon of openness.
Couple thoughts - firstly, I'm paranoid enough that my phone knows where I am, and now you're going to tell me that it's going to tell the government regularly AND THAT'S A KNOWN FEATURE?!?!
However, more logically... the more specific to given isotopes you make the sensors, the more expensive they will become. And if the terrorist group knows that our defense network allows isotope x but not y, don't you think they might work with y - even if it isn't as potent or immediately possible?
Think about this. Radioactivity exists around all of us. Tritum in watches, MRI machines (and for that matter healthcare in general), industrial sites, etc etc etc. Placarded vehicles that might be legally transporting something. You're going to tell me that there will be an effective system set up to take in the millions of false hits, screen them for the ones that might really be something, and then plot that against the map - nationwide in real time?
Not every threat is nuclear, also. I'm personally more frightened of simple biological weapons - not the fancy "weaponized anthrax", but good ol smallpox and the easier ones to work with. Even a good outbreak of flu can kill thousands without trying very hard and swamp medical systems / healthcare resources, which will in turn kill more. Nuclear just creates a good snapshot for the media.
I wish there was a choice that said "Factually Wrong -1" when I mod.
So that's what homeland security is calling us tourists then.
"We the People do not want this bullshit."
Oh.. you want it. Yes you do. The bois in charge say you do. You want it enough to foot the bill for it. Break out the wallet and pay for your privilege of living in the FREE USA*.
There will need to be a more robust "call home" mechanism (lets call it a feature) for these phones too. We'll all pay for that as well, not only monetarily. On the surface, it sounds like a great idea, but deep down, it just gives those with power MORE power. Kind of like the "Patriot Act" trojan horse.
*some restrictions apply
Since this new hardware has no commercial value, there's no incentive in including it in new cellphones, so they'd have to become a legal requirement. Once this precedent has been set with radiation detectors, what's next? Chemical sensors to detect drug labs? GPS for even-more-automated speeding tickets? Continuous audio streaming from every cellphone microphone so the TLA agencies can run voice recognition and speech-to-text conversion, etc.?
Also, when will it become a crime not to have your Personal Surveillance Device with you?
If he's a hero, he'll do fine without cellphone and pick up his distress calls by sonic waves. The old style!
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
What are the privacy implications? Would the data feed be anonymous or not? If not, then the government will effectively have a log of the whereabouts of everyone carrying one of these things. Will people be comfortable with that?
If it is anonymous, then it can easily be rendered useless by being flooded with false alarms and fake data.
Hey congress, grow a pair. We the People do not want this bullshit. Bush won't sign a budget that includes criteria for troop withdrawal - Fine, cut off funding for the war.
You are presuming that the Democrats have a pair. What have the Democrats done since retaking Congress in mid-term elections? Virtually nothing.
While there are lots of diagnostic and therapeutic procedures that involve radioactivity of some sort, MRI is not one of them.
That's the good part -- how often are you going to need to detect nuclear weapons in your life? BUT, having a phone with a variety of sensors that can scan for stuff I'm interested in? That's way more like it. Done right, with the right competition behind it, this could be the first step towards tricorders.
That said, I do see some serious issues with using this as part of a global anti-terror system. Not least of which, that I don't like the term "terrorist", but that's another issue. For one thing, what happens when some kid's mobile goes off, and there's just him and some shifty-looking guy on a train, with a big bag? That kid's life is now in direct danger. This would make ordinary people the untrained, uninformed, and panicky and probably irrational front end of a police taskforce.
What is the point in advertising this thing? It is completely useless once it becomes public knowledge.
I'm sorry to engage in US bashing (as little offence as possible intended) but it seems that the plan is to impress the terrorists with all your amazing technology, so that they just give up.
Effective combat against terrorism requires two things: (a) working to eliminate the root cause and (b) in the mean time having as much intelligence as possible to stop yourself getting blown up.
You don't see the Israeli's advertising their latest and greatest.
Genesis 1:32 And God typed
It's like everything you consider doing really. It's not enough there there's some advantage to doing it. The advantage also has to outweight the drawbacks.
