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Now Police Can 'See' Through Walls
Bram writes "Just found an article about another way to invade privacy." He's talking about hand-held radar systems police can use to detect breathing, beating hearts or other motion through walls and other obstacles. Sounds like a declassified version of the Ground Support Radar [GSR] units we used years ago in the Army. I can see why police would want them, and I can also see why Bram considers them a privacy threat. Depends on how they're used, I suppose.
From the labs at Georgia Tech Research Institute.
Look here for the article from the Alumni Magazine. There's a nice picture, and they discuss some of the cooler uses, like looking at the heart rate for rifle people in the olympics.
-- Erich
Slashdot reader since 1997
I can see it now - anti-surveillance proof home. Metal strafe for microwaves, thermal blanketing for thermal monitoring. Tempest glass. .... There is a court precedence on a "mans home is his castle". But now really, do we need to build castles to keep out people from invading it? Just because I am paranoid, that does not mean there not out to get me.
Hello. The device in question is called IRIS, or that's what the first version was called. The article describes use of radio waves, rather than heat differences in the case of IRIS.
Its already been used successfully in one real-world situation where smoke had reduced visibility to almost nill.
We do not have one, but I have had the oppurtunity to test one. They have been used in *many* real-world events, not just one. (OT: if you want to see what its like in a burning building, take a pair of goggles and place a trash bg over the lenses then look.)
But, these things are pricey. The first IRIS was like >$3000.
I would be interested in how these new radio wave devices would work in a fire situation though. My guess is that the intense heat wouldn't help the waves? Im not much of a physics guy, so someone please tell.
Perform the same calculation on the population of the entire contry, and I feel that the ratio of bad:good is higher in the law enforcement subset. (I'll perform the study if anyone want to give me a sufficent grant)
Of course, there can be local police force policy regulating the use of this technology, but I for one would not be happy with my privacy being assured by a 'policy' of my local police force.
Get real, for goodness sake!!! If you were a political dissident and the people with the guns knew where you were, then whether they had the new detector or not, it's too late for you anyway. Stop being so bloody paranoid!
If that is your attitude, then I sincerely hope you get mugged repeatedly and forever more, as it is no more than you deserve, scumbag.
My roommate built a noise radar that is capable of detecting movement, heartbeats, etc, out to about 50 feet, for about 5000 dollars, as an EE project. Standardize the parts, put it into mass production, do a little bit of refinement, and it will be under a thousand, easily, with better range and signal strength. That is dirt cheap for the ability to find someone reliably and undetectably (you can't detect a noise radar, that's the point in having one).
Communication is only possible between equals
I really don't care too much about catching speeding one way or the other. I'm just disputing the assertion that the police would rather 'eat donuts' that point radar guns at people that are not necessarily doing anything illegal.
Selective enforcment of laws is part of the reason that people don't follow laws. If you know that you won't be pulled over for going ~9MPH over the limit, you will go ahead and break the law by goung ~9MPH over the limit.
If you know that chances are high that you won't get caught at all, and the punishment isn't that great anyway if you do get caught, the likelihood of breaking the law increases.
I pretty much guarantee you that if you knew that if you went so much a 1MPH over the limit, that you would receive a fine, that you would pay much more attention to the spedometer, and less attention to the relative speed of traffic around you.
What I'm talking about is photo radar (the technology is improving, and the systems are getting cheaper for the city to purchase) Red light photo systems (to be implemeted soon here) and the like.
These systems are not a threat to your privacy however, as you have no expectation of privacy driving down the road. I do have an expectation of privacy in my home. Heck, these systems aren't even a threat to your freedom, as the asct that you are commiting is already illegal.
Nice to see that the regulars of slashdot are still as paranoid as ever.
*sigh*
This technology was quite well described in New Scientist several years ago. It did not come from any military division or anything. It's simply an ordinary product that took its ordinary invention-to-finished-product time. TA
IIRC, SI had done a series of articles on this device and found that it simply did not work.
Test involved wooden crates randomly containing people. Inventor was to identify which crates contained people. Failed to do better than random chance would have indicated.
IIRC, that is. Perhaps this message will trigger someone with a memory far better than mine.
--
Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
Check out http://www.time-domain.com for some technical details. There have already been some legal skirmishes between the Time Domain folks and a team at Lawrence Livermore who attemped to hijack and patent Fullerton's work.
The radar variant should be a great supplement to the existing infrared devices you already have. The radion waves won't be affected by heat. TA
Dude, chill out.
Why do people like you immediately resort to name-calling and personal attacks when you see something you don't understand/fully agree with? I guess maybe that's why you posted as an AC; you're too embarrassed with yourself to fess up to it.
In my very abstract example, I never said the curtains were open two inches, or open at all.
If something is in plain view of the public, it need not be construed as a privacy violation to use what you see. It becomes illegal when someone must enter your home or otherwise make an active/covert effort to 'see' something they wouldn't ordinarily be permitted to see.
That's the point I was trying to make.
Your average policeman doesn't track down actual criminals. He/she may be on the lookout for a specific car/person or may be in a chase/manhunt situation but not investigative work. Police Officers write tickets, arbitrate disputes, serve papers, protect crime scenes, cordone off criminal situations, write reports, arrest suspects and eat doughnuts.
:)
Having a group watch the police is a good idea; it keeps the police honest. I am, however, against this group getting in the way of the police. Such would be a violation of law: Obstruction of Justice and/or Aiding and Abetting. What if the group were to get inside a criminal situation? Then they become a liability. They could cause an officer or another citizen to get hurt.
As long as the group doesn't physically alter the officer's situation or expose someone to danger then I have no problem with it. It's just another form of the press.
As for the "through the wall" radar, I feel it could be misused. I don't think that the police would really be the ones to abuse it but I'll bet the Federal Authorities would make extensive use of such a device. Invasion of privacy comes up against National Security once again. I say, let the courts decide. In the meantime, it opens up a market for anti-radar devices.
Codifex Maximus ~ In search of... a shorter sig.
Is the range on any of these devices more than three hundred yards? Most ARs are sighted in at three hundred, and I get upset when I have to "hold high" when disposing of a threat. Plus, if it's effective through more than a quarter inch of steel I'll have to switch to SS109 ammo... and that's more expensive, so I hope not.
Carefree highway, let me slip away on you.
Dude, I'm sorry, but if someone rammed a plunger up my ass, hospitalizing me, you'd better be damn well sure I will not only sue the police department responsible, but I would be pressing charges against the individuals there.
I'm not saying abuses never happen -- I'm just saying that people are always ACCOUNTABLE for those abuses, which means they aren't LIKELY to happen.
