Well...it turns out it's not that simple. Mathematicians begin with unproven but accepted axioms leading to powerful computational tools we call theorems. By contrast, scientists begin with observed phenomena and seek connections and relationships between the data.
An act of faith now occurs: the scientist appropriates mathematical theorems as a model for his data. Is he justified in doing so? Perhaps -- but there's no way to prove it! One thinks here of the famous case of Newton's Laws giving way to relativity... and of Euclidean geometry taking a back seat to Riemannian geometry. For a time, we accepted Newton's Laws on faith, until the evidence of our senses led us to abandon (better: modify) them. The notion that math can be a complete guide to truth was given the death blow by Goedel, who showed that any mathematical system must inevitably be either incomplete or inconsistent. By "incomplete", he means "not able to prove itself true." For this reason, mathematicians never ask if a proof is "true" or not, but only if it is "valid" -- that is, whether it has been consistently derived from the unproven axioms. The last serious philosopher who took mathematics as the infallible guide to truth was Leibniz. Fantastic mathematician, but dead wrong about the "truth" of math.
I've been looking into different battery types because of a robot I'm building (nothing snazzy -- just a toy). I found the technical docs at www.duracell.com and www.energizer.com pretty much answered all my questions about batteries.
You might be right. However, there is one final argument that I would make. The servers are not 'trusted' because they are known good agents. The servers are 'trusted' because they maintain accounts with real money on the routers. The routers are the ones which maintain the funds, so that even the servers must pay up front. So perhaps I should have expressed the algorithm as 'servers' and 'trusted routers.'
Now, admittedly, we have to trust the routers. However, because two routers have to sign off on a stamp redemption event, it would seem that a single bad-acting router could cause limited damage.
That is a good point. Think of this another way: for every other way of contacting a person (snail-mail, phone, etc.) you incur a guaranteed cost. Here, there is only a possible cost. The metaphor is that you are using 'reusable stamps.' If people act reasonably, then there will be no cost at all. If unreasonably, then the loss of a stamp will be incentive to stop communicating with the other party. Abusers will soon stop receiving e-mails. That *is* the underlying point: to provide incentive so that those who really want to receive and those who really want to send can continue to communicate for free, while those who do not wish to receive can let it be known.
There is also a built-in accountability, to a certain extent. If A communicates to B, who communicates back to A, who then charges B, then B can charges A in return. Stamps are traded, and no harm is done.
Any system that lacks accountability on the part of the complainant, and profit for the same, will be abused. Some people will pick pockets one nickel at a time, just because they can.
Perhaps I lack imagination, but I can't imagine a scenario in which anyone's pocket will be significantly picked unless they engage in highly risky behavior, i.e., sending large volumes of e-mail to people they don't know. Can you?
As far as verification goes, see the more detailed post on the same thread.
Actually, I can envision one scenario that will require a fix: If abuser A sends 70k e-mails to non-existent addresses, and the server generates bounce messages, and A waits until his stamps have expired but before the bounced message stamps have expired, and then redeems the server's stamps -- then he will get rich. The solution, I think, is to have SMTP servers be allowed to request a stamp extension for undeliverable messages. In this way, A's stamps will remain active until the bounce message's stamp expires.
Sorry. From your comment, it is clear that I need to flesh out the details.
First, the metaphor: the system I am proposing can be thought of as 'reusable stamps.' The stamps are granted to SMTP servers by routers, and paid for by the owners of the SMTP servers. Those owners would then be responsible for recouping their monies from users. Here is a typical scenario:
1. User A pays a modest ($2) deposit on signing up with his ISP provider, who runs trusted server S1. This fee is deposited by S1 into its account contained on router R.
2. A logs in to his provider and sends an e-mail M via S1. Since A is logged in, S1 knows who is sending M. S1 stores the messageID of M and the UID of the sender.
3. S1 now digitally signs M and sends it to R.
4. R sees trusted signature and places a stamp (encrypted) on it. M is now 'live'. All other routers see the stamp and wave it through.
5. The message arrives at trusted server S2, who delivers it to the box of B.
6. B decides whether or not to redeem the stamp (i.e., to mark M as spam). If she does, then she sends a redemption request through S2. S2 digitally signs this request, verifying that the stamp on M (with messageID) is to be redeemed.
7. The original router receives the request and verifies the sig and messageID. If it checks out, S1's account is decreased $.02 and S2's account is increased by same.