The advantage seems, to me, minute. Making it sligthly easier to track movements of certain kinds of materials ?
How ? Install 300 MILLION radiation-detectors, a centralised system for collecting the sensor-data. A sophisticated program for analysing the data and find "suspicious" activity among the millions of false alarms. Sending information on the whereabouts of every one of us regularily to a central government computer. Drain the batteries of devices where battery-life is a limiting factor already.
I don't know HOW much this would cost (nor does anyone else), but I think it goes without saying that we're talking huge sums, certainly billions, possibly tens of billions.
All this for making -one- kind of attack sligthly more likely to be thwarted ? Nukes spew primarily alpha and beta-radiation, it's not as if it's very hard to shield for either of those, a millimetre of any random metal will do it...
Braindead idea of the year. Luckily it's brainedead enough that there's zero chance it'll ever get off the ground.
Bush: Would someone please design a device to be able to track Senator Clinton's whereabouts in the forthcoming campaign?
Politicians have been followed for ever to find out who they are seeing before an election. This is just another way of being able to follow th right people at the right time. Does it have anything to do with us? No. Not until you become the right person.
A little revolution now and again is a good thing. Not possible if everyone knows where you are.
Paranoia, certainly. But not whithout good cause.
"Nothing to fear folks, we just want to turn up the sensitivity in the devices for a few weeks for an experiment. No reason to be alarmed"
False triggers deliver sensor number and location. We found Clinton!
So when I am talking on my phone (in speaker mode) and preparing my old Coleman lantern for the fishing or hunting trip I guess I'll be flagged as a terrorist because mantles (the glowy tea-bag thingies)are soaked in a radioactive salt. Then they will notice that I spend a week away from civilization, possibly where cell phones don't work much less having electricity. I'm not going to like being arrested by big brother every time I go on vacation.
On the hunting trip they will find I have several firearms in the trunk of my car too. I can feel the love now!
Happily all the places I go have basic plumbing so showers are possible...though you may have to cart water by hand from the pump.
Phil
Laugh, it's good for you!
We are doing the terrorists' work for them, they just need to chuck an occasional stone at the security hornets nest and a whole new buzzing starts.
This is complete over reaction - look at how much money is being spent; look at how many people have died. Pound for pound better to put money into a new hospital or cancer research.
Here goes my Data allowance.
It takes 40+ muscles to frown, but only four to extend your arm and bitchslap the motherfucker
How in the hell was this modded Troll? This guy speaks the truth. Was it because he called the terrorists bastards? Or is there Al Queda on /. wanting to silence people like him with their mod points?
Not even a terrorist, hell-bent on killing himself in a terrorist attack is likely to transport a large quantity of seriously dangerous, radioactive material unprotected in a car. It would be shielded, and the only radiation likely to any distance from the source would be gamma- and possibly neutron radiation - and even that is not difficult to shield. Neutrinos, of course, would pass through anything, but the detector required would consist mostly of a large quantity of very pure water. And nice as it is to have your own swimmingpool, I can't see myself lugging an Olympic-size one around inside my mobile.
TFA doesn't mention it, but my guess is that the "feature" can use the CMOS sensor of the built-in camera. It is sensitive to gamma-radiation to some degree. Although this would require the camera to be always on and continuously taking pictures with the shutter closed (thus quickly draining the battery). Some new software to look for bright dots and analyze them is required as well.
Verizon will probably cripple the phones detector/gps.
In the not too distant future, next Sunday A.D.
I think this is the stupidest big brother idea I've ever heard. If you can detect gamma, it's already too late. And they shield nuclear material. Even monkeys know rad's kill. Wow. Homey needs to grep some common sense.
Taking you phone close a MRI machine will kill your electronic device anyway. Even if it was radioactive (due to elements in the cooling system), it will not be detected.
No value to customer, little or no potential to save lives as a security device (huge nuke detection network? Give me a bloody car-speeding-towards-stopwalk detector!), added cost and complexity to device, added bandwidth usage. A completely useless and unneccessary idea, that if anything, is detrimental. There are a lot of things I'd like my phone to have - an infrared port with some range so it will work better as a TV remote, a dedicated headphone jack, more memory, more processing power, and I'd like my next phone to have a *full-sized* SD slot. Hell I'd even take an accelerometer or an FM radio over a useless radiation detector.