Along the same train of thought, how in the world are they really going to abuse a radar device such as this? So they can tell if someone is inside your home; perhaps they can count the number of people there. Assuming they do that without a search warrant and without probable cause to suspect your life is in danger, this still isn't a big deal.
Injured software engineer fights back against Mattel!"
I'm sorry, but in any state of the union, laws WERE broken. There's probably a lot more to the story than you were told, or perhaps crucial information was lost somewhere between the actual source and the person that told you.
We watch the history of abuses. We are already at near the bottom of the proverbial "Slippery slope".
Those who forsake freedom for security deserve neither.
whatever it is you do for fun/making a living/for religious purposes/whatever is made illegal?
In California right now, a large group of people that were coerced into 'registering' their legal firearms are now going to be forced to surrender their weapons to the California Brown Shirts (our Police). If they don't comply, the Police will probably kick in their doors at 4:00AM, and kill them - for refusing to relinquish their Constitutional rights.
Jack-booted thugs (Police), wearing black body armor, and carrying automatic, military weapons are going to "make the world a better place"?
Ask the Jews how much safer Germany was after the Nazis took over.
IR bulbs mounted on the outside of the house pointed outward that will FLOOD the receivers in the radar units and render them useless. And since IR falls outside of FCC jurisdictions (which stops at 300GHz), it is 100% LEGAL for me to do so.
I believe this may be using radar techniques similar to those developed at Lawrence Livermore laboratory, mentioned in Scientific American a few years' back. It was reportedly developed as part of a particle collision detection project. Heartbeat monitors, plastic (i.e. non-metallic)mine detection, security systems, automobile backup collision detectors, etc. were among the suggested uses. I went to the page on it to look into getting the specs, but it was patented and not available while their "partners" developed products based on the design. They claimed that a simple device could be built using just a few dollars of off-the-shelf parts.
Ian A. Marsman
ianm@niagara.com
A Famous man onces stated "If you've got nothing to hide, then what are you afraid of?"
Of course he was responsible for the Hollocaust and most of WWII, but hey... its just a tool.
I'm pretty sure that the F.D.'s are using thermal imaging and not radar, not that it really matters but the thermal imaging scopes to 'see' through smoke have been around for a bit now.
More Invasions of privacy by Big Brother.
That's my 1/50 of $1.00 US
JM
Big Brother is watching, vote Libertarian!!
--Justin Mitchell
"2nd Place is a fancy word for losing" --Bender (Futurama)
thats the thing, you can't make it that one group of people control it and nobody else gets to use it. if some start using it, others will want access to it. either nobody uses it or all use it. anything else won't work.
http://news.xp.com
I used to use lead based paint to stop Superman from watching. Now what am I to do?
Dyslexics Untie!
since civil rights are, by definition, those rights conferred on individuals by the government under whose jurisdiction they live, any court legally empowered to sentence somebody to a gulag is not, in so doing, violating anybody's civil rights.
No way...I can't believe that is true..do you know the cost of one of those...
I bet what you see are the traffic light controlling systems that departments use to trip lights to green for the right-of-way crossing intersections. There are strobe units, there are infrared and there are RF units in use.
Also departments have cams in the lightbars as well, not all are dash/window mount.
well, the articles says it can detect breathing and heartbeats... seems to me that if the device detected highly elevated rates in one and/or the other, the obvious assumption might be made...
;)
Game Over! We're in some fruity sh*t!
/* Bill Paxton rules! */
"Stop your grinnin' and drop your linen."
Save the whales. Feed the hungry. Free the mallocs.
When these devices become commonplace and perfected, firemen will end up with a near 100% success rate in locating people with these devices. There will no longer be a pressing NEED to do a thorough manual inspection of the debris because the device has found everyone they're going to find.
If you wrap your home up in aluminum foil (or whatever you use), how are they supposed to know that your house is shielded in this manner? They will trust their instruments, which worked on the previous house and worked on the next house and will be less likely to do a thorough manual search of the debris. Sure they'll probably do a cursory check, Just In Case, but as they begin to trust their equipment more and more, there will be much less emphasis on checking by hand.
Also what if you came home one day and a burglar was holding your wife and child hostage. You barely had time to get out a call for help before you were discovered and taken as well. Don't you think those radar devices might be useful for the police in a situation like that, for the purpose of locating, counting hostages, and getting you guys out safely?
There are a significantly large number of reasons why you would WANT the police to be able to use these devices on your home. In all honesty, there's not much they can really SEE with these things aside from movement, location, perhaps the number of bodies inside, etc. IMO, the gains FAR offset the privacy issues you guys seem so concerned about.
There's a difference -- these devices are hardly field equipment yet. Do you really think a cop is going to go into the barracks, somehow give a plausible reason for checking out the radar device, and then go cruising down residential streets and alleys counting the number of people inside the houses and writing down where each person is?
I mean come on, the privacy concerns here are minimal. It's not like you can get a full color video image of the contents of a room, or even really determine a person's identity.
The cop you mentioned above needs to be prosecuted and put in prison. Period. That is out of the scope of this discussion, IMO. I'm not saying cops breaking the law are unheard of, I'm just saying that there's no real REASON a cop would want to try and "abuse" these devices, simply because there's very little you can gain of a non-tactical nature, and the scarcity of these devices will make the cops that need to use them subject to justification and scrutiny/attention from their superiors. Cops aren't allowed to just check out any old piece of odd equipment on a whim.
"Yeah, Jim, I was wanting to take the bomb disposal trailer out to the lake tonight. Do you mind?"
"Yah, no problem, just sign for it here and make sure it's clean when you bring it back."
I don't think so.
Police forces have always been the first line of offense against citizens whenever the ruling government feels threatened
Uhh, I don't know what country YOU live in, but here in the United States, this kind of thing doesn't happen.
Besides, just because a person has a badge and a gun it doesn't mean they are free from criminal intent
I'm not saying cops are angels, I'm just trying to say that there are aren't enough reasons (personal/illegal/whatever) for a cop to WANT to abuse one of these devices.
First of all, they're not hardly perfected yet. The best you can do with them is catch some movement, locate people behind a nearby wall or in a nearby room, perhaps even count the number of people there. Do you really feel that cops are going to get anything out of this of a non-tactical nature? Do you really think cops are going to want to go driving late at night counting the number of people that are in the nearest room to the street?
Secondly, these are not standard field issue, and probably won't be for a while. There will likely be "special" cops that are assigned to one of these units (much like K-9 units) or there will probably be a small number of these available from the department to cops that have a justifiable need for one.