8. The owner of S2 will have responsibility to fairly deal out the money.
9. After three days, an unredeemed stamp expires and M is 'dead'.
That's the detailed version. It's not theoretically perfect. It is spoof-proof, though, because the stamp is attached to the messageID which comes from the SMTP server. The server remembers the UID of the sender, not the contents of the "from:" line.
I can certainly envision bad things happening: someone could hack my account, someone could declare my innocent e-mail to be spam, etc. But, in all of those scenarios, the cost to normal users would be small -- $2 or so, until they noticed that they couldn't send e-mails anymore. By contrast, the cost to frequent spammers would be large.
One final point: users of free (anonymous) accounts would not be able to withdraw money from their accounts. This is a small problem, but not an important one. The emphasis is not on getting rich by receiving spam, but on (1)penalizing spammers, and (2) allowing individual users to decide what is spam to them.
The key (I think...IANAITspecialist) is to bind the the message ID# to a specific account. When user X sends message #123, then the account is put on notice that message #123 is live. After three days or so, the live status expires. That would simultaneously prevent spoofing *and* redundant charging of accounts.
As far as knowing who to bill, the core idea (with details yet to be worked out) is that a deposit must be paid up front in order to send. This would not be expensive -- perhaps even $5 or less -- but you would be required to have enough money in the account in order to cover the messages you sent over the last 3 days. Else, no sending.
The details might be tricky, but I still like the core values: 1. The recipient gets to decide what is spam (and not the government) 2. It is cheap/free to send e-mail as a normal user, but expensive to spam 3. The spamees get to directly hold spammers accountable.
The problem would be opportunists willing to exploit the new system. For example, one could bolster their balance by posting to alt.test, then reporting every response as spam... or sign up for a mailing list and do the same...The problem is that one can easily attract legitimate but spam-like e-mail to any account at any time. How do you propose to limit this? I, for one, must regard this proposal as unworkable unless and until this issue can be resolved.
The core concept is to make it cheap for people to send normal e-mails and expensive to send spamming ones. In the scenario you describe here, if I make an innocent mistake and send an e-mail to a bad actor, then he might make pocket change off of me *once*, but he will probably not get rich in this way. Or attempt to send mail to nonexistent users just to collect the bounce messages and report them as spam. Messages generated by ISP servers could easily be exempted.
mabu (178417) asks, Does anyone see any benefit to this? Spammers by their very nature refuse to follow rules, industry best practices or laws.
Right. The point is to take the anti-spam fight out of the criminal arena ('don't spam or we'll bust you') and put the fight into the civil arena, where individual spammers will be held accountable by individual spamees.
This system is an attempt to remove the government as a middle-man in the spam wars. I see tremendous benefit to people being held accountable by the people they directly affect, not by the agents of the government.
Basically its the same theory as warning someone in AOL-IM. Their warn level gets high enough they can't send messages until it drops some. The problem is people get into "warning wars"
There is a substantive difference between the warning system and this system. In the warning system, the offender is punished, but the offended party is not compensated. In this scheme, the offended party is compensated by the offender. Thus, the analogy to "warning wars" will never occur, since money would simply be transferred back and forth between accounts
For spam who is going to be the judge to determine if its spam or not?
That problem is actually accomodated by the scheme. If you make someone mad and they charge you, then you either stop e-mailing them or else wait until the relationship problem blows over. It would be analogous to calling someone long-distance; if they are going to hang up on you, then don't call. For small scale incidents like you describe, you are out a small fee -- perhaps $0.05 or so.
Real spammers, on the other hand, would have to pay $0.05 * (# of e-mails sent). Hence, they have a problem of scale that normal users would not have.
I consider all the stupid jokes I get from people spam so I should hit them and make them pay for it.
Yes, making people pay a small fee to send you stupid jokes might actually help that problem, too.
What if I piss someone off so they decide to report every email that I've sent as spam in retaliation. Even friends like to piss other friends off from time to time.
The problem of retroactive charging (i.e., I get mad at you, then charge you for every e-mail ever sent) could be solved easily by requiring that the charge take place within X days of the message, where X is small. People who check their e-mail infrequently wouldn't benefit from the system, but then again, they don't have to suffer the daily annoyance of spam. I still think the system is robust.
This is slightly offtopic, but I've been turning over an anti-spam scheme in my mind for a while. What if...
you are required to pay a small escrow fee as part of your ISP service fee, AND
if someone receives and e-mail from you and deems it as spam, then he clicks the appropriate button, AND
your escrow fee is charged *once per e-mail* and his is increased by the same amount.
