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Cell Phones As a Dirty Bomb Detection Network
First time accepted submitter iinventstuff writes "The Idaho National Laboratory has built a dirty bomb detection network out of cell phones. Camera phones operate by detecting photons and storing them as a picture. The INL discovered that high energy photons from radiological sources distort the image in ways detectable through image processing. KSL TV reports that the INL's mobile app detects radiation sources and then reports positive 'hits' to a central server. Terrorists deploying a dirty bomb will inevitably pass by people carrying cell phones. By crowdsourcing cell phones, the INL has created a potentially very large, inexpensive, and randomly mobile radiation detection grid."
now with improved citizen tracking
"Yep, that guy! Over there! Jump him, he's a terrorist!"
"Who me? I just got my thyroid irradiated, give me a break."
Talk about adding insult to injury.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Back in January 2008, slashdot user mike449 mentioned using the camera to do this: http://mobile.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=429956&cid=22180470
Too late: http://gammapix.com/corporate/about "The patent-protected GammaPix (TM) technology (U.S. Patent Nos. 7,391,028 and 7,737,410 plus foreign filings) has been under development since 2002 with over $2.5 million in government support." http://patft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?patentnumber=7391028 and patft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?patentnumber=7737410 were from applications filed on Feb. 28, 2005.
No, no, it was a different DC hero, and much more recent. And the technology in question was sonar---"like a submarine!"---but then that doesn't matter much. Of course its use was justified, just once, by the general terrorization of the people of Gotham, and I'm sure everyone involved would take comfort by the fact that a benevolent yet private entity could effortlessly hack into all of their cell phones at the same time. For the greater good.
Then again, perhaps all those people voluntarily installed the "Help Batman by spying on yourself" app.
lead doe not magically stop 100% of gamma rays from a source.. Consider 1.1 MeV gamma rays from cobalt 60, a centimeter of lead will cut the amount of gamma rays only to half, still detectable.
As someone who designs camera phones, we're well aware of this phenomenon but we're not going to spend precious power telling the user there might be a radiological source nearby. Chances are it'll be a hospital.
When a Kosmos satellite with some plutonium aboard smeared itself over a few hundred miles of Canada the cleanup operation went more smoothly than anyone ever expected. It turns out that detection from the air works well, even with 1970s technology.