I really just can't imagine a cop wanting to use one of these devices for personal purposes. It seems like a whole lot of trouble and RISK (which was what I was trying to get at before) for VERY little gain.
A friend of mine a couple years ago worked with a group at MIT Lincoln Labs on a Synthetic Aperture Radar system, the purpose of which was to see through walls. His opinion (and this is a guy who knows his physics) was that it would never really work. Of course, their goal was broader than just picking up a moving person, namely to actually _see_ inside, as if you had a video camera there...
we were talking about some radar to see in homes, now your talking about car radar, then photo radar!
personally, if a cop wants to sit outside my home and have some blip on a screen showing him where I am in my house, thats fine with me.
I think the benefits of a tool like this far outweigh any privacy concerns.
-I go to Rice, so figure out my email address
I meant that they'd know where I was as a result of the detector.
---
DNA just wants to be free...
It's all paranoia, if you ask me. It's a tool, folks. Nothing else.
Rob
- Rob Cottrell
It seems to me that if a cop has a search warrant or arrest warrant, that it would be fine to use this technology to execute the warrant. But without a warrant, no dice. It's an unreasonable search.
But the Supreme Court has ruled it is "reasonable" for a cop to peer through a window-blind. Why would it be unreasonable for an officer to use one of these devices in the same manner, without a warrant?
Posted by Synsthe:
There is no such thing as true privacy anyways, so if you're worried about this, I've got news for you: You're wasting your time.
Look back through slashdot history alone and read all the articles on it. Privacy is a relative term - sure, you can take a shower without being seen (hopefully), and sometimes you can get away with talking on the phone without being heard in the next room. But all the security/government/yadda yadda agencies out there can subvert that privacy anytime they wish if they wanted to.
So why worry?
It's just another tool the cops can use to hunt out the bad guys and make "the world a better place".
--
Mark Waterous (mark@projectlinux.org)
[Fastolfe] Dude, I'm sorry, but if someone rammed a plunger up my ass, hospitalizing me, you'd better be damn well sure I will not only sue the police department responsible, but I would be pressing charges against the individuals there.
[me] I'm sorry too, but unfortunately, in the U.S., the people who are most likely to be treated in this way by the police are also the people most likely to be unable to either sue or press charges, due to fear and lack of money and, in some cases, lack of education as to their rights.
=wl
I remember that the courts had a similar problem with infrared scanners. They illegalized infrared survailence because it was possible to watch people having sex. I wonder if that applies to pre-raid examinations of a premisis.
Wake up - the future is arriving faster than you think.
It's too bad, too, because I'd like to believe in them! The idea of an undectable, unjammable, milliwatt radio that works over a hundred miles is enticing. Ultra-wideband radars that detect anything is exciting. These things should be possible, but are hard to realize.
There's a company called Aetherwire that was mentioned in /. a few months ago. They've actually got some reasonable working pulse-radio hardware.
I love Mondays. On a Monday, anything is possible.
now i have a cool motivation for making all kinds of cool moving things around my house. always wanted to build a phone that twitched when it rang.
(no, i do not trust my local police)
You mean that the mighty Linux doesn't even have a very simple database utility which can be used to keep track of what has been posted before?
ROTFL!!!
And there was me thinking you lot were claiming Linux was supposed to be a SERIOUS OS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Very true.
Has anyone found a anti-snoop HOWTO for building a new house?
While it's true that the only real protection from big brother is to be completely anonymous and not draw attention to one's self; I am more concerned with local busy-bodies (like the kind who get a kick out of listening in on wireless phone conversations.)
If anyone has a link to information on practical methods to shield a building, please post it.
THX.
I also object to the idea of the media being able to get hold of such devices. Would you be happy if your local newspaper decided to monitor how often people went to the bathroom?
The police are the least of my concerns, for something like this. My other concerns are fairly trivial ones, anyway, but that one is so minute it doesn't bother me in the least.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
David, I don't want to be a dick or anything but if you honestly believe that you're safe from police in the US then you're either full of shit, a pollyanna, or a cop yourself. >>>Uhh, I don't know what country YOU live in, but here in the United States, this kind of thing doesn't happen. Case in point for you. Ventura County, California (1995?) Under the Zero tolerance drug law, Ventura County police and sherriff officers go to a guys property to plant drugs so as they can seize his property. This job is done in the middle of the night, Guy who owns the land sees a bunch of people with guns coming towards his house. He grabs a rifle and tells them to get off the property. Police refuse and begin shooting at the man. Guy dies. Family sues the police and in court it is proven that this was a scam pulled by the police to gain this guys property for profit. Many more cases like this.. so many that Zero Tolerance was dropped as a law because of the abuses...
This seems a pretty harmless version of what is essentially a motion sensor, from the way the article reads. There's already a large amount of research into making millimeter-wave radar available for airports and other security checkpoints.
Remember the tunnel that Arnold walked through, and the gun he was hiding showed up in detail on the screen? It's in the works. Not only guns, but the change in your pocket, anything radar-reflective you have on you.
(I can see the people with genital piercings complaining already)
Foward Looking Infra-Red sensor, receptor is a Barium Strontium Titanate compound that doesn't require cyrogenic cooling like the old ones - also much smaller than the old military models. Police also using these types of systems - presumable to catch those dangerous night time jaywalkers.
These ARE really cool (no pun intended).
If it is like an old GSR it operates in the same general freq range as a Cop doppler radar. For you real paranoid delusionists use your car radar detector and hold REAL still everytime it goes off.
I'm currently logged in as my redundant backup account as my primary failed over.
You all watch too many phony Hollywood formula movies.
I'm really getting sick of all you infantile whiners complaining about "invasion of privacy". Businesses and politicans might use such 'spying' technologies for their own benefit, but what will some cop benefit from watching you read the newspaper? Most of them are too busy to have time to worry about the honest citizen anyway (you're an honest citizen, aren't you?). Sure, there's the odd corrupt cop, but what's stopping him from buying this existing technology on the black market and using it on you anyway? Not much.
You would be amazed at the stupidity police have to go through every day just to do their jobs. Hours upon hours are spent composing warrants which have to be completely bulletproof, because even after a warrant is initially authorized, another judge (who is nothing more than a lawyer who sucked up to some politician) can throw it out at a later date because of a spelling mistake, making all the evidence obtained under that warrant "inadmissible". The North American justice systems are not about finding the truth, they're about lawyers playing games with people's lives; even when the truth is found, people whine about "convict's rights", instead of the rights of the victims and of the public. Good laws are made, but lawyers (judges, etc) dilute them to nothing. And we wonder why crime is so high!
So these technologies will probably be restricted by warrants anyway. Only criminals and the ignorant would oppose technologies that would help put dangerous criminals in jail.
