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Cell Phones Could Sniff Out Deadly Chemicals
Hugh Pickens writes "Science Daily reports that Homeland Security's Science and Technology Directorate's Cell-All is an initiative to equip cell phones with a sensor capable of detecting deadly chemicals. A chip costing less than a dollar would be embedded in cell phones and programmed to alert either the cell phone carrier to the presence of toxic chemicals in the air, and/or a central station that can monitor how many alerts in an area are being received. While one alert might be a false positive, hundreds would indicate the need for evacuation. 'Our goal is to create a lightweight, cost-effective, power-efficient solution,' says Stephen Dennis, Cell-All's program manager. Does this always-on surveillance mean that the govenment can track your precise whereabouts whenever it wants? On the contrary, DHS says; Cell-All will operate only on an opt-in basis and will transmit data anonymously."
Now I have to turn off my cellphone when I cook meth.
You can't take the sky from me.
One might be a false positive. Hundreds might indicate the need for evacuation.
So how is that person holding the false positive going to react? Maybe they're the first phone to realize it? Maybe they don't understand what 'false positive' means?
For personal safety issues such as a chlorine gas leak, a warning is sounded; the user can choose a vibration, noise, text message or phone call.
I'd be concerned those false positives might not be warmly received. Especially if someone in a crowded Starbucks has a phone that starts to alarm and says "Oh my god, there's chlorine gas in here!" You might be hit with some lawsuits after a few people are injured in a stampede. Contrived scenario? Maybe. But people are less than rational beings when their lives are perceived to be at stake. While academia is right on board some of the larger cities have been a little resistant toward citizen operated detectors.
My work here is dung.
On the contrary, DHS says Cell-All will operate only on an opt-in basis and will transmit data anonymously.
And I'll fund this entire venture after I complete my sale of the Brooklyn Bridge.
Hackers will be able to summon black helicopters full of men in white Hazmat suits and have entire city blocks cordoned off.
There'll be an app to detect Colombian dope dealers wandering around with bags full of currency, so we can mug them.
And don't forget the app that sniffs the air around you and occasionally plays the ringtone, "Phew! Somebody farted!"
A chip costing less than a dollar is embedded in a cell phone and programmed to either alert the cell phone carrier to the presence of toxic chemicals in the air ...
Well look on the bright side, the Chinese worker who makes the chip only has to step outside of the factory and turn it on to see if it works on a wide spectrum. Of course who would be foolish enough to risk their job, life, liberty and pursuit of happiness with a complaint about a local government official being bribed into letting your employer pollute to its heart's content?
My work here is dung.
Awesome now another chip in my phone to help trim away my already bad phone battery life!
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You mean this?
Ah the The Vaughans, I have waited patiently for years to link to thee.
Cheers, Chris
Anything working only and mainly thanks to and through people's fears and worries is, to my experience, a bad idea.
Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
DHS says Cell-All will operate only on an opt-in basis and will transmit data anonymously.
Right, because the DHS has such a fine track record of opt-in, anonymous data, and not using it for other purposes. While they might have opt-in it will be buried under pages of the cellphone contract or settings and will be on by default requiring the user to spend a few hours figuring out where it is hidden to turn it off. Anonymous transmission, maybe anonymous by the fact it relays cell tower coordinates with an identifier number through which they can gain the personal information "only" by asking the cell provider.
My question is, how often are dangerous chemicals released in the air for this to be needed? Places which handle dangerous chemicals already have detection systems in place, it's not often you hear of a city being evacuated because of some sort of toxic accident. Or is it to help combat terrorism? It sounds to me like it's a location based detection system which will be [ab]used to detect drugs and other activities instead of to "protect the public".
Orwell was an optimist.
Also known as cocaine. Or tetrahydrocannabinol, diacetylmorphine, methamphetamine or similar killers of children. What, don't you want your cellphone to be used to sniff out the murderers of children? What kind of monster are you?