Keep useless crap out of our devices.
- Huge gadget freak
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Boiler Up!
Reactor Down
Bah, I meant "crosswalk" not "stopwalk" (Stopwatch + crosswalk?)
My boss was coming towards my cubicle so I was in a rush.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
"Because cell phones already contain global positioning locators"
GPS works with satellites. My cell phone's pretty good, but it doesn't receive satellite signals.
Cell phone triangulation has nothing to do with GPS; if they got this basic fact wrong, its no wonder the idea seems as interesting as shit on a stick for lunch.
I've got a better idea - outfit cell phones with "bullshit lie detector" software, and every time a politician says something that's a lie, all the cellphones in the vicinity play BULLSHIT.mp3.
Civilization as we know it would crumble within a year!
Guess this is as good a place as any to say this... The whatcouldpossiblygowrong tag is being overused. For example, in the case of this article... what could possibly go wrong? Worst case scenario is we end up paying for a system that doesn't work. Which means we wasted money on a lame government program... and that never happens right? /sigh
A mobile phone with a built in geiger-counter? That would be cool... especially after hearing
about all the radioactive waste that gets dumped by mistake:
Radioactive fuel rod found in scrapyard
Thai's complain on radioactive waste
Nuclear free local authorities
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
Mobile phone (Cell phone for you USians) black spots. Yes, that's right, places where there's little to no signal. They still exist, and they're pretty much ignored by the phone providers these days, because they make them look bad. So, it'd be possible to not only store, but work with radioactive materials in pretty much plain sight, because no-one's phone is bleeping at them, saying that there are naughty things occurring. Technology's great and all, but there are times when the flaws are greater. If this is going to be implemented, then do it off the back of the wired phone system, and not the cellular network. There's already enough traffic on there as it is, and not everywhere is covered, as I've just suggested.
http://xkcd.com/313/
Too bad. We'd be better off if he did.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
If you can do this with radiation, why not also include other types of detectors. What about cocaine detectors, linked to your neighborhood police department swat team, ready to swoosh in at the slightest hint of malfeasance? Or alcohol vapor detectors that pick up drunk people moving at 55mph? And keep the criminals from tampering with the phones by making it a crime too. Foolproof!
It may sound crazy, but the cops would LOVE to have this type of technology available to them. And it will only take a couple more terrorist attacks before we give it to them.
your farts aren't radioactive. If they are, you have more problems than phone-tracking.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
Just like the cold war. Best to spend billions on something completely useless, so that when need actually arises, tax-dollar extraction can start clean in a previously unfunded field.
The cost of that cleanup, of course, will be borne by taxpayers, not industry.
It's called Bush Derangement Syndrome.
I love how every time there's any sort of scientific article or new idea posted on here, everyone assumes that the very first (and generally extremely obvious) possible problem with it that pops into their head has not and will never occur to the team of researchers and scientists who came up with the idea. I'm fairly certain that anyone attempting to work on a radiation detection system is fairly well aware that there are in fact sources of radiation other than nuclear bombs, and that if this plan were to be implemented the government wouldn't immediately start raiding hospitals and schools or arresting cancer patients and campers.
The summary left out the best part. Sensors could detect high natural sources of radiation, such as bananas, so have to be adjusted to ignore them.
1. The unit is called "Sievert"
2. Sieverts are expressed in J/kg, i.e. energy absorbed per unit of mass. Radioactive substances cannot "release" Sieverts.
According to the linear hypothesis you will have one cancer death per 25 Seaverts uniformly distributed across a population.
Sieverts cannot be "distributed across a population", because the unit itself is already expressed in "energy per unit of mass". 1 Sv is already enough to cause symptoms of radiation poisoning, a dose of 25 Sv is lethal in a matter of days.
no one is going to want to pay for a more expensive cell phone because it will detect radiation
Just market it as a tricorder, and every rabid Star Trek fan will buy one.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
And will the government be paying me to carry around such a detector with me? Perhaps by subsidizing my cellphone bill or providing me with free data service? And since I pay taxes and taxes pay for government programs - will I be paying myself to carry around such a detector?