And don't give me the old complaint about the cops wasting their time putting dopers in jail. It's bad enough we have drunks on the streets (and in our hospitals at our expense), now we should have baked dopers there too? But that's irrevalent, we're talking about dangerous criminals: people who would need a SWAT team to be dealt with. And nothing is better for SWAT teams than something that lets them see into the building they're about to hit, where YOU are being held hostage. I think then you'd be wishing you hadn't lined your walls with lead foil.
So what if the odd corrupt lame-excuse-for-a-cop is invading your privacy? There's a lot of worse people to worry about than cops. Terrorists and the like are able to get spy devices anyway. Wouldn't you like your rescuers to be able to use these devices as well?
I would.
--------
"I already have all the latest software."
Being able to actually watch people through walls is one thing (and you thought lead paint was bad). But it appears this systems basically just says "yeah, there is a person 2 feet behind the door on the right. Sounds like a great idea to me, I'd hate to be the cop walking through a door not knowing where someone with a gun is standing.
It's the 21st Century Do you know what your government is doing
Folks have been arrested in the so-called War on Drugs for growing marijuana after police using infrared sensors identified 'hot spots' on interior house walls indicative of high-intensity light sources, such as those used as grow lights. The results of these scanners were sufficient to get a real search warrant, and have been upheld as legal searches.
This does not seem very different from handheld radar. Concluding that the police will be constrained by the threat of violation of privacy lawsuits presumes that one isn't a member of a scapegoated group. Does anyone really think this or any other device would not be used in the war on drugs?
Are you human? No, I am a meat popsicle! :)
What a waste of bits.
/. staff, who posts *hundreds* of messages a week, to remember something in APRIL?
I can't remember what I read a week ago, and you expect the
I imagine you don't ever lose your keys, either. The rest of us, however, aren't as perfect as you. So, please, go rant somewhere else.
Jim
it could be the two dogs living at the house haveing sex, or it could be the womans boyfriend giving her a nack rub, or it could be tai-bo night at the Jones residence...
if the police busted in to interrupt a back rub it would be law-suite city, especially in sue crazy America. Until these divices get better, fear of making a multi-million dollar law suite would keep most police departments from using such a device in this way.
not to say that this would never happen, but the risks seem too high for it to be a widespread occurence. more likely the police i know and love would use it for some stupid task like tracking illegal shipments of beanie-babies to and from canada.
This is the only intelligent posting I have seen about this topic. Privacy is freedom! Protect your rights to privacy.
While I that agree our friend here is being overly picky, surely it would be *pretty* simple for the guys at /. to file their postings with associated keywords and then to check any new posting against these. If there is a keyword match then the old postings could be browsed manually for same-ness and the new one could be rejected before it hits the press. I am aware of course that if something like this isn't in place already that it could be a royal pain to retro-fit the posting system.
Satan, oscillate my metallic sonatas.
No, the cat didn't get my tongue.
Just generate "white noise" in the em spectrum.
Jammers that respond actively are a lot harder, I'd recon.
But fcc regulations would not allow you to sell them,
as they would be have to wide spectrum which is just
the problem the manufacturers are experiencing in getting approaval.
Besides, aren't active rf-jammers outlawed?
I know for sure that in most parts of europe they are.
That became an issue when restaurants, theathers and
cinemas started to use them, to block the signal of cellular phones,
don't you just hate when the person in front of you gets called or paged!
Alluminium walls will shield some of the electronic radiation,
but most buildings aren't designed to shield, besides
the windows and doors are still open, most people will notice that
their radios and televisions receive a clear signal indoors.
Most buildings are already grounded, btw. Either as protection
against lightning, or just via the plumbing.
If a trainstation is the place where trains stop, what is a workstation?
Be realistic PLEASE.
So, could you render this just about useless by turning up some "bassey" (not the Count) music and have the music shake everything. I would think movement from your heartbeat would become background clutter when the "Humpty Dance" is played at about 120db.
Or maybe you could just Macarena and watch as the police went running, covering their ears....
Ok, so say we combine this technology (with its ability to measure breathing and heart rates)with a small ultrasound scanner (like the type used to check out a baby during pregnancy), and couple of other neat medical technologys into a small, handheld device. Presto! we've got a tricorder. j.antispam.gw2@po.cwru.edu
No, I didn't mean to imply that they could use it in that fashion either! The specific problems I was making reference to are:
1. it leaves our hypothetical dissident less
time to hide/escape/destroy documents --
if they can just walk down the hall checking
each room with the detector instead of
bursting in and searching each one "manually"
it goes a lot faster
2. even if the hypothetical dissident could
conceal himself, it wouldn't do any good.
They'd use the detector to sniff him out
in the priesthole or whatever he was hiding
in
There, happy? I'm not attributing magical powers to this thing, okay?
---
DNA just wants to be free...
When I said this kind of thing doesn't happen in the US, I was talking about the original poster's comment that the police tend to turn into tools used AGAINST the people by a desperate government, which does not happen here.
You want to make sure they can't see you? It's not that hard. Get yourself several rolls of wire mesh porch screening (the metal kind, not the nylon) and run it over your walls like wall paper. Each seam will have to be soldered, but tack soldering every couple inches should work. Then, ground it to a cold water pipe, or better yet, to the grounding bus outside your home. You could put dry wall up over it so as not to bother your asthetics.
Do you bother to read the newspaper at all, or are you just incedibly stupid? Cops ramming plunger handles into someone's ass, cops shooting unarmed victims who are not even suspects in a crime, the list of recent abuses by the police go on and on and yet morons like yourself write them blank checks for their behavior. AFAIC the only difference between a cop and a crook is a uniform.
Well said. :)
.sig has bugs. v0.02 will be out shortly. 'Till then, stop /.'ing my mailbox :)
Maybe he meant that *HE* was 'Easy to fool'
And yes, I know my
char *sig =
True, but if a cop *was* going into your house and realized his "People-o-meter" was being shielded, that'd probably make him a bit jumpy.
Hey, I'm a uberprivacy advocate too; but, I don't see a short range heart beat/breathing detector as a realistic threat to privacy. This could be due to a misunderstanding...
"One man can change the world with a bullet in the right place."
- Mick Travis, "If..."
AN/PPS-5 won't see through structures unless they're a tent or cardboard house. If you were a 96R, you weren't a well trained one. Even the newer PPS-15 can't do that. What can you expect from a popup target........
I don't mind the occasional repost that much. I did think it was pretty funny when Rob and Hemos both posted the same story in the same hour that one time :-)
--
Fuck the system? Nah, you might catch something.