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
As long as it is possible to buy a cell phone without the chip if I so choose.
Obviously I'm not the only one utterly convinced that the optional part is a complete sham. What a thin cover story for an attempt to embed bomb sniffing devices in something everyone carries, in the name of greater security. Folks at a rocketry convention would see men in black in no time flat if they 'forgot' to register their event with the monitors. 1986.
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"Cell-All will operate only on an opt-in basis and will transmit data anonymously"
Buwahahhahaahahaaa, Yeah, I'm sure that's how it will start. But as with any "Security" program IT WILL result in mission creep. Airport searches, criminal activity databases, fingerprint databases, DNA databases, if there is one thing that our government has proven beyond a reasonable doubt it is that systems initially used to track/monitor for "bad" people/things will eventually be used to track/monitor everyone/everything. Airport searches initially only searched for things capable of commandeering/damaging the plane, now ANY form of contraband is searched for, drugs, kiddy porn, "Suspicious" money, even "objectionable" reading material has been screened. Wasn't there even a incident a while back where a cargo tracking system was used to track law abiding people instead? I see this particular system eventually used to search for meth labs, then used to get search warrants for houses where any illicit chemicals are detected. It'll eventually get so bad that setting off too many firecrackers or messing around with a home chemistry set/bioreactor (homemade fuel) will result in a SWAT team coming through your door, after all you could be a terrorist building a bomb.
I used to work in a genetics lab, and this is a terrifying thought. Imagine 20 lab techs working with chemicals in the same room, easily enough to set off the "low levels indicating danger and not a drill" alarm. Assuming that this is set to detect chemicals that are not yet at dangerous levels, merely anomalous levels, how do they propose to avoid raiding GlaxoSmithKline on a daily basis?
Sounds like "Vapour ware" to me ;)
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I have a solution to our energy crisis - connect a generator to George Orwell.
HE only imagined the telescreen being able to hear and see you - not smell you and determine you had committed foodcrime by examining your flatulence.
And of course, if you
a) stand near somebody smoking (ANYTHING)
b) stand near a barbecue
c) stand downwind of somebody fertilizing their yard (OMFG NITROGEN COMPOUNDS! TERRRRRRORRRRRRISTS!)
d) be in a room where somebody is using a non-approved substance
You will be a suspect.
If these chips are so wonderful, why not make them into self-contained modules and locate them throughout our cities, right along with the cameras, microphones, gun-shot detectors, radar units, tire-pressure monitor transponders, and so on.
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The idea is not a million miles removed from the folding@home and seti programs. Why build a supercomputer you can't afford when you can utalize existing hardware?
Why install a dense and costly sensor grid when you can disribute the sensor in a much cheaper package? You could of course install countless sensors with their own battery pack, processing power and communication gear, OR you could hitch them to existing gear that is by its nature widely distrubuted.
And with it, you could create a grid that reaches almost anywhere to measure air quality. I am pretty sure there are scientists who have a wet dream thinking of a very dense air measurment grid in urban areas.
Sure, privacy could be an issue...
Oh wait, no it isn't. If you got a phone, "they" can track you already. No special sniffer needed. How many of the privacy nutters got a phone? Your secret overlords thank you for carrying your tracker.
So, no privacy issue is added except perhaps "they" being able to tell you farted.
The idea is very close to using cellphones to track traffic jams. Lots of phone signals not moving? Traffic jam. Why not? The alternative is installing lots and lots of camera's.
Yeah, the tech would need good laws to regulate it, but if done right, it could create a very powerful tool for having a dense sensor grid at marginal costs.
We in the west enjoy excellent weather forcasts thanks to a dense grid of weather station, many of which are operated by amateurs. This could do the same for monitoring air quality with a hundred times refinement. An intresting idea, once you get beyond the knee jerk privacy reaction which anybody with a cellphone has already accepted. Allthough I wouldn't put it behind the average privacy nutter to wrap his cellphone in tinfoil, just in case.
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You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.