The hell with a camera in my cell phone, I'll take a rad detector. How cool is that?
One question - will it stop my calls from being dropped? No? Maybe you guys should fix that FIRST!
== First cross river, then insult alligator.
In New York City there's a city councilman pushing an effort to (you sitting down?) force owners of biological, chemical, and radiological hazard detectors to register the devices with the police. This is to prevent widespread panic that can result from false positives which, as the article points out, has never actually happened. More likely to prevent citizens from monitoring air quality on their own (think the WTC cleanup.) Thankfully the city's science community had a conniption and has managed to put the kibosh on the effort - for now.
Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
Wouldn't that make cellphones illegal in New York City? The local piggies don't like when people have radiation detector, or any other detector for that matter.
Ghoulani is a fascist asshole!!!
Vote for Ron Paul!
"I'm a dirty white tomcat, enter my world..."
... when my tax dollars burst in to arrest me and to take my precious! Can't one have some particle privacy in the modern world, is there always someone watching you?
Problem is, we're trying to make cell phones smaller and cheaper, not larger. Larding them up with unnecessary to the act of communicating features (you know this wouldn't be the only idea that just has to be included) is totally moving in the wrong direction. If this is a problem, just put fixed detectors out there.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
There are amateurs who like to play with legal radioactive materials. How will the nuclear terrorism paranoia will affect them?
Not a bear in sight. The Bear Patrol must be working like a charm.
All we would really have to do is make the law say that the government is not allowed to know the owner of the phone that is transmitting the data which they are receiving. So, they know that phone serial number 12345678 has a usual itenerary of commuting from point A to point B in the morning between the hours of 8:20 and 9:00 AM, and the usual radiation receptions come from innocuous sources at these latitidues and longitudes. Now, a new source not seen before could be coordinated to see if it is moving, how fast, and where it came from and what direction it's heading. People are creatures of habit, so the speculation of a tritium watch carried on the sidewalk would likely keep reappearing at certain times traveling at the same speeds, etc. and, after pattern recognition software sorts this out, would be known to be innocuous also. It would be a signficant software challenge, but reading all these sensors, knowing where the usual sources of innocuous radiation is, and thus being able to recognize a not-so-innocuous, never seen before source of radiation traveling at truck speeds on a major highway, for instance, should not be impossible. It might even be cheap if the SETI-At-Home approach to processing power were used. The threat can be seen to be possible. While the liklihood of success for the enemy is low, the consequences of failure on our part are so horrific that I think this action is justifiable. I wouldn't necessarily be for it if we were just talking about a bio attack that might wipe out a few hundred thousand people, but a nuke in Manhattan on a Monday morning could see millions of people dead AND a really, really important set of infrastucture destroyed as well.
There's no way this effort was funded as a multiple node detection system, the problem is people like you hear this device COULD be put into cell phones and they immediately think the government, headed by evil Bush, is out to get you. I doubt these will be put into phones but rather given to Police and placed in other public areas (stop lights, airports, water treatment planes, ...), that would be no different then cameras in public areas now.
Knowledge = Power
P= W/t
t=Money
Money = Work/Knowledge so the less you know the more you make
I work in a nuclear power plant. What about when I'm at work and walk through a radiation area. Is my phone going to flip out? You can walk through a radiation area and not get contaminated. So it's no big deal to take my phone in. I've only gotten about 25 millirem this year. just for reference, you get about 1000 millirem from a single cat scan.
Oh Crap, I'm an optimist.....
Also, I have to wonder what will happen if a nuke does go off in downtown Manhattan. What will the reaction be? I think it will be a huge outcry of, "Why didn't the government protect us?" Well, it will be because every good idea that is ever proposed is slashed with the idea that it is somehow going to enslave us all. No, we are supposed to fight a totally defensive war (because nobody really wants to go and kill the bastards where they are, as seen by the whining about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan) but do so while blind and deaf, because to let the government watch or listen will surely enslave us all. We're gonna screw around and lose this war yet. I think we ought to start acting like we're playing for keeps. The enemy definitely is.
