Michael D. Crawford wrote:
In the December '94 issue of Wired, ("Watching the Detectives", p. 141), Sandy Sanfort describes Bob Fleming's work to make real-time permanent recordings of the body positions of police officers.
One could place a small sensor on each wrist and ankle, and record the positions (and velocities) of the cops body to with a _centimeter_, anywhere in a city.
As it happens, I'm a investor in Bob Fleming and Cherie Kushner's start-up company. (One of several investors.) I've known them for several years and have visited their lab/home many times. (It was at their party that I got to spend a day talking to Vernor Vinge, as some of you may recall me commenting on.) So, I'd like to comment on some of these points.
The advantage for cops is that a fallen officer can be quickly located, and a cop's claim to have witnessed an event can be corroborated by demonstrating that he was actually there.
Bob and Cherie _cringe_ when I joke about their loalizers being the basis of the nation's "position escrow system." They fully understand the ramifications and potential abuses of a system which could allow position tracking to a few meters of every citizen-unit in a country. (And a huge early market is expected to be "child localization," a la the child-minder beacons some parents are already attaching to their children. Bob and Cherie's system is much smaller, cheaper, etc.
After the Rodney King incident, I had the notion, (which I did not act on to actually promote, I'm sorry to say), that organizations representing people that feel persecuted by the law could issue disposable cameras to all there members. For example, if a street gang felt the cops were
This was an idea explored in detail by David Brin in 1990 in his novel "Earth." Video cameras are ubiquitous and have a major effect on casual street crime. ...
Yes, that's right - keep surveillance cameras going on _yourself_. If you're not doing anything illegal, you've got nothing to fear from taping everything you do.
This scenario is a likely way that "position escrow" will evolve, from a voluntary escrowing (incl. timestamping, etc.). "Those with nothing to hide" will agree to escrow their movements...this will exculpate them in suspected crimes, etc. A slippery slope. On the topic of how these localizers actually work, I'm not at liberty to talk about the technology. It's novel, and uses a *lot* if digital signal processing. It doesn't use GPS and it's not a variant of cellular telephones. --Tim May -- .......................................................................... Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay@netcom.com | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero 408-688-5409 | knowledge, reputations, information markets, W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA | black markets, collapse of governments. Higher Power: 2^859433 | Public Key: PGP and MailSafe available. Cypherpunks list: majordomo@toad.com with body message of only: subscribe cypherpunks. FAQ available at ftp.netcom.com in pub/tc/tcmay