Re: [IP] Hi-tech rays to aid terror fight
At 01:08 PM 7/8/04 -0400, Sunder wrote:
I recently visited the Canadian side of Niagra falls. On the return entry to the US customs, etc. meant driving through penns that look like toll
booths. But I noticed little sensors in pairs and large square sensors as well.
1. I've seen adverts for linear sensors which image the bottoms of cars as they drive over. Sort of a scanner where the paper does the moving. Installed in the road. 2. There are companies developing sensors that bombard your car with neutrons (don't have to open the trunk), and detect the N from the temporary neutron-activated gamma emissions. 3. Obviously license plate OCR is trivial. 4. I've read papers on recognizing vehicles by their inductive signature as they drive over regular road sensors. This was to passively measure road speed for traffic control. The idea is that a VW Beetle has a different inductance vs. time than a Ford-250 or an 18 wheeler. You correlate between roadloops at known distances apart and infer road speed. 5. One could call terahertz "hard RF" in same way that hard x-rays bleed into soft gammas. But calling anything "hard" implies danger, and we mustn't scare the proles. Perhaps soft IR is better. Whatever, its still pornography if the resolution is high enough.
On Thu, 8 Jul 2004, Major Variola (ret) wrote:
5. One could call terahertz "hard RF" in same way that hard x-rays bleed into soft gammas. But calling anything "hard" implies danger, and we mustn't scare the proles. Perhaps soft IR is better.
Technically, it's closer to soft IR. If I remember correctly, terahertz detectors are closer to bolometers than to antennas. However, "hard microwaves" could be good (or bad, depending on your side of the chessboard) name for psyops purposes.
On Thu, Jul 08, 2004 at 06:52:22PM -0700, Major Variola (ret) wrote:
Whatever, its still pornography if the resolution is high enough.
THz EM radiation only has a (relatively shallow) penetration depth for clothes, plastic, wood, sand and soil. It might do to detect a ceramics knife on a person through clothes, or for (say, skin cancer) diagnostics, but it will only pick up an explosive spectrum if it's wrapped in paper/cardboard/plastic foil, or not wrapped at all. Looking for nitrogen doesn't cover all explosives, but most of them. -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07078, 11.61144 http://www.leitl.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE http://moleculardevices.org http://nanomachines.net [demime 1.01d removed an attachment of type application/pgp-signature]
On Thu, 8 Jul 2004, Major Variola (ret) wrote:
1. I've seen adverts for linear sensors which image the bottoms of cars as they drive over. Sort of a scanner where the paper does the moving. Installed in the road.
Come to think of it, yes, the "road" within the tollbooth gate was a bit raised, so there could well have been sensors underneath it. Might as well add all the sensors you can afford, after all any cars going through the gate are a captive audience.
2. There are companies developing sensors that bombard your car with neutrons (don't have to open the trunk), and detect the N from the temporary neutron-activated gamma emissions.
3. Obviously license plate OCR is trivial.
Natch. I also did see the big red IR lamps behind, but that's old school in almost any toll booth.
4. I've read papers on recognizing vehicles by their inductive signature as they drive over regular road sensors. This was to passively measure road speed for traffic control. The idea is that a VW Beetle has a different inductance vs. time than a Ford-250 or an 18 wheeler. You correlate between roadloops at known distances apart and infer road speed.
Or you OCR license plates which is mostly trivial these days, or a combination of both. Then again, for upstate NY, you actually get a card for NYS Throughway and pay when you exit at another tollbooth. Card has a magnetic stripe, and shows the entry point on the throughway. So there are obviously other less expensive ways to do just that. Add cameras with timestamps at each tollboth and a way to keep track of which card was where and you've got a verifiable robust tracking system.
5. One could call terahertz "hard RF" in same way that hard x-rays bleed into soft gammas. But calling anything "hard" implies danger, and we mustn't scare the proles. Perhaps soft IR is better.
:) Sort of like spammers calling their trade "targetted mails" or "opt-in" Heh, would be funny if the 4am NINJA SWAT raid teams painted happy faces on their helmets and say "Have a nice day" as they shoot.
Whatever, its still pornography if the resolution is high enough.
What was that quote?... "tits or nukes, it's all just bits on the wire" I also recall reading recently about those colored plastic/glass embedded in the road bumps that reflect light (so you can see your lane better?) are being retrofitted with cameras in them and set at an angle to read the license plate and measure speed as you drive over them by some company. Bah, wetware memory sucks. :(
participants (4)
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Eugen Leitl -
Major Variola (ret) -
Sunder -
Thomas Shaddack