Yes, I believe active RF "scramblers" are illegal in the US. FCC rules prohibit any device from knowingly/wilfully causing "harmful interference" to any other RF signal/device.
fewer of them will got shot up and die when getting the bad guys.
really, cops would rather eat donuts than use radar to mess with innocent peeps.
-I go to Rice, so figure out my email address
Comment removed based on user account deletion
They still need a search warrant. It's just as illegal to use a device like this in the manner you suggest as it is for cops to poke their heads inside your window and do a similar visual inspection of your home without your permission.
Search warrants aren't slips of paper giving law enforcement the permission to enter your home, they're slips of paper allowing them to do just what their name implies: Search. Without one of those warrants, anything they discover through non-obvious means can't be held against you.
Cops can easily listen to your wireless phone conversations just like the 13-year-old down the street with a radio scanner. Does that mean it's legal? Does that mean they do it? No, of course not. Stop being so paranoid.
If you really don't trust your police force, perhaps it's time you voted some new elected officials into office, wrote some letters to them and your local police department, or if nothing else, move to some other town where you can actually trust your local cops.
The amount of uneducated paranoia on Slashdot just amazes me sometimes...
blah cant find my password..
I have a friend who works for the DEA and they have been using surveillance equipment similar to this for a decent amount of time. One instance I remember, he was telling me when he was in a helicopter looking down at the house below him, watching interaction between the people inside.. It's a really cool and useful tool when used by the right people for the right reason.
thru the wall surveilance has been in use around here for at least 3 years that i know about. our first devices were ir based and could make a pretty good image of subject smoking a crack pipe behind closed window curtains & blinds, also could visually see the elevated heart rate of subjects high on coke crack meth or sex :) yes some of the boys used the scopes for personal enjoyment until the judge raised hell with them and took their toys away but we got more. our new milliwave devices work thru brick and wood walls quite well too and use passive radiation but we can position an emitter unit as far away as a few hundred feet behind a house and 'illuminate' everything and everyone inside it to see what they are up to. according to the rand corporation the only thing that really counters these units is lots of earth so build your homes underground or set into a hillside like a cave. why do you think most newer police department buildings are built low to the ground with levels underneath or thick earth embankments piled around the outside walls? be very afraid boys and girls we're keeping an eye on everything you do
You almost can tell that this device can be used for nefarious purposes. I guess companies will have to develop an "Anti Person Finder" like the radar detectors and the like.
Very good response. The previous person scares me. Trust the government, obey, smile when they are taking away your rights. Let's hit the Bill of Rights, rights supposebly given to us by the Constitution, right? 1st amendment- wavering. free speech as long you don't offend anyone. freedom of assembly? yeah, right. 2nd amendment- almost gone 4th amendment- gone, entirely. under the suspicion of drugs, you are guilty until proven innocent. i could go on and on but you get my point. and i put the ENTIRE blame not on the government but the lameass sheep who you just replied to.
... damn, I feel sorry for the people there. No, I don't want people to start bashing China again, but I just have to say that if the US wants democracy to flourish in China (or any other repressive state, but I'll stick to using China for now), then WHY ON GOD'S EARTH ARE WE MAKING IT EASIER FOR THE COMMUNIST GOVERNMENT TO UNDERMINE IT? No matter what technology restrictions the US imposes, China will obtain such, whether from other western nations or US businesses. If this technology to moniter peoples private lives continues to be developed, how long do we have before totalitarian regimes begin to take over other democracies? From what I remember, Communism required that people lose their privacy.
I know this is offtopic, but I don't care. :-P
Such a law was probably written a long, long time ago, when Christian values had more of a stranglehold on American perception of sex... Any sex besides sex between a married couple trying to conceive was probably considered amoral and dirty. Keep in mind, this is just speculation...
How'd you find out about this law? Any idea where I can find similar information for my state (Minnesota)? I'd like to know if I'm breaking the law...
paranoid.android
Actually, they don't cost all that much. GM is supposed to offering an IR camera hooked to a console display as an option on their sedans in a couple years (2002 product year, IIRC). I've seen some demo's on the news; very cool. AFAIK, you can already buy something like it after-market. I've also seen at demo of an FLIR hooked to a HUD on the windshield which was very, very cool.
that everyone worried about privacy is considered paranoid or is expected to live in a buker somewhere in the forrest? Because I would like a semblance of privacy in my life I have something to hide? Why yes I do, my personal life. Sure this technology has a good and upstandingu se in law enforcement, it would allow police to get a better grip of a situation inside a building. But there's also other uses that aren't so upstanding. It can easily be used for invasion of privacy by pointing it at my house to see what I'm doing at that time. Oh no I sound paranoid, I must have a cache of weapons buried in my back yard. No I don't, but I have seen other surveilance technologies used to spy on law abiding citizens. ECHELON and various monitoring systems the FBI uses both read the average Joe's e-mail for no real reason other than for thought control, who would want to exercise their right to free speech? I don't need anyone reading my e-mail or anyone watching me while I read my email, I'm not paranoid, I'm not an automaton that believes everything my government tells me either.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
Probably not, since your walls are not similarly "protected".
Of course, why in the world would you want to build your home so that it *blocked* these types of things? In all likelyhood, the only time you might EVER see one of these things in action near your home is after an earthquake or an explosion that has demolished your house and you are trapped beneath a rather heavy pile of debris.
Fireman: "Nope, I'm getting no reading at all from under this structure..."
You (whisper): "Urmmph..! hh..hhell..hhellpp..."
Maybe, but I'm alittle more practical. If somebody is scanning my house, I want a detector, and optionally, a response mechanism to block their scans. Also, it'd be a really cool and geeky thing to do. ;) Definate hack value.
--
Funny, the article didn't mention that. They mentioned police knowing where you are, so that they know when to shoot when they bust your door down.
I'd also be concerned about people, police or otherwise, looking inside just to see what's going on...
Frankly, even though I've been mugged before I don't give a damn about saving cops lives (and if you were one of my "folk", I think you'd agree). I consider the police just uniformed thugs.
Get real. We have a state that thinks evolution should not be taught. Free world my ass.
The ship sank. Get over it. (This sig was cut out from another's shirt and painstakingly hand-posted)
I rather suspect that these devices are based on milimeter wave radar, possibly in a synthetic apperature radar configuration.
SAR is a hot topic in the military community these days. Lots of airborne surveilence and mapping applications are in development. Dual frequency radar has the ability to look through tree canopies and even penetrate the ground. The processing power to generate an image is generally pretty high.
Of course these devices could be based on something else entirely.