The balance of the escrow fee would be refundable at any time, but accounts with a balance of 0 would be unable to send e-mails.
As I think through this, I can see several virtues: 1. The senders of spam would have to pay per offensive e-mail and would thus have strong incentive to stop. 2. Senders of legit e-mail would continue to have free or mostly free e-mail. 3. Those affected by spam would have immediate recourse and receive compensation for their time. 4. The spirit of the plan seems right: if you are going to waste my time with your spam, then you pay me for it. But if you are a friend, you get my time for free.
Does anyone see drawbacks to this plan? Perhaps increase in net traffic per e-mail sent, but that would presumably be offset by a substantial decrease in spam.
Tried to post this earlier, so sorry for the possible redundancy...
I agree with your qualifications: placing the sensors on entrance ramps helps eliminate the multiple car problem, and continuously sensoring helps determine differential pollution levels.
I still think it stinks as policy. Consider the difference between this scheme and red-light cameras. When a car goes through a red-light camera, the camera takes a picture of the car as it is going through the red light. The car has been "caught in the act" of a clear violation of the law. Hence, the citation and the fine.
By contrast, CHiP's pollution scheme has no way to definitively connect the car with the crime. Yes, the sensor shows a crime has been committed. And yes, the camera has caught the car unfortunate enough to be at the scene of the crime.
But no proof is ever offered that the car in the picture is in fact the one responsible for the crime.
The state knows this. Therefore, they do not levy a fine as a penalty for getting caught, because they know that a conviction would never hold up in court. So instead, they have a weaselly way of getting around reasonable doubt: as a penalty for getting caught, you have to come in and prove your innocence!
What happens if my car turns out to be clean? Will the government reimburse me for my time? Never! For the cost of the inspection? Unlikely.
It turns out that these automated enforcement plans are money-makers. Here in Maryland and DC, red-light cameras have become a scam (placed at lucrative, rather than dangerous, intersections, etc.). This scheme is no different.
I hope it dies, because it seems like nothing more than an end-run around due process.
As a chemistry teacher, here's the problem I have with teaching a wrong picture of atoms:
A student learns the wrong picture in the 5th grade, has 5 years to cement it in place, and then comes to me in the 10th or 11th grade and has to be untaught his previous picture of the atom that Mr. ______ (fill in beloved 5th grade teacher's name here) taught him. Typical 10th graders do not easily change cherished notions they've held for years.
I don't think it would be any harder to present 5th graders with an "electron cloud" picture, communicating the following:
electrons are incredibly small compared to the nucleus -- to small to be seen in a picture.
electrons have a negative charge equal to the positive charge on the proton.
electrons are allowed to be anywhere within this zone...teacher shows 95% probability orbital on board.... The zone defines the size of the atom.
There! That wasn't hard, and it prepares students to think properly about the atom later. The real reason that 5th graders aren't taught this way is that an embarrassing number of 5th grade teachers believe that electrons orbit around the nucleus.
The "black box" nature of electronic voting is not the real problem. Current paper ballots are not verifiable by the public, either.
The real issue is that paper ballot counting is distributed. Each precinct counts its own ballots. That means that any serious voting fraud has to involve large numbers of people, which runs serious risk of detection.
By contrast, electronic counting is (likely to be) statewide for sake of convenience. Under those conditions, it would only take one bad actor to throw the entire electoral count for that state. In that case, thank goodness for the electoral college!
Any serious voting system must retain the distributed nature of vote counting.
I'm with billstewart on this one. I'm not impressed with the potential of this system...How well does it really work for ground-level objects?
I remember that the cell-radar idea was floated a couple of years ago as a way to spot Stealth jets. That's fine: a single jet gives well-defined echoes that can be triangulated. Objects on the ground are another story, for two reasons:
1) Obviously, other objects give confusing echo results which would require *really good* resolution to sort out. Do the math: if this is a 'passive system' - i.e., receiving info from a full sphere - then the amount of info to process increases as a square of the distance of the object; good resolution would require bazillions of bits.
2) Many materials are transparent/translucent to cell-phone frequencies. Why do you think you can make calls from inside buildings? It is unlikely that this approach can even 'see' a pedestrian. Notice that all of the objects listed in the article are highly reflective (i.e., metal).
As a highly specific tool (i.e., determining traffic flow at a single point on I495), this has some potential. As a general spying tool, it is clearly inferior to current (visible wavelength) satellites.
Slashdot Mirror
Well...it turns out it's not that simple.