I'm pretty sure most Americans don't really want to know how much radiation they're being exposed to on a regular day.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Well, again you are using an imagined scenario to justify an action. I can also imagine a scenario where 20 years down the line the american government controls how many kids you have and when, what school they go to and what they learn there, where you have to work, what you eat, and oppressing and critism. And the people saying 'why did we let it get this way'. And I can imagine lots of other scenarios, none of which justify taking a position - it is useful to point us to what to consider and what information to gather, but not on settling on a position, as you have done.
We already know that many of the liberties and freedoms are being erroded in this 'war against terror', we also know that the fear spread about terrorists by western governments has far more impact on the changing of our socity than any actions by terrorists. We know that many of the threats are greatly exaggerated (dirty bombs, liquid exposives etc.). We know that many government agencies are not above using new 'anti-terrorist' laws in ways that they where not intended. There is no evidence of any terrorist group getting anywhere near a nuke.
You seem to think the idea that the government could take more control from the people as not worth considering, yet that very idea was the foundation of America, and the American government has been doing just that under the excuse of protecting from terrorists. History has plenty of examples of democrasies erroding, what do you know which makes America so special that it could not heppen there?
Consider this - what is better, freedom to chose or freedom from harm? Lion in the zoo, or Lion in the jungle. Me? I'm a jungle creature, you sound very much like you belong in the zoo.
You are presuming that the Democrats have a pair
As the Democrats currently control congress, I find your interpretation of my statement somewhat peculiar.
My bias against Bush results from his nearly unbelievable mismanagement of the US over the past seven years, not from any party loyalty (of which I have none). ALL the idiots in Washington need to find themselves on the unemployment line ASAP - And not just to replace them with the new crop of idiots in November, either.
I honestly believe that we've gone too far at this point (which I wouldn't have said prior to Bush) - We don't need the sort of change that comes from an election, we need the sort of change that comes only from revolution (preferably bloodless, but such things rarely work that way).
"It's impossible to completely shield a weapon's radioactive material without making the device too heavy to transport," Jenkins said.
Doesn't make much sense to me. Alpha particles with typical energies are stopped by a few inches of air. Last time I checked, air was pretty light. Betas will stop in a piece of paper or cardboard. Yeah, you'd have to find a source that only emits alphas and/or betas and/or low-energy x-rays, and no gammas. That doesn't seem like it would be difficult at all. We have a polonium-210 alpha source at work, and when I put it inside a wooden box, 100% of the alphas are stopped, and you can't detect any counts above background with a Geiger counter. Okay, now it's a very weak source, whereas the source they'd use for a dirty bomb would be millions of times stronger. The WP article on Po says 210Po does emit some gammas, and maybe those would be detectable through shielding, if you had a blazing hot source. But the bad guys would have the ability to pick any isotope they wanted. For instance, pick an odd-mass isotope that beta decays with a low Q value, emitting a beta and some low-energy x-rays. There are tons of isotopes that fit that description.
Find free books.
Not before long and the by then "already existing(tm)" Database of GPS tracks of each single mobile phone will be used by homeland security to monitor the citizens, not the radiation. Isn't it practical that the radiation databae probably also will be hosted there? in that case thay do not even need to go in front of a court, but just "perform well considdered measures" which act on "readily available data sources" to "prevent terrorism". Thanks, no. Its enough that google spys on my position everytime i use google maps.
I love the idea of integrating giger counters into cell phones but a spectrascope, high quality range finder and high freq oscope would be much more useful and "more funner" to play with.
**Thankfully** this is just "Academic" and will never happen because there is no market value in it.
Then the people could see how they (people in irak and afganistan) are living in a house with contaminated water, air and soil pretty much north south east west and all around Baghdag (remember Rumsfeld btw), because of the depleted uranium (and plutonium) that the the government of countries like the USA, the UK and other organizations like NATO or Black Water (mercenary army) use to bomb people all over the world.