Anyone read Rainbow Six, or play the game? They have a device in it which detects heartbeats, even through walls. I don't beleve this is a new technology.
It's a no-win situation.
The ship sank. Get over it. (This sig was cut out from another's shirt and painstakingly hand-posted)
That's an interesting definition, to say the least.
Read the Constitution again.
Cops here (Garland, Texas) have 2 FLIR units because Raytheon Systems(Spook Central) is right up the road.
We're on the express elevator to Hell, going down!
Maybe you haven't been keeping up with current events, but we just got our asses kicked!
Paxson/Hudson was great, and he had all the good lines. He was the techo-geek of the Marine outfit. He was my hero. I cried when they got him. You want some this? Oh yeah? How about you? Aaaaaaaa! I wish there was a slashdot poll about our favorite movie by different categories, but not the ones that are obvious like scifi. Categories more like movies with the best kick-ass aliens, or movies with aliens that you would have sex with. Maybe we should skip that last one as I would really hate to see the comments.
I realize this is off-topic, but, assuming that someone could make a device to run on this bandwidth/wavelength/"", what could they do, intercepting the signals sent to and fro this new fangled device? could someone invent something like police-scanners to prevent themselves from being detected/warn themselves that they're being watched?
just curious....
Insert mind here.
...a really skilled operator to get any information from them.
:)
The early systems I used were audio only - you pointed the radar out over your target area, and put on a set of headphones, and listened to the sound.
Hard, reflective targets (like vehicles) make lound, distinctive tones when they move. Walking people make a "swish, swish" sound as their legs scissor through the beam. Etc.
It's a lot like passive sonar. A skilled operator can learn a lot from the system, but it takes a *long* time to get skilled enough to be useful.
And when you figure that when the system is running, it's essentially a radio-frequency searchlight... the risk wasn't worth the benefit.
Now the newer systems use doppler radar to pick up and display movement on a "classical" radar scope, but these are slaved to high-res TV and IR scopes - the movement is plotted as a box on the radar scope, then you slew the cameras over to have a look and see what it is. Cool stuff, but vehicle mounted - the cameras alone weigh 80lbs.
A police officer with one of the audio systems could determine if someone was moving in a house, and might be able to narrow down the location within the house to a few feet, but that's about it.
If you had something reflective and moving in the house - like a ceiling fan - it would probably drown out all the other returns. Humans are not very reflective.
I can't see law enforcement using one of the big doppler systems. Too expensive, and not at all portable.
S
h
i
I mentioned this in another post.. but why would you really want to block this type of thing? In all likelyhood, the only time you will probably ever see this thing in action around your home (if at all) is after a natural disaster when your home is levelled and you are trapped under an uncomfortable pile of debris.
If you "privacy-proof" your home like you suggest, they might never find you.
t
Ok, now they can't detect your hearbeat, but you've made yourself a *HUGE* radar reflector.
If they did outlaw it, it would probably be from a safety standpoint, since by wrapping your home in something that blocks these devices, and your home or whatever building is destroyed in a natural disaster, firemen will lose this precious tool when trying to find survivors.
"...The tornado demolished 5 residential blocks today. Survivors were fished out of the debris with only minor injuries, with the exception of one man who had shielded his home from the radar devices firemen use to detect and locate survivors..."
I doubt very much that the local police have the time or the energy to go around looking into people's homes with these things. I also doubt that the courts would allow it to be used in drive-by manner. If however the police are executing a search or an arrest warrent then I think its a great idea. I don't want any of my friends names (or my own) on the memorial...
Looks like the Micropower Impulse Radar that Lawrence Livermore was working on. If so, it's real, though it may not live up to all of the hype. I seem to recall that Time Domain and LL were in the middle of a big patent dispute over this technology.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I'm with you so far...
The Government tells you it can't be trusted, so you believe it. DUH!!! Is that thick, or what?
I'm sorry, I do not understand. What government are you speaking of? In America the Government does quite the opposite. Perhaps I am dense, but never on CSPAN have I heard a politician stand and tell us what a poor country this is and how we should not trust those in power. The people in America who do not trust the government do so because of the power that is wielded by people who do not have the interests of the public at heart.
The people tell the Government that it can't trust them, so it believes them. Double DUH!!
Sorry, you lost me again. How does the public show the government that it is untrustworthy? For the most part people are honest and worthy of respect. Additionally, you are not understanding that the Government is not an it, but a them. And surprisingly, most Government officials are also people.
Do Americans get off on beating themselves up and portraying themselves as the evil monsters, ready to spring at any moment
I'm not understanding how this relates. It is good not to trust completely. It does not make you a monster, only interesting, enlightened, and generally fun at parties.
Question everything man. People are out to get you. Albeit, they are not all politicians. Just be careful
The article may not have explicitely mentioned it, but it's been discussed in a bunch of the comments. The technology being discussed is basically the same thing that's being trialed in a variety of fire departments and emergency response units.
The best that these things can do is detect movement such as what occurs when you breathe or your heart beats. These things are going to be pretty expensive at first, and I doubt police are going to be assigned individual radar devices for a long while, which means there'll probably be a high demand within a police department for these things. That doesn't leave a whole lot of time for indiscriminant "spying" (if you can call it that -- you really can't get a whole lot of sensitive information from these things) on the part of stupid cops.
I'm with you so far...
The Government tells you it can't be trusted, so you believe it. DUH!!! Is that thick, or what?
I'm sorry, I do not understand. What government are you speaking of? In America the Government does quite the opposite. Perhaps I am dense, but never on CSPAN have I heard a politician stand and tell us what a poor country this is and how we should not trust those in power. The people in America who do not trust the government do so because of the power that is wielded by people who do not have the interests of the public at heart.
The people tell the Government that it can't trust them, so it believes them. Double DUH!!
Sorry, you lost me again. How does the public show the government that it is untrustworthy? For the most part people are honest and worthy of respect. Additionally, you are not understanding that the Government is not an it, but a them. And surprisingly, most Government officials are also people.
Do Americans get off on beating themselves up and portraying themselves as the evil monsters, ready to spring at any moment
I'm not understanding how this relates. It is good not to trust completely. It does not make you a monster, only interesting, enlightened, and generally fun at parties.
Question everything man. People are out to get you. Albeit, they are not all politicians. Just be careful
This seems like a great idea to me. It allows the firefighters to quickly locate people and concentrate on getting them to safety. In addition, it cuts down on the risks these guys have to take to find people.