... and of Euclidean geometry taking a back seat to Riemannian geometry. For a time, we accepted Newton's Laws on faith, until the evidence of our senses led us to abandon (better: modify) them.
Mathematicians begin with unproven but accepted axioms leading to powerful computational tools we call theorems. By contrast, scientists begin with observed phenomena and seek connections and relationships between the data.
An act of faith now occurs: the scientist appropriates mathematical theorems as a model for his data. Is he justified in doing so? Perhaps -- but there's no way to prove it!
One thinks here of the famous case of Newton's Laws giving way to relativity
The notion that math can be a complete guide to truth was given the death blow by Goedel, who showed that any mathematical system must inevitably be either incomplete or inconsistent. By "incomplete", he means "not able to prove itself true." For this reason, mathematicians never ask if a proof is "true" or not, but only if it is "valid" -- that is, whether it has been consistently derived from the unproven axioms.
The last serious philosopher who took mathematics as the infallible guide to truth was Leibniz. Fantastic mathematician, but dead wrong about the "truth" of math.
I've been looking into different battery types because of a robot I'm building (nothing snazzy -- just a toy). I found the technical docs at www.duracell.com and www.energizer.com pretty much answered all my questions about batteries.
You might be right. However, there is one final argument that I would make. The servers are not 'trusted' because they are known good agents. The servers are 'trusted' because they maintain accounts with real money on the routers. The routers are the ones which maintain the funds, so that even the servers must pay up front. So perhaps I should have expressed the algorithm as 'servers' and 'trusted routers.'
Now, admittedly, we have to trust the routers.
However, because two routers have to sign off on a stamp redemption event, it would seem that a single bad-acting router could cause limited damage.
Regards,
Jeff Cagle
That is a good point. Think of this another way: for every other way of contacting a person (snail-mail, phone, etc.) you incur a guaranteed cost. Here, there is only a possible cost. The metaphor is that you are using 'reusable stamps.' If people act reasonably, then there will be no cost at all. If unreasonably, then the loss of a stamp will be incentive to stop communicating with the other party. Abusers will soon stop receiving e-mails. That *is* the underlying point: to provide incentive so that those who really want to receive and those who really want to send can continue to communicate for free, while those who do not wish to receive can let it be known.
There is also a built-in accountability, to a certain extent. If A communicates to B, who communicates back to A, who then charges B, then B can charges A in return. Stamps are traded, and no harm is done.
Any system that lacks accountability on the part of the complainant, and profit for the same, will be abused. Some people will pick pockets one nickel at a time, just because they can.
Perhaps I lack imagination, but I can't imagine a scenario in which anyone's pocket will be significantly picked unless they engage in highly risky behavior, i.e., sending large volumes of e-mail to people they don't know. Can you?
As far as verification goes, see the more detailed post on the same thread.
Actually, I can envision one scenario that will require a fix: If abuser A sends 70k e-mails to non-existent addresses, and the server generates bounce messages, and A waits until his stamps have expired but before the bounced message stamps have expired, and then redeems the server's stamps -- then he will get rich. The solution, I think, is to have SMTP servers be allowed to request a stamp extension for undeliverable messages. In this way, A's stamps will remain active until the bounce message's stamp expires.
Anyway, thanks for the thoughts!
Regards,
Jeff Cagle
Sorry. From your comment, it is clear that I need to flesh out the details.
First, the metaphor: the system I am proposing can be thought of as 'reusable stamps.'
The stamps are granted to SMTP servers by routers, and paid for by the owners of the SMTP servers. Those owners would then be responsible for recouping their monies from users. Here is a typical scenario:
1. User A pays a modest ($2) deposit on signing up with his ISP provider, who runs trusted server S1. This fee is deposited by S1 into its account contained on router R.
2. A logs in to his provider and sends an e-mail M via S1. Since A is logged in, S1 knows who is sending M. S1 stores the messageID of M and the UID of the sender.
3. S1 now digitally signs M and sends it to R.
4. R sees trusted signature and places a stamp (encrypted) on it. M is now 'live'. All other routers see the stamp and wave it through.
5. The message arrives at trusted server S2, who delivers it to the box of B.
6. B decides whether or not to redeem the stamp (i.e., to mark M as spam). If she does, then she sends a redemption request through S2. S2 digitally signs this request, verifying that the stamp on M (with messageID) is to be redeemed.
7. The original router receives the request and verifies the sig and messageID. If it checks out, S1's account is decreased $.02 and S2's account is increased by same.