I find it very dubious that a tiny black box built out of polymers of dubious origin can withstand even a measly 8.368 petajoule thermonuclear explosion even from substantial range. Much less save its user at ground zero in which nukes tend to always intentionally or otherwise detonate. In soviet russia the only known hypothetically effective method to deal with nuclear attack is to get a white blanket and crawl to the cemetery, which is much cheaper then purchasing a useless (unless it gets you high when you bite it) black box. Of course I heard that cremation is becoming more popular in North America. If you are a fan of the practice you'll be pleasantly surprised with further savings.
Think about the government's track record dealing with citizen's data.
Now think about continually submitting your whereabouts and details of your environment to the government to the level of detail that you describe.
There's no way I'd trust anyone not to change the terms of use for the data without informing anyone. Suddenly they decide to use it to track people on the "persons of interest" list. Then on the "no-fly" list. Then people suspected of being candidates for that list. Then the FBI petitions to use it to track felons. Then suspects. Then suspects' known contacts.
Now they use it to track "harmful chemicals" but soon it's used to alert the authorities whenever it smells drugs. Or when it smells large amounts of cash. Or when it smells shwarma.
It'll never end. Stop it before it goes over the edge of the slippery slope.
I would say that the war on drugs has done far more damage to the constitution than has the war on terror. I see the rampant fear of the government getting some sort of despotic control out of effort to protect the country to be more far-fetched than my fear of a nuke on Wall Street. As for what makes the USA more immune to the idea of the government getting total control, I believe it is the 2nd amendment and the presence of over 250 million guns in American society. Yes, most gun owners won't get involved, but that simply clears the way for the few million that will. A government cannot defeat its own people when they are determined and they are armed.
"I would say that the war on drugs has done far more damage to the constitution than has the war on terror."
Perhaps, perhaps not, not really relevent to the point though.
"I see the rampant fear of the government getting some sort of despotic control out of effort to protect the country to be more far-fetched than my fear of a nuke on Wall Street."
We have seen examples of democratic governments turning into or being replaced by dictatorships. We see examples of freedoms and rights being removed. We have never seen any example of a small group executing a single mass destruction event, the only example of an atomic bomb being used in history having been done by a certain western government. Why would you see a situation we know as possible as more far fetched than one we only consider possible?
"As for what makes the USA more immune to the idea of the government getting total control, I believe it is the 2nd amendment and the presence of over 250 million guns in American society. Yes, most gun owners won't get involved, but that simply clears the way for the few million that will. A government cannot defeat its own people when they are determined and they are armed."
Basically what you are saying is 'It's ok, if they screw up we can have a civil war and sort it all out'.
I see it as more posible because nukes are existent, stealable or illicitly purchasable things now. Plus, there's an army of starving Russian nuke experts that are for hire to lesser-developed countries that are wanting nukes and hating the US. No, I think there won't be a civil war, I think that the credible threat of one would keep the goverment in line so there wouldn't need to be one. As long as we have 250 million guns, and some decent number of patriots that would oppose totalitarianism, the country can be brought back to a constitutional form of government if it strays in a major way. I think that the knowledge of that would prevent the government from doing things that would bring about such a civil war.
That may be true, but I know a soldier or two and they say the same stuff. OTOH, terrorists over there have the hometeam advantage so it's not like it's directly directly to terrorism in the US. I completely agree with your point about not overcompensating simply because you can imagine something bad. If you can justify it with some sort of risk assessment that involves high probability and obscenely high mortality (Millions is the kind of number I have in mind), then we can start talking about drastic measures.
Having a free society is worth lives as our forefathers often said. People lose sight of the fact that simply being alive isn't enough. Being alive AND free, while not easily quantifiably valuble (although you could argue that free societies are rich societies as Paul Graham has done), IS worth some number of lives. Judging by the way our ancestors (not just the US, everyone) have acted, it is worth a fucking TON of lives (hundreds of thousands or millions at a time on occasion). You could even argue that dictators, in order to preserve their own personal freedom, kill millions because it is that valuable. Don't go giving the government mass surveillance powers if you can avoid it is a good rule of thumb to go by.
