Slashdot Mirror
Blimps Monitor Crowds At Sporting Events
Death Metal tips news about how defense contractor Raytheon is adapting military-style surveillance packages for use aboard blimps at public events like the Indy 500. "Until recently, Raytheon's eye-in-the-sky technology was used in Afghanistan and Iraq to guard American military bases, working as airborne guards against any oncoming desert threat. Using infrared sensors and a map overlay not unlike Google Earth, the technology scans a large area, setting important landmarks (say, the perimeter of a military base), and constantly relays video clips back to a command center. If a gun fires or a bomb is detonated, the airships can detect the noise and focus the camera — all from a mighty-high 500 feet." Though the technology is expensive, Raytheon is shopping it around to police departments and other organizations that might want to keep an eye on large gatherings of people.
"The airship is great because it doesn't have that Big Brother feel, or create feelings of invasiveness," says Lee Silvestre, vice president of mission innovation in Raytheon's Integrated Defense division.
Oh, okay. As long as we don't feel like we're being watched, everything's all right then.
Excuse me? Isn't the whole idea of a good spy not to make the targets feel like they're being watched? Is it okay for foreign agents to get copies of classified documents as long as we don't feel like they're doing it?
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
As long as I don't have a reasonable expectation of privacy.
The problem is in the abuse of this, like the footage that came out of the police using their night surveillance equipment to spy on individuals having an evening with a lady in their penthouse.
So as long as abuse is monitored and actively discouraged, what's wrong with being watched while you're in public?
The fact that this is in yro makes it sound like someone thought it would be a privacy issue, but I don't see why. The idea is to use it on crowds of people at sports events, etc., where they don't have any expectation of privacy. Viewing from 500 feet and at a high angle, with a field of view wide enough to take in the whole crowd, they're not going to be able to identify individuals. They propose zooming in to a particular region if there are gunshots or something, and maybe then, if the angle is appropriate, they could get some kind of view of an individual's face, although it seems unlikely. What makes surveillance like this scary is if it (a) goes into places where you do have an expectation of privacy (like the Obama administration's plans to read email that crosses international borders), (b) is ubiquitous (as it is in the UK), (c) raises the prospect of aggregating data in creepy ways (like being denied health insurance because you buy too much vodka with your preferred customer card at Albertson's), or (d) forces us to take the government's word that it isn't going to be used more than they said (like the Bush administration's wiretaps). The blimp concept doesn't seem to lend itself to any of these.
Find free books.
I wonder if they offer cool tech for us regular citizens to watch over the authorities. Kinda doubt it.
Todos mis movimientos están friamente calculados
Seriously though, in the entire history of modern stadiums, is there really enough of a threat to warrant constant surveillance of that kind? How many millions of people go to stadiums each year for games and races, and how many are killed, blown up, stabbed, or raped, 0.01%?... if that? And are these blimps really going to prevent that from happening again? I doubt it.
The eye-witnesses combined with the usual surveillance (guards, cameras, at the gates, ticket centers, etc) is likely quite sufficient in tracking anyone who blows something up or kills someone, and probably even better at tracking down people who may have planted something there days or weeks beforehand when the blimp wasn't even there.
Besides, your example is excluded almost entirely from this scenario, that wasn't a normal event, it was a large gathering of people essentially forced to that location which just happened to be a stadium, in a rather intense point of time, the same sort of stuff would have happened no matter where they were, and the military and whatever else was already involved and would have brought their own surveillance equipement, not called in the survaces of some private blimp.
"If a gun fires or a bomb is detonated, the airships can detect the noise and focus the camera."
Note to self: if ever wanting to defeat the system, remotely or have a friend, set off a string of fire crackers somewhere else while I carry on unwatched.
"Though the technology is expensive, Raytheon is..." hoping customers won't be put off by a system that falls for the equivalent of "Look! Elvis!"?
Agreed. Also, anyone seriously criminal would just shoot at the blimp, possibly from miles outside the stadium.
So much of what is sold as Protection these days is all about catching people AFTER the fact.
How many total FAILS do we need to see that buses still get bombed and innocent Brazilians still get shot in the head no matter how many security cams you hang up?
The truth is that the real terrorists don't care if they are caught, and this type of situation will not prevent sneaking weapons or explosives into a stadium, or prevent someone half a mile away from dropping a 8 or 10 mortar rounds into an event before the police could roll a single squad car.
Further, a blimp in the air will set the event security staff at ease making it easier for nefarious individuals to accomplish their goals.
This is utterly pointless technology.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
You should be worried about pinko commies... Nationalizing banking, insurance, healthcare, education, car manufacturing, transportation, your corner store. ;) Just face it dude, they won... Oh wait, I have to go get these damn kids off my lawn.
More seriously though, even the russians are shaking their heads at what's going on. Germans who are old enough to remember too.
Mind the frickin' laser...
So much of what is sold as Protection these days is all about catching people AFTER the fact.
That's because doing things that would catch them BEFORE the fact are kinda frowned upon. You know, things like checking luggage and searching people before they board flights, searching the belongings of people coming into the country, listening to conversations overseas and so on. Hell, people are pissed that they have to show friggin ID before boarding a plane!
So make up your mind. Do you want to catch these guys BEFORE an attack or AFTER?
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
Or he does, and had to wipe fingerprints off afterwards.
Hell, people are pissed that they have to show friggin ID before boarding a plane!
As they should be, checking ID to board a plane does nothing for safety, everyone of the 911 hijackers had ID. And these new "Real ID" cards will only give people a false sense of safety, they'll only be good until someone cracks them, which is only a matter of tyme.
Do you want to catch these guys BEFORE an attack or AFTER?
"Anyone who will give up a little liberty for safety will never get nor deserve either."
From Benjamin Franklin, who lived in a tyme when the enemy could enter a person's home and drag them away.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?