Of course, the down side of tempest glass is that it seems to go for about $55 for a square foot.
than cops
Wrong. Dead wrong. Permit me to tell you why, you brownshirt-in-training.:
In about 45 states of the US (Massachusetts, Ohio, D.C. et al being exceptions) you can legally use a firearm to protect yourself from anyone who threatens you... except for a cop. If you are the subject of a police attack, you may not respond with force, even if those officers are trying to kill you. Force is *never* justified. Your only recourse is through the courts, which does you no good if you are dead.
I am not concerned about violence... unless it comes from the police. Armed citizens beat "goblins" nearly every time. And while I have defended myself successfully with a weapon, I have never benefited from police protection.
You, Sir, state that you would like your "rescuers" to have bizarre military technology. Accept responsibility for yourself, protect yourself, and you will be your own "rescuer." Si vis pacem, para bellum!
Carefree highway, let me slip away on you.
Could I put one inside my house
and see somebody walking around
outside my house???
Could two of them be used to track and
aim weapons?
Man, just think of the fun!
Will it give me cancer?
NT
more dangerous are tools for spying on ordinary citizens, or tools to have complete control - Big Brother is watching you ?
Wear a jacket lined with an aluminium film or one of those 'space' thermal blankets and the device is useless. Unless it detects the vibrations caused by your heartbeat on radar-reflective objects around you. That would be hard to beat.
-- Spelling and grammar errors tend to be a sign of erroneous thinking.
How could the construction of homes be changed to stop people from being able to spy on you in this way?
Line the walls with some material that could block this?
This sig is false.
>
Damn, a butt scratch detector. Just what the police need, eh?
::chuckles::
~Mike
before the first pictures turn up on voyeurweb...
Saw this, oh, ten years ago in Popular Science. The main "use" back then was finding people buried in rubble after a major event [e-quake].
Anyway, this ought to improve the dating scene. Now you can find out if they're breathing from across the room.
In cities where prostitution is a problem, it might ever be used, but you've got to be more realistic - the risk of the police being completely wrong (and completely embarassed) is too high.
Micro$oft(R) Windoze NT(TM)
(C) Copyright 1985-1996 Micro$oft Corp.
C:\>uptime
The lack of respect and the arrogance of Law enforcement (wanna through my OPENBSD? :P) combined with our collective Big Brother, the clueless public, make me just a little concerned.
When you start getting bills for sex toys you didn't buy, you'll see my point.
The ship sank. Get over it. (This sig was cut out from another's shirt and painstakingly hand-posted)
That's it. I'm leaving.
The ship sank. Get over it. (This sig was cut out from another's shirt and painstakingly hand-posted)
How'd you find out about this law? Any idea where I can find similar information for my state (Minnesota)? I'd like to know if I'm breaking the law...
The ACLU has a list of laws regulating sexual behavior in different states.
Finding God in a Dog
Actually, varying the frequency would throw them off more. Doppler radar operates off of frequency shifts (the doppler effect).
It would be easier to shield whatever rooms you wanted to conceal with aluminum siding or aluminum foil inside the rooms. No grounding necessary. At microwave frequencies, it's pretty much blocked without having to send it to ground.
Tired of being "punished" by the Slashdot $rtbl since 2002. I'm now over at http://soylentnews.org/ .
Cop's "flashlight heart-beat detector" means a criminal can mount a similar cheap device on a rifle. Then, simply fire through the wall.
-- perl -e'print pack"H*","6e656d6f406d38792e6f7267"'
I'd hate to be the cop walking through a door not knowing where someone with a gun is standing.
...and I'd hate to be a political dissident trying to hide behind a door from lots of people with guns who happen to know precisely where I am.
---
DNA just wants to be free...
"If they're in the bushes, all they have to do is scratch their butt and you'll pick them up," said Larry Frazier, a Raytheon senior scientist who developed the MARS system.
Damn, a butt scratch detector. Just what the police need, eh?
::chuckles::
~Mike
I've seen the cops around here in rough old santa cruz california (where they have to deal with the small college parties and the occasional rowdy drunk) sporting FLIR's (forward looking infra-red) on the tops of their cars for a while now...
I haven't seen any hand-held devices around, though I haven't been near any where-house shoot-outs in a while...
-peter
If this saves the life of one officer I'm all for it. As long as it's priced out of reach for the standard crack addict I don't think it'll be a problem (I'd be more concerned about losers running around with those EMP weapons we read about a few months back).
I can't really see someone lugging one of these around in a nonchalant fashion, and then discretely holding it up against my walls to see if I'm home. I'm pretty sure my neigbors would find it a little odd and do something about it. Not to mention the fact that my German shepherd would hear him before he was able to figure out if anyone was home.
And if I saw someone trying to do this, he'd find himself looking down the business end of a 12-ga (tresspassing, don't you know...).
-----------------------
To understand recursion, one must first understand recursion.
How come since the Linux World Expo we have been getting many recycled news items, most are months old, and most have been on slashdot before.
h tml 1 203
Here we have an article from April on a radar for cops to detect a person on the other side of a wall. Old news.
Then there is the month old article on NSI changing the whois rules, covered originally in
http://slashdot.org/articles/99/07/07/1744250.s
and regurgitated in
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=99/08/18/015
I was hoping the andover buyout would help slashdot become better, giving our cherished cmdrTaco and Hemos some time to better read their submissions and make good choices.
Does anyone else notice this, or should I just be moderated into oblivion on this topic?
the AC
slashdot! Old news for nerds, stuff thats been covered and forgotten by the mainstream press.
Hemos is like...sci-fi fans;he thinks technology is cool, but he hasn't bothered to understand the science it's based on
"I can see why police would want them, and I can also see why Bram considers them a privacy threat. Depends on how they're used, I suppose."
And a Gulag _could_ be a violation of
civil rights, depends on how it's used, I suppose...
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
Question for the wire-heads out there - radar usually operates by doppler / pulse mode. I'm assuming these are similar. How hard would it be to build a device that sync'd to the pulse and returned a variable-amplitude return? That should, in theory, severely degrade the quality of their signal.
Also, what about aluminum siding on homes? If you grounded it, you'd have a pretty effective faraday box.
--
Now I'll have a few seconds of warning in which to scream before a horde of those Xenomorph aliens and face-huggers comes a-runnin'. :)
"They're inside the perimeter!"
La la laaaauuuuuuuuugh!
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
Wouldn't it be fairly to "wrap" your house in tin foil(or something better)and tempest glass to reduce the visibility of this device.
This would have problems(radio reception) but if your really paranoid you could deal with it.
Of course the government might outlaw doing this...
You don't exist. Go away. --SysVinit Halt
Not detectable? Maybe not with what's on the market right now, but if you use active measures, it CAN be detected! Why do you think the military spends so much on PASSIVE survailence stuff. With enough power, you can jam almost anything, just overload the frontend of the receiver. Of course, you probably don't what to sit around transmitting a few kiliowatts of microwave RF .