8. The owner of S2 will have responsibility to fairly deal out the money.
9. After three days, an unredeemed stamp expires and M is 'dead'.
That's the detailed version. It's not theoretically perfect. It is spoof-proof, though, because the stamp is attached to the messageID which comes from the SMTP server. The server remembers the UID of the sender, not the contents of the "from:" line.
I can certainly envision bad things happening: someone could hack my account, someone could declare my innocent e-mail to be spam, etc. But, in all of those scenarios, the cost to normal users would be small -- $2 or so, until they noticed that they couldn't send e-mails anymore. By contrast, the cost to frequent spammers would be large.
One final point: users of free (anonymous) accounts would not be able to withdraw money from their accounts. This is a small problem, but not an important one. The emphasis is not on getting rich by receiving spam, but on (1)penalizing spammers, and (2) allowing individual users to decide what is spam to them.
Regards,
Jeff Cagle
The key (I think...IANAITspecialist) is to bind the the message ID# to a specific account. When user X sends message #123, then the account is put on notice that message #123 is live. After three days or so, the live status expires. That would simultaneously prevent spoofing *and* redundant charging of accounts.
As far as knowing who to bill, the core idea (with details yet to be worked out) is that a deposit must be paid up front in order to send. This would not be expensive -- perhaps even $5 or less -- but you would be required to have enough money in the account in order to cover the messages you sent over the last 3 days. Else, no sending.
The details might be tricky, but I still like the core values:
1. The recipient gets to decide what is spam (and not the government)
2. It is cheap/free to send e-mail as a normal user, but expensive to spam
3. The spamees get to directly hold spammers accountable.
The problem would be opportunists willing to exploit the new system. For example, one could bolster their balance by posting to alt.test, then reporting every response as spam... or sign up for a mailing list and do the same...The problem is that one can easily attract legitimate but spam-like e-mail to any account at any time. How do you propose to limit this? I, for one, must regard this proposal as unworkable unless and until this issue can be resolved.
The core concept is to make it cheap for people to send normal e-mails and expensive to send spamming ones. In the scenario you describe here, if I make an innocent mistake and send an e-mail to a bad actor, then he might make pocket change off of me *once*, but he will probably not get rich in this way.
Or attempt to send mail to nonexistent users just to collect the bounce messages and report them as spam.
Messages generated by ISP servers could easily be exempted.
mabu (178417) asks,
Does anyone see any benefit to this? Spammers by their very nature refuse to follow rules, industry best practices or laws.
Right. The point is to take the anti-spam fight out of the criminal arena ('don't spam or we'll bust you') and put the fight into the civil arena, where individual spammers will be held accountable by individual spamees.
This system is an attempt to remove the government as a middle-man in the spam wars. I see tremendous benefit to people being held accountable by the people they directly affect, not by the agents of the government.
Good points.
Basically its the same theory as warning someone in AOL-IM. Their warn level gets high enough they can't send messages until it drops some. The problem is people get into "warning wars"
There is a substantive difference between the warning system and this system. In the warning system, the offender is punished, but the offended party is not compensated. In this scheme, the offended party is compensated by the offender. Thus, the analogy to "warning wars" will never occur, since money would simply be transferred back and forth between accounts
For spam who is going to be the judge to determine if its spam or not?
That problem is actually accomodated by the scheme. If you make someone mad and they charge you, then you either stop e-mailing them or else wait until the relationship problem blows over. It would be analogous to calling someone long-distance; if they are going to hang up on you, then don't call. For small scale incidents like you describe, you are out a small fee -- perhaps $0.05 or so.
Real spammers, on the other hand, would have to pay $0.05 * (# of e-mails sent). Hence, they have a problem of scale that normal users would not have.
I consider all the stupid jokes I get from people spam so I should hit them and make them pay for it.
Yes, making people pay a small fee to send you stupid jokes might actually help that problem, too.
What if I piss someone off so they decide to report every email that I've sent as spam in retaliation. Even friends like to piss other friends off from time to time.
The problem of retroactive charging (i.e., I get mad at you, then charge you for every e-mail ever sent) could be solved easily by requiring that the charge take place within X days of the message, where X is small. People who check their e-mail infrequently wouldn't benefit from the system, but then again, they don't have to suffer the daily annoyance of spam. I still think the system is robust.
you are required to pay a small escrow fee as part of your ISP service fee, AND
if someone receives and e-mail from you and deems it as spam, then he clicks the appropriate button, AND
your escrow fee is charged *once per e-mail* and his is increased by the same amount.
