A look back at Cold War spying
Scientific American magazine takes a look at the tools used by spymasters during the Cold War.
August 19th, 2008 - Posted in Government | | 0 Comments
Defeating Security Cameras
Now you are free to go about your life.
via Gizmodo
August 19th, 2008 - Posted in Cameras, Fight Back | | 0 Comments
Todays Links 08-19-2008
- 400 Security Cameras Installed In Downtown Denver - CBS Denver
- Are You Being Watched? Probably - Looking back at the surveillance all around us–from wiretapped phones to security cameras - Scientific American
- ‘Virtual fence’ work is halted - via The Arizona Star
- NYPD seeks to screen vehicles entering Manhattan - via Associated Press
- Naomi Klein: China’s Hi-Tech Surveillance State Is Ready for Export - via AlterNet
August 19th, 2008 - Posted in Security News Links | | 0 Comments
McCain = Bush
This picture says it all. Doesn’t it?
June 13th, 2008 - Posted in Government | | 0 Comments
iRobot’s Militarized Network LANdroids
iRobot has won yet another military contract. This time DARPA’s new LANdroid project.
Here is an overview document of this program.
via: DARPA Proposer Information Pamphlet
LANdroid is a new program to develop intelligent autonomous radio relay nodes that exploit movement to establish and manage mesh networks in urban settings. The goal is to create small, inexpensive, smart robotic radio relay nodes that dismounted warfighters drop as they deploy in urban settings. The nodes then self-configure and
form a mesh network – a temporary infrastructure that establishes communications over the region. As the situation changes, the nodes will adapt the network, such as self-healing if nodes re destroyed by the enemy. Through movement and density, the LANdroids will enable ffective communications in complex non-line-of-sight (NLOS) environments like those found in rban settings – dealing with phenomena like fades and shadows through strategic self-placement nd chaining of the relays.
March 4th, 2008 - Posted in Government, Technical | | 0 Comments
Swedish Study Finds Surveillance Cameras Provide “Small and Nonsignificant” Reductions in Crime Statistics
A Swedish study of 44 large city installations of CCTV cameras shows that crime reductions was “Small and Nonsignificant”. In areas where there were improvements in crime statistics there was also other mitigating factors like increased lighting or increased police presences.
Here is the link to the full study.
“Other Western democracies are more interested in the research than [are] our own,” observes Brandon C. Welsh.
At the behest of the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention, Welsh, an associate professor of criminal justice at the University of Massachusetts-Lowell, analyzed 41 surveillance-camera studies from around the world. In October, he and a co-author concluded that “CCTV [closed-circuit television] caused a small (16 percent) but significant decrease in crime” on average in the locations studied, as compared to similar nearby areas not covered by cameras. “However, this overall result was largely driven by the effectiveness of CCTV schemes in [parking lots], which caused a 51 percent decrease in crime.” And, he noted, all of the parking lots with crime decreases had also added fresh lighting and more security officers.
Welsh’s analysis found an average crime decrease of only 7 percent in downtowns using cameras, a reduction he termed “small and nonsignificant” — that is, conceivably due to chance.
Welsh’s Swedish report was an updated version of an analysis he conducted for the British government in 2000. “The Blair government did not want to release our study,” Welsh says of then-Prime Minister Tony Blair. “They had already spent hundreds of millions of pounds … with very little to show with respect to crime reduction. And yet countries and governments continue to roll these programs out.”
March 3rd, 2008 - Posted in Cameras, Municipal | | 0 Comments
Military Robots Will Conquer Us All.
Arnold warned us way back in 1984 and now we must do something before it is too late.
via: New Scientist Tech
‘Robot arms race’ underway, expert warns
Governments around the world are rushing to develop military robots capable of killing autonomously without considering the legal and moral implications, warns a leading roboticist. But another robotics expert argues that robotic soldiers could perhaps be made more ethical than human ones.
Noel Sharkey of Sheffield University, UK, says he became “really scared” after researching plans outlined by the US and other nations to roboticise their military forces. He will outline his concerns at a one-day conference in London, UK, on Wednesday.
also
via: New Scientist Technology Blog
“Military Turing test” would make war robots legal
Barrister and Engineer Chris Elliot explained his thoughts on the legality of future “intelligent” weapons, within international, criminal and civil law. He started by suggesting that as systems become more autonomous, they become capable of actions that are not, in legal terms, “foreseeable”.
At that point, he suggested, it would be hard to blame a human for its actions. “We’re getting very close to the where the law may have to recognise that we can’t always identify an individual - perhaps an artificial system can be to blame.”
After that provocative suggestion, he said that it would currently be illegal for any state to deploy a fully autonomous system. “Weapons intrinsically incapable of distinguishing between civilian and military targets are illegal,” he said.
Only when war robots can pass a “military Turing test” could they legally be let off the leash, Elliot added. “That means an autonomous system should be no worse than a human at taking decisions [about valid targets].” The original Turing test uses conversation to see if a human can tell the difference between man and machine, this test would use decisions about legitimate targets as the test instead.
March 2nd, 2008 - Posted in Technical | | 0 Comments
Feds to stream surveillance video from cell phones
So picture this; Feds walking around a protest streaming video back to HQ. HQ dumps images into databases. Database kicks back flags. Feds round up exactly who they want.
via: USA Today
The Homeland Security Department is testing technology that would allow its agents to use cellphones or e-mail devices to covertly share live video of possible terrorists over a law enforcement network.
March 2nd, 2008 - Posted in Cameras, Government | | 0 Comments
Using Surveillance Footage to Prove Innocence
How can they not give people access to surveillance footage if they are charged with a crime? It is evidence isn’t it?
“The Board of Supervisors gave initial approval Tuesday to a measure to allow people charged with a crime in San Francisco to have access to recordings from city surveillance cameras to prove their innocence.”
“….two men were exonerated by videotape after they were accused of robbery and spent 69 days in jail.”
“The head of Mayor Gavin Newsom’s Office of Criminal Justice, former U.S. Attorney Kevin Ryan, opposes the legislation mainly because he believes it undermines standard criminal justice procedures. Newsom can veto the measure, and it would take eight supervisors to overrule him.”
I’m guessing that as communities get sued for access to their footage that many of them will shut down these systems because it is just too expensive to keep that much data in storeage
“The measure, approved on a 7-2 vote, also requires the city to keep recordings from the 74 cameras posted at high-crime intersections throughout the city for at least 30 days, though the city department that stores the video footage said that mandate is currently not technologically possible given the equipment on hand. “
February 27th, 2008 - Posted in Cameras, Municipal | | 0 Comments
2006 DOJ subpoena asked for the text of every query entered into Google
The EFF filed a Freedom of Information Request for all information regarding this subpoena today.
February 26th, 2008 - Posted in Government | | 0 Comments