-- 73 de KG2V For the Children - RKBA! "You are what you do when it counts" - the Masso
I went to the page on it to look into getting the specs, but it was patented and not available while their "partners" developed products based on the design.
If it's patented, then the specs are a matter of public record. Go look up the patents, and there you go. If the patent numbers are not listed on the page, they'll probably tell you what they are if you ask.
---
DNA just wants to be free...
I'm in my company's office in Germany at the moment, but nevertheless I'll use US law here, since it's the only stuff I'm familiar with.
The US 4th amendment reads:
The only ambiguous term in the above is what is "reasonable", so the courts determine that. But generally speaking they decide whether a person would have a reasonable expectation of privacy in a given situation. And no, I don't think it's reasonable for some cop to go scanning houses at random to see what he can see; I at least hope that judges would agree.
It seems to me that if a cop has a search warrant or arrest warrant, that it would be fine to use this technology to execute the warrant. But without a warrant, no dice. It's an unreasonable search.
Look, its RF. We found foil-wrapped house insolation blocks it all. The real application is not home survelance, but room-to-room hotel/office/building. Our program-director's favorite demo, was to slide the range window over a few rooms to watch the women's restroom; and listen as well. Neat guy. Also, we had two radar systems which would coordinate to form a full 3D image of voxel people. Ours was portable, and FMCW not broadband, but we could 'hear' through the walls also. We received really 'neat' questions from the 'customer' like, "Can you tell if the subject's heart is still beating?", and "How accurate is the positioning, like can I fire a gun through the wall?" All this made me uncomfortable. But when they wanted to modify the antena (casagranian at the time) to be a SAR, oh and mounted in a moving van/ice cream truck/etc... I quit. Now after this post, I'm certain to have trenchcoat visitors at my home once again. *sigh*
they want to catch people who are speeding.
I cant see why you have a problem with that. The signs are pretty clear. 70MPH.
I think its a testament to police that they let you get away with 79 most places.
-I go to Rice, so figure out my email address
Saw this on TV two weeks ago on Discovery channel or TLC or something like that. It is a handheld unit with a blue/red screen, that turns red when something is moving in the direction you point the thing.
:-)
Usage was something like this:
Point the thing. Lay it against the wall or whatever..
If anything in that direction moves, the system shows it as a red on blue kind of thing.
It wasn't yet sensitive enough to show breathing, so if the subject was _really_ still, they were invisible to it.
Seems to me it's just sending radio waves thru the wall, and noting the reflection. When the reflection changes, it lights up that area. Range would be fairly limited, and you could probably not "scan" an area with it.. Plus, it's uncertain whether or not this would give a distance to target, if it's just a better motion sensor. One thing I did notice on the show, was that when they moved the unit itself, while it was on, the whole damn screen went red until they stopped moving it. Fairly annoying. You had to hold the thing really still to get any kind of image. Still, I could see uses for it. But forget someone "accidentally" seeing you. Even after you stopped moving the thing across the wall, it took a few seconds to see anything useful. If anyone saw something using this thing, they meant to see it.
Also, if you're invisible to radar, you're probably invisible to this. Anyone wanna invent the "stealth" bomber jacket?
---
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
This technology uses Gaussian monocycle pulses and an autocorrelated receiver. It doesn't even remotely resemble anything you've ever seen. It won't be detectable, it won't be jammable, and it WILL be misused. I'm frightened of the Government, but I'm even more frightened by all of the people posting here who seem so well-informed about computing and technology at the expense of a healthy awareness of history.
So when might we expect to see some clothing that incorporates radar stealth? I don't imagine the things would be able to pick up many female supervillians posessing "continuous curvature"
!GoRK
My thinking is that police will use a radar scanner as a way to get around having to obtain a search warrant. Why obtain a search warrant when you can search someone's house without even stepping on their property?
In many states, there are laws against premarital sex, homosexual sex, oral sex, anal sex, &c. These are almost never enforced because, as long as the act takes place between two consenting adults within a dwelling, the police can't just barge in and arrest people for breaking this law.
Now, let's put this scanner in the hands of the Jerkoff County, SC Sheriff's department. They drive down a residential street until they catch two people in close proximity, accelerated heartbeats...all the signs of copulation. Is there a married couple in there? A quick check of a countywide information system tells them that this residence belongs to a single woman with a teenage daughter from a previous marriage. Inspired by righteous morality, they break down the door and arrest the couple -- the single mother and her boyfriend -- for adultery.
The ACLU sides with the couple and fights the case all the way to the Supreme Court, eventually making it illegal for the police to use radar scanners without a search warrant. But the couple goes through years of Hell in the process -- and who knows how many other couples are busted the same way.
Finding God in a Dog
I don't think this high-tech motion detector really counts as an invasion of privacy. What, the police are going to hide outside of my apartment, just to see if I'm moving? That's one question I'd be glad to answer. "Yes, officer, I am moving." It's not as if this is a mind-reading device, and the police will be using it to convict people of crimes they've just thought about. (Don't get any ideas, piggies...)
How much would it cost to put together a radar detector that would pick up the frequencies that these devices use? ("Don Corleone, we are being scanned by someone behind the south wall.") Or something that gives back a scrambled signal, so the cops can't pinpoint the bodies?
send all spam to theotherwhitemeat@ropine.com
... For some reason, I'm skeptical of the claims made by all the different companies in the article. It wasn't too long ago that the DKL LifeGuard -- DynaKinesio Laboratories or something like that; I may be off on the name -- was advertising a product which was making the same claim, except that their technology worked by picking up the radio signal emanated by a heartbeat.
Never mind that with a radio wave at one or two hertz you'd need an antenna that would reach a fair bit of the distance between the Earth and moon. U.S. officials leaped at the chance to have a "heartbeat sensor". A lot of money was plunked down on the DKL LifeGuard before Sandia National Laboratories proved that it was a complete, total and absolute hoax.
DKL even managed to fool Tom Clancy. When someone on Usenet pointed out to Clancy that the physics of picking up the radio signal of a human heart was "difficult", Clancy responded that he didn't know physics, he was just a writer, but DKL had let him have time with the LifeGuard and damn if it didn't work.
Clancy is now trying very hard to forget that he ever mentioned the DKL LifeGuard in his book Rainbow Six, and he's going to be living it down for decades to come.
Moral of this story: the last time we had these kinds of way-cool widgets, they all turned out to be bogus. Let's all be skeptical for right now, so that we don't get fooled again.