"army of starving russian nuke experts"
I'm afraid I'm not going to take your word for that. While I have no doubt that there are nuclear experts out (russian and elsewhere) who would sell these abilities to the highest bidding, I doubt there are many starving (neclear expert means well educated, which usually means middle to upper class, which means they rarely feel the full force of a down turn in economics). There are however armies of government agents who would regard anyone with detailed knowledge of nuclear reactions as someone worth keeping an eye on. They also keep a good eye on possible terrorist, particularly possible terrorist who have enough money to finance such an operation. You don't just put an ad in the local paper looking for a nuclear expert and material - you shift money around and make contacts, and those sorts of circles are the circles a lot of attention is spent on.
On the other hand, the general populous spends their time looking at Britney spears, and so long as the government is telling them they are in danger, they are quite happy to give up any freedom so long as they can still shop in walmart and watched Britney spears fuck herself up.
And your idea that this will not happen based on some sort of bluff that the guns will be turned on the government if need be (but it won't happen so it doesn't matter) seems a little short sighted. Consider Bush's re-election. Whether _you_ beleive it was rigged or not, many people do. Consider that, many people in America believed that Bush was not the legal President, that the person living in the White house was a fraud. But what did they do? Did they get their guns out, march to washington and demand that their legally elected president be immediately instated? Or did they complain for a while then accept the status quo? So what makes you think that at some point the population would realise that perhaps they have given up a freedom to many, and it is time for a change, whatever it takes?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Is not the radiation itself; they are talking about the fact that an ionizing radiation source plays hell on radio signals, and by monitoring the signal strength reported, along with the qos (quality of service' reported, will tell the people looking where the source is; as hot as a patient is, it won't cause major disruption like a nuke or dirty bomb would.
Everyone within a certain distance would suddenly drop calls...
If you're standing somewhere in a crowd, and everyones cell phone dies as a heavily-loaded truck drives by, you might get to see a nuke up close...for just a moment.
The detectors to look at the pulse shape of the gammas are much more expensive than just tracking disruptions with already-delivered signals that are constantly handshaked between the base stations and the phones.
Truth isn't Truth - Guliani
sumd00dsez:
What is the point in advertising this thing? It is completely useless once it becomes public knowledge.
Psychological operations.They can't be sure we can't do it, so they have to assume any attempt is wasted. Regan ran the USSR into bankruptcy trying to keep up with out mostly theoretical and unworkable SDI.
As for a car full of crazies transporting open material they'll probably end up as a relatively minor hazmat job when they all bleed out and crash. This system can keep track of thst.
If, however, it's built into a casing with a arming device, they detectors won't see it, nor will anyone else until the wide spectrum EMP burst.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
With these detectors in place, some kid with a mineral collection (uraninite, carnotite, tc.) can cause a major shitstorm by grinding up a specimen and sprinkling it around. If the detectors are smart enough to reject medical isotopes, this would still show up as (Horrors Be!): URANIUM IN THE WILD! Oh noze! Call Dick Cheney! The terrists are here!
What a wonderful idea! Let's formalize the use of nationwide citizen tracking devices, equipped with useless but expensive sensors that try to spy on everybody. Of course, this functionality would have to come with the ability to remotely activate the cell's microphone and cameras "to gather more information about terroristic activities on scene".
The nuclear threat serves only as the official excuse to scare people into compliance with the egregious breaches of privacy and personal safety that are guaranteed to occur. Those sensors won't detect anything useful, but they will mandate a huge surveillance apparatus that can be handily used for comprehensive tracking and spying.
I'm as scared about, say, nuclear terrorism as everybody - but can we please start resisting people who are just using this fear as a pretext to take our rights away? Terrorists and the government have a really nice symbiosis going there, but everybody else just loses out on every step of the way.
What if I transmute the thorium to arcanite?
The world you experience is only a close approximation of reality.
I'm not really convinced. Shouldn't our governments be tracking it anyway? All I got when I read this was a vision of a nuclear bomb going off about half a mile off, you see it coming, and your phone starts to bleep - warning - dangerous levels of radiation. Useful! A better warning might be... run like hell...!