This system is so sophisticated they tracked it for 211 miles across the country.
Correction: indeed Bradford is 211 miles from London but reading the article indicates that this system is only in use by West Yorkshire police. The UK does not have a national police force - not even an FBI - and this number plate recognition system has only been used in this case by the West Yorkshire police force.
This is confirmed by the following from the BBC article: The system comprises a series of CCTV cameras at fixed points throughout the city centre and further afield on major routes in the outskirts of Bradford.
It would seem that once the getaway vehicle left Bradford then it would have been tracked by conventional methods.
The main problem is that languages, especially English, are so idiomatic that mechanical translators will be a too much of a disadvantage - take the
Babelfish translator for instance.
Furthermore, the English language is so flexible that just about any word can arbitrarily substitute for anything else - for instance, take 'bad' meaning 'good'.
It would be impossible to program a machine to be able to understand the full spectrum of idiomatic phrases but the future may lie in employing neural net technologies so that computers can do some
limited learning.
There is an alternative Summit to the WSIS taking place in Geneva at the same time called the World Forum on Communication Rights (http://www.communicationrights.org/index.html)- an independent civil-society led initiative, open to all seeking democratic, just and participative media and communication.
Its goals are:
- To demonstrate and document the importance of communication rights for people and communities in an emerging information society - To contribute to the emergence and understanding of a coherent concept of communication rights - To generate cooperation in promoting the concept, recognition and realisation of such rights.
The World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) is a full UN Summit that will be held in December 2003 in Geneva with a second meeting in Tunis in 2005. Early hopes that the WSIS would tackle a broad range of information and communication issues have been dashed and the agenda that has emerged is concerned mainly with telecommunication and internet related issues, viewed from a technical perspective and a narrowly construed development agenda. Broader communication and media issues, an essential feature of any information society, and human and communication rights that must animate its core, have been largely sidelined.
The World Forum on Communication Rights brings together civil society organisations, NGOs, governments and others in a civil society-driven event to be held alongside the Summit, not in opposition to it but to highlight and make practical progress in spheres the Summit fails to cover. It welcomes all stakeholders committed to ensuring such rights are integral to an information society.
The Forum focuses on four themes:
- Communication and Poverty - Communication, Conflict and Peace - Communication, Copyright, Patents and Trade - Communication and Human Rights
I can just see it - the lead architect of Echelon II is lead into a smoke-filled room filled with the world leaders of the global industrial-military complex and they show him footage of the Kennedy assasination filmed from what could only have been the grassy knoll...and they say to him "Yeah, you go right ahead and tell the public about Echelon II."
RTI is an arts group based in Sheffield, England. It started in 1997 with a group of artists who wanted to get involved with information technology, but didn't have the resources to buy computers. So instead they went about getting their hands on trash computers, finding new ways to be creative with old technology, then exhibiting the results.
Now RTI has accumulated hundreds of machines and has raised money to open a media lab, called Access Space where people can learn, create and communicate using trailing-edge technology. At last, after a series of frustrating delays, Access Space finally opened on April 6th 2000.
We had a fairly groovy Wireless Internet Workshop too at Access Space last November.
They say "One $10,000 cash prize will be awarded to the winning entry" - okay, that's simple enough.
Next, Google say "If the winning entry is submitted by more than one individual, the $10,000 cash prize will be divided equally among the participants who submit the winning entry". Fair do's, no problem with that.
But then they say "In addition, Google shall provide each member of the winning team a round trip ticket for a commercial carrier flight to the San Francisco Bay Area, and will reimburse each member of the winning team for up to 3 nights stay at a hotel to be designated by Google, Inc".
So what's to stop some geek nailing that top prize on his own but then inviting all his nerdy buddies along for the ride to Google Mountain?
The winner could even sell tickets for the trip and top up those measly 10,000 smackeroonies....now there's a thought.
In light of the recent tragedies, is there anything that the hacker community can contribute to the inevitable reprisals against terrorist activities?
The Register reports that "an undisclosed number of Web sites have had their front page redirected by "Fluffi Bunni" in response to the events that have shaken the world".
Entitled "Fluffi Bunni goes Jihad" those behind the hack say: "If you want to see the internet again, give us Mr Bin Laden and $5 million in a brown paper bag. Love Fluffi B.
The Red Chinese got behind their government with the Sadmind worm earlier this year (f**k USA Government, f**k PoizonBOx) so how about it, you hackerz?
Slashdot Mirror
We even have a slang term for the preferred method of concealment - the Chatham Pocket.
Indymedia in the UK has already been shut down twice in the past few years e.g. http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/05/06/28/0113237.shtml?tid=153&tid=158&tid=149&tid=17
This system is so sophisticated they tracked it for 211 miles across the country.
Correction: indeed Bradford is 211 miles from London but reading the article indicates that this system is only in use by West Yorkshire police. The UK does not have a national police force - not even an FBI - and this number plate recognition system has only been used in this case by the West Yorkshire police force.
This is confirmed by the following from the BBC article: The system comprises a series of CCTV cameras at fixed points throughout the city centre and further afield on major routes in the outskirts of Bradford.
