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The TAG Challenge: $5k Global Manhunt Using Social Media
An anonymous reader writes "CNET just published an article about a new challenge to photograph 5 target individuals in 5 different cities on March 31st. The TAG challenge will pay the winner $5k. Target mobility means this will be much harder than the DARPA Red Balloon Challenge which was won by MIT. From the article: 'On March 31, mug shots of five "suspects" will be published, and it'll be game on in a global hunt for "jewel thieves" in Bratislava, Slovakia; Stockholm; London; Washington, D.C.; and New York City, each of whom will spend 12 hours that day in public areas. The first team to upload photographs of each of the five by noon eastern time on April 1 will win the competition--and with it, a ton of international glory.'"
Things like this are why the internet is awesome.
It's also worth pointing out that the DARPA challenge was done strictly in the states, since this one spans several countries.
I'll be curious to see how this turns out.
What do I know, I'm just an idiot, right?
Now would someone, or a lot of someones, purposely disguise themselves to look like the targets individuals in the fives cities? And romp around all day in public? Nah, couldn't happen.
The volume of false positives will be amusing at least.
"There he is! Right next to Elvis, flipping burgers! With Angelina Jolie's leg!"
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Don't announce where they're going, tend to shy away from appearing in public places for 12 hours consecutively, are capable of wearing disguises, etc.
This is possibly useful for finding the average citizen.
Oh, I see where they're going with this now...
Great warrior...hrmph! Wars not make one great.
The one in London should be easy. You won't even need to use your own camera, given that they're ubiquitous already.
#DeleteChrome
At $5K, it's not worth it to even make an attempt unless you're able to leverage teams of people already in those locations and are in it for the glory. Plus, once you consider how large some of these cities are, you'll need something more than just your team on the ground doing the work. You'll either need some form of an automated or crowd-sourced system. If you're doing the latter, that means either hoping you can rope in hundreds or thousands of volunteers, or else posting ads in major media with bounties for information that leads to the targets. Either way, the cost far exceeds the reward.
Sooooo the April Fool's Day joke is that there's not $5k, right?
>The first team to upload photographs of each of the five by noon eastern time on April 1 will win the competition--and with it, a ton of international glory...
Yep. They'll forever be known as the April Fools!
What kind of DARPA target challenge doesn't place targets in Asia and the Middle-East?
Eastern Europe? Boooooring!
Will we soon have a Facebook app for this?
Each morning when you log in to Facebook, you will see wanted fugitives in your area.
If you spot them, report it, and prize money will filter down to you.
Creepy.
My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
"Dear RIAA. Each of these people shared a Copyrighted Song."
(Twelve minutes later)
"Here are their GPS coordinates and matching photos. Here is your $5,000 fee for bringing this to our legal department's attention."
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
If all the five targets look just like Guy Fawkes.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
I'd find it very amusing if somebody without accomplices around the globe somehow manages to deceptively manipulate people or agencies in the remote locations to help them solve this. For example, pull a Jim Rockford and through a phone call manage to get the local constabul in Bratislava to somehow capture and transmit the photo to the home-bound contestant.
THAT would be very impressive.
"The first team to upload photographs of each of the five by noon eastern time on April 1 will win the competition"
I bet they've all got red and white striped shirts and big ol' glasses and have names that are "Waldo".
I understand this challenge was invented by volunteers and not some official agency based on tax money, right? Hopefully it's just for fun, because I don't really understand the purpose of it.
AFAIK already in the 80ies spy satellites were good enough to read newspapers. Even if that's not accurate I'd imagine with the process that technology has made it should be possible to automatically spot someone in real-time out of millions of people, as long as the sky is clear enough and the person occasionally looks up. Moreover, accessing the Internet, using a credit card or any other similar card once or using a cell phone should also suffice to locate a person. Heck, even NOT using the Internet seems to suffice for tracking someone down and sending a death squadron after him nowadays. (Not that I had any sympathies with the person in question.)
Oh I marched to the battle of New Orleans
At the end of the early British war
The young land started growing
The young blood started flowing
But I ain't marchin' anymore
For I've killed my share of Indians
In a thousand different fights
I was there at the Little Big Horn
I heard many men lying I saw many more dying
But I ain't marchin' anymore
chorus)
It's always the old to lead us to the war
It's always the young to fall
Now look at all we've won with the saber and the gun
Tell me is it worth it all
For I stole California from the Mexican land
Fought in the bloody Civil War
Yes I even killed my brothers
And so many others But I ain't marchin' anymore
For I marched to the battles of the German trench
In a war that was bound to end all wars
Oh I must have killed a million men
And now they want me back again
But I ain't marchin' anymore
(chorus)
For I flew the final mission in the Japanese sky
Set off the mighty mushroom roar
When I saw the cities burning I knew that I was learning
That I ain't marchin' anymore
Now the labor leader's screamin'
when they close the missile plants,
United Fruit screams at the Cuban shore,
Call it "Peace" or call it "Treason,"
Call it "Love" or call it "Reason,"
But I ain't marchin' any more,
No I ain't marchin' any more
-- phil ochs
i would hate to point out to ayn rand that capitalist systems do this just as well as communist systems.
by James Bamford, then go watch the PBS Frontline special ("Spy Factory") online, it's free.
there are interviews with an FBI agent "on loan" to CIA working in CIA's Alec Station, who knew that al-Mihdhar and al-Hazmi (Nawaf) had US Visas. He tried to tell FBI HQ, and the CIA told him not to. Ordered him not to.
you are correct to say that it 'doesnt end up where it needs to go'... but WHY didn't it end up where it needed to go?
"It's ultimately a social networking problem"
that contradicts the evidence from the Alec Station situation. the CIA --actively prevented the FBI from knowning there were two terrorists in the US--. Why did this happen?
We don't even know. Only recently, last year, did we find out the identities of the CIA managers of Alec Station - ten years after 9/11. Ten Years. It wasn't Congress and it wasn't even ordinary journalists who uncovered it, --- it was two guys in trucker hats who make independent documentaries.
One of the main FBI men, John O'Neill, who was an expert on al qaeda and terror, was fired just before 9/11, because he did not fit into the bureaucracy properly. He was not a 'insane maverick', he was a highly competent professional agent. He was also hot on the heels of the terrorists just before he got fired. His mentee, Ali Soufan, has written an incredible book about their investigation of the Cole Bombing, and Soufans work after 9/11 to round up Al Qaeda leaders and interrogate them. O'Neill was basically fired, and Soufan was ridiculed for his agreeing to testify about the incompetence and stupidity of CIA interrogators (torturers) who interfered with his investigations after 9/11.
When experts with high levels of competence like Soufan and O'Neill are disregarded and punished by the system in favor of incompetent sycophants, this is not a 'social networking problem'.
none of the CIA people have been held accountable. Some of them were promoted. Bush people blame it all on Clinton, Clinton people blame it all on Bush. Nobody wants to get to the bottom of what really happened. I myself can't even bring myself to write a wikipedia article about the Alec Station people who did this screwup, it just is too mind boggling to contemplate, and their identities are technically classified anyways, even though they have been figured out by the blogosphere.
All of this has nothing to do with a 'social networking problem'. it is about corruption and turf battles between politicians who lack ethics and morality.
(and no, i am not a 9/11 conspiracy nut. i have never seen even a shred of evidence that would convince me beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was an 'inside job').