The balance of the escrow fee would be refundable at any time, but accounts with a balance of 0 would be unable to send e-mails.
As I think through this, I can see several virtues:
1. The senders of spam would have to pay per offensive e-mail and would thus have strong incentive to stop.
2. Senders of legit e-mail would continue to have free or mostly free e-mail.
3. Those affected by spam would have immediate recourse and receive compensation for their time.
4. The spirit of the plan seems right: if you are going to waste my time with your spam, then you pay me for it. But if you are a friend, you get my time for free.
Does anyone see drawbacks to this plan? Perhaps increase in net traffic per e-mail sent, but that would presumably be offset by a substantial decrease in spam.
Tried to post this earlier, so sorry for the possible redundancy... I agree with your qualifications: placing the sensors on entrance ramps helps eliminate the multiple car problem, and continuously sensoring helps determine differential pollution levels.
I still think it stinks as policy. Consider the difference between this scheme and red-light cameras. When a car goes through a red-light camera, the camera takes a picture of the car as it is going through the red light. The car has been "caught in the act" of a clear violation of the law. Hence, the citation and the fine.
By contrast, CHiP's pollution scheme has no way to definitively connect the car with the crime. Yes, the sensor shows a crime has been committed. And yes, the camera has caught the car unfortunate enough to be at the scene of the crime.
But no proof is ever offered that the car in the picture is in fact the one responsible for the crime.
The state knows this. Therefore, they do not levy a fine as a penalty for getting caught, because they know that a conviction would never hold up in court. So instead, they have a weaselly way of getting around reasonable doubt: as a penalty for getting caught, you have to come in and prove your innocence!
What happens if my car turns out to be clean? Will the government reimburse me for my time? Never! For the cost of the inspection? Unlikely.
It turns out that these automated enforcement plans are money-makers. Here in Maryland and DC, red-light cameras have become a scam (placed at lucrative, rather than dangerous, intersections, etc.). This scheme is no different.
I hope it dies, because it seems like nothing more than an end-run around due process.
A student learns the wrong picture in the 5th grade, has 5 years to cement it in place, and then comes to me in the 10th or 11th grade and has to be untaught his previous picture of the atom that Mr. ______ (fill in beloved 5th grade teacher's name here) taught him. Typical 10th graders do not easily change cherished notions they've held for years.
I don't think it would be any harder to present 5th graders with an "electron cloud" picture, communicating the following:
electrons are incredibly small compared to the nucleus -- to small to be seen in a picture.
electrons have a negative charge equal to the positive charge on the proton.
electrons are allowed to be anywhere within this zone ...teacher shows 95% probability orbital on board.... The zone defines the size of the atom.
There! That wasn't hard, and it prepares students to think properly about the atom later. The real reason that 5th graders aren't taught this way is that an embarrassing number of 5th grade teachers believe that electrons orbit around the nucleus.
The "black box" nature of electronic voting is not the real problem. Current paper ballots are not verifiable by the public, either. The real issue is that paper ballot counting is distributed. Each precinct counts its own ballots. That means that any serious voting fraud has to involve large numbers of people, which runs serious risk of detection. By contrast, electronic counting is (likely to be) statewide for sake of convenience. Under those conditions, it would only take one bad actor to throw the entire electoral count for that state. In that case, thank goodness for the electoral college! Any serious voting system must retain the distributed nature of vote counting.
mod the El Farol comment up! The article was excellent.
I'm with billstewart on this one. I'm not impressed with the potential of this system...How well does it really work for ground-level objects?
I remember that the cell-radar idea was floated a couple of years ago as a way to spot Stealth jets. That's fine: a single jet gives well-defined echoes that can be triangulated. Objects on the ground are another story, for two reasons:
1) Obviously, other objects give confusing echo results which would require *really good* resolution to sort out. Do the math: if this is a 'passive system' - i.e., receiving info from a full sphere - then the amount of info to process increases as a square of the distance of the object; good resolution would require bazillions of bits.
2) Many materials are transparent/translucent to cell-phone frequencies. Why do you think you can make calls from inside buildings? It is unlikely that this approach can even 'see' a pedestrian. Notice that all of the objects listed in the article are highly reflective (i.e., metal).
As a highly specific tool (i.e., determining traffic flow at a single point on I495), this has some potential. As a general spying tool, it is clearly inferior to current (visible wavelength) satellites.