It would seem that once the getaway vehicle left Bradford then it would have been tracked by conventional methods.
Haven't we had this story two weeks ago:
http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/07
Or is today's story that the Daily Telegraph has run a story about this gadget?
The main problem is that languages, especially English, are so idiomatic that mechanical translators will be a too much of a disadvantage - take the Babelfish translator for instance.
Furthermore, the English language is so flexible that just about any word can arbitrarily substitute for anything else - for instance, take 'bad' meaning 'good'.
It would be impossible to program a machine to be able to understand the full spectrum of idiomatic phrases but the future may lie in employing neural net technologies so that computers can do some limited learning.
There is an alternative Summit to the WSIS taking place in Geneva at the same time called the World Forum on Communication Rights (http://www.communicationrights.org/index.html)- an independent civil-society led initiative, open to all seeking democratic, just and participative media and communication.
Its goals are:
- To demonstrate and document the importance of communication rights for people and communities in an emerging information society
- To contribute to the emergence and understanding of a coherent concept of communication rights
- To generate cooperation in promoting the concept, recognition and realisation of such rights.
The World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) is a full UN Summit that will be held in December 2003 in Geneva with a second meeting in Tunis in 2005. Early hopes that the WSIS would tackle a broad range of information and communication issues have been dashed and the agenda that has emerged is concerned mainly with telecommunication and internet related issues, viewed from a technical perspective and a narrowly construed development agenda. Broader communication and media issues, an essential feature of any information society, and human and communication rights that must animate its core, have been largely sidelined.
The World Forum on Communication Rights brings together civil society organisations, NGOs, governments and others in a civil society-driven event to be held alongside the Summit, not in opposition to it but to highlight and make practical progress in spheres the Summit fails to cover. It welcomes all stakeholders committed to ensuring such rights are integral to an information society.
The Forum focuses on four themes:
- Communication and Poverty
- Communication, Conflict and Peace
- Communication, Copyright, Patents and Trade
- Communication and Human Rights
Isn't this already being done by the WaybackMachine (http://www.waybackmachine.org)?
Why can't the editors do a simple search - this story has been covered before:
6 23 4&mode=nested&tid=99
2 00 20719_99996.shtml
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/07/19/211
Even the original article from The People's Daily News that was quoted dated July 22 -
http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200207/19/eng
- mentions that the new OS is to be called "Yangfan".
C'mon, editors, get it together.
I can just see it - the lead architect of Echelon II is lead into a smoke-filled room filled with the world leaders of the global industrial-military complex and they show him footage of the Kennedy assasination filmed from what could only have been the grassy knoll...and they say to him "Yeah, you go right ahead and tell the public about Echelon II."
Right...
The Redundant Technology Initiative have been doing this sort of thing in my hometown of Sheffield, UK for a number of years now.
RTI is an arts group based in Sheffield, England. It started in 1997 with a group of artists who wanted to get involved with information technology, but didn't have the resources to buy computers. So instead they went about getting their hands on trash computers, finding new ways to be creative with old technology, then exhibiting the results.
Now RTI has accumulated hundreds of machines and has raised money to open a media lab, called Access Space where people can learn, create and communicate using trailing-edge technology. At last, after a series of frustrating delays, Access Space finally opened on April 6th 2000.
We had a fairly groovy Wireless Internet Workshop too at Access Space last November.
I believe the German for "Monkey Boy" is "Fallhammerjunge" according to Babelfish and "I love this company" translates as "Ich liebe diese Firma".
This could be useful stuff to know for the next convention of MS Gmbh...
They say "One $10,000 cash prize will be awarded to the winning entry" - okay, that's simple enough.
Next, Google say "If the winning entry is submitted by more than one individual, the $10,000 cash prize will be divided equally among the participants who submit the winning entry". Fair do's, no problem with that.
But then they say "In addition, Google shall provide each member of the winning team a round trip ticket for a commercial carrier flight to the San Francisco Bay Area, and will reimburse each member of the winning team for up to 3 nights stay at a hotel to be designated by Google, Inc".
So what's to stop some geek nailing that top prize on his own but then inviting all his nerdy buddies along for the ride to Google Mountain?
The winner could even sell tickets for the trip and top up those measly 10,000 smackeroonies....now there's a thought.
In light of the recent tragedies, is there anything that the hacker community can contribute to the inevitable reprisals against terrorist activities?
The Register reports that "an undisclosed number of Web sites have had their front page redirected by "Fluffi Bunni" in response to the events that have shaken the world".
Entitled "Fluffi Bunni goes Jihad" those behind the hack say: "If you want to see the internet again, give us Mr Bin Laden and $5 million in a brown paper bag. Love Fluffi B.
The Red Chinese got behind their government with the Sadmind worm earlier this year (f**k USA Government, f**k PoizonBOx) so how about it, you hackerz?
Watching on the news here in the UK. Prime Minister Tony Blair has extended the condolences of the UK to the US.
One of the Towers has actually collapsed and hundreds are now thought to be dead.
There has also been an attack on the Pentagon in Washington - possibly a helicopter involved there.
Another explosion has occurred on Capitol Hill at the time of writing.
News service available at
http://www.